Welcome
Dear SFPE Europe members,
Sustainability, a topic close to my heart, is gaining more and more momentum, mainly due to the awareness of the direct impacts of climate change on our lives. Citizens, organizations and politicians are demanding an ever increasing speed of change in order to meet the sustainability goals set in most countries for 2050.
This puts a lot of pressure on the construction industry because, for example in Switzerland 45% of the energy consumption is being used to run buildings. It will be very similar in many other countries.
This leads to the use of new construction technologies, sustainable construction materials, more energy efficient buildings, higher demands from users in terms of natural light and flexibility or even turning the building into a green power plant to generate and store energy. Due to the circular economy model we also end up with a mix of different materials from different product generations produced under very different building codes. In addition we have the impact of greener mobility in terms of electricity or hydrogen powered vehicles, which often end up in buildings as well.
This is a huge challenge for fire protection engineers. On the one hand we want to support these changes, on the other we are responsible for preventing or mitigating unintended increases of risks due to fire. We therefore need to know more about the behaviour of new materials and new combinations of materials as well as their combined performance. We also need adequate risk and performance assessment methods and tools. As relevant information for new constructions is not available, we need to rely on shared expert knowledge and experience, either regional or worldwide. However, in many cases no conclusive data and documented experience is available, and in some cases we have to veto certain situations due to our risk evaluation.
I always hope that we will not get into too many situations where we need to use our vetos as I see fire safety engineers definitely more as enablers than preventers. I strongly believe the earlier we get involved in the design process the more we can influence the directions in terms of fire safety by explaining the relationships and dependencies for safe structures to fire risk as well as fire resilience. We actively have to pursue our early involvement in construction projects. That is not just involvement in competition design teams, but even earlier by helping clients to translate their needs into project requirements. I would love to see clients and architects contacting us proactively early on because they see fire protection engineers as the shapers and enablers for their constructions!
With this mind set I truly believe we can make a difference in terms of sustainability in our regional area of influence. In addition we can contribute to initiatives in our countries (which I would encourage you to do) as well as contributing to European Initiatives. The European Commission itself started the European Green Deal. What I notice though is that Fire Safety is nowhere in prominence. One could even say that it is off the radar. I strongly believe that there is a role for us as SFPE Europe if we want. But it would be up to us as Fire Safety Engineers to stand up and start to build the bridges. We have to show how fire safety can contribute to sustainability.
Enjoy autumn and store as much sun as possible before winter arrives.
David Grossmann, SFPE Europe Council Chair 2021