Construction specialists must meet increasingly high expectations regarding energy efficiency, proper waste management and carbon emission reduction, said Raul Pop, State Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests, in a speech addressed to students of the Technical University of Construction Bucharest (UTCB).
According to him, Romania is in the final stage of joining the OECD, where environmental standards, transparency and compliance with the law are essential.
“Now, we have additional requirements that will inevitably influence you professionally: when the beneficiary comes and says they want a building with high energy efficiency, when the citizen comes and says they don’t want, for example, dust or noise or waste thrown around, when the environmental authority or the city hall comes and says they want to see exactly what I did with my waste. (…) All these additional criteria, in essence, lead us towards an activity with low carbon emissions. All things are measurable and have a common denominator, a common unit of measurement, this conversion into greenhouse gas emissions or carbon equivalent emissions. I think your job has a very great responsibility. If I remember the generally valid statistics, buildings generate around 40% of greenhouse gas emissions”, mentioned Raul Pop, quoted by Agerpres.
He emphasized that the effects of climate change and extreme weather phenomena must also be viewed through the lens of the responsibility of each of us.
“Either we build a new block of flats that we will be proud of in 10 years, or demolish an existing building, or carry out urban planning, all these things come with an additional responsibility. If until now, the additional responsibility was of an economic nature: costs, budgets, estimates, more recently, this is of an environmental nature and, by extension, of the social responsibility side. It will also be linked to the criteria regarding the way we pay employees, to anti-corruption practices, to many other criteria that bring us somewhere between civilized countries. In terms of sustainability and alignment in Romania with some standards that we claim to be striving for, we are in a fast-paced period of almost the end of the accession process to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, n.d.), an elite organization of the world’s states. There are 38 member states within the OECD, up to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and of course, many European states. Romania is in the final stages of the accession process. We hope that next year, by summer, we will receive official confirmation that we have been accepted. The OECD is based on three or four very large criteria, which it pursues at the level of the state’s societal organization. One, rule of law, meaning the unquestionable supremacy of the law; two, environmental criteria, the state taking care of the health of its citizens and three, transparency and anti-corruption. So, in this direction, I think you will hear more and more additional messages, which will complicate your life, but overall I think it is good for all of us”, added the Secretary of State.
He recommended that students maintain constant contact with the university in order to create “bridges with students who are lagging behind”.
“Furthermore, in professional life, when discussing between various socio-economic categories, unions, employers, authorities, various professional associations, things already become limiting in terms of negotiation capacity. But here you are in an ideal area to test concepts, to test ideas, to open discussions, perhaps even uncomfortable ones. I would advise you, as a former student, to use all the time you have here, because after you leave the university, you will no longer have this luxury. I would advise you something else. After you leave for a career outside the university environment, to constantly maintain contact with the university and to return as much as you can, to create these bridges with the students who come after because, in the end, from such collaboration, I have no doubt that we will all benefit”, added Raul Pop.