Changes Approved to Canons of Ethics for Fire Protection Engineers

The Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) Board of Directors has approved changes proposed by the SFPE Ethics Committee to the Canons of Ethics for Fire Protection Engineers. The complete text of the Canons can be found at http://www.sfpe.org/Profession/Canon.aspx. The changes can be summarized as follows:

In Canon 4, "respects the environment" was changed to "considers consequences to the environment." This change was made because "respects" is an undefined term which may be interpreted differently by different people.

In Canon 6, "their professional qualifications" was added to the list of items that fire protection engineers shall be honest and truthful in presenting. Misrepresentation of professional qualifications was the subject of a recent ethics complaint.

In Canon 12, an editorial change was made to reflect that the Canons are not a "code."

Canon 15 was deleted because it was redundant with Canon #5.