Environment Registration

Professor Ian Barker CEnv, Hon FSE, FIWater, Vice President Environment on Professional Registration

As Vice President Environment my aim is to ensure that the core purpose of the water sector is always front and centre for our members: we are here to provide an essential public service to our customers and to protect and improve the environment.  Working to help more of us to obtain one of the three environmental professional registrations is the best way I know of showing that we mean what we say. 

(2/3)

I didn’t intend to become a Chartered Environmentalist – or a Chartered Anything in fact. Throughout my career – much of which I spent at the Environment Agency – I hadn’t become involved with ‘institutions’ because, to misquote Groucho Marx, I didn’t want to belong to any professional body that would have me as a member. I thought that I didn’t need letters after my name simply to demonstrate that I was good at my job.

Nine years ago I decided to become an independent consultant. Soon afterwards, I had a call from the Institute of Water with an invitation to become Vice President Environment. I knew about IWater, and had previously been invited to join, but refused because I wrongly believed that it might compromise my independence as a regulator. This time IWater colleagues were very persuasive so I agreed to take on the role, and I then discovered that I would be expected to obtain the Chartered Environmentalist qualification. Going through that process, and obtaining the professional qualification, completely changed my views.

(3/3)

I realised the value of being formally recognised by my peers, and being able to show that not only that I had demonstrated my competency, but that I also had demonstrated a commitment to uphold professional standards and to continue my professional development. I liked to think that both had always been important to me, but having CEnv after my name was a public affirmation.

My role in IWater, and as an independent consultant advising governments, regulators and water companies, means that I interact with a wide cross-section of people with an interest in water. A question I am asked regularly about colleagues in the water sector, and in particular when I was advising a recent Parliamentary inquiry into river water quality, was “Do these people know what they are doing? Do they actually care about the environment?”. I have met nobody in the water sector who doesn’t care about doing their best for the environment. But I believe strongly that if more colleagues obtained professional qualifications it would be a personal and public demonstration of that commitment.