FIDIC CEO, Susanna Zammataro, joined ORIS's Sustainable Infrastructure podcast recently to discuss current priorities and the key challenge that she believes underpins all of them – getting the industry to properly value consulting engineering knowledge, role and services. 

FIDIC represents more than 1.5 million engineering professionals and 40,000 firms across 100 countries, and for the past 113 years, its standard contracts have shaped how quality infrastructure gets delivered. For FIDIC's members, the conversation is a useful check-in on where the organisation's work stands today and on the issue she sees as critical: "I would be very happy if, within a number of years, the value of our industry, consulting engineering and in general, the value of intellectual services is fully understood and fully valued" she says, "That is still not the case”. 

Three key messages from the conversation: 

FIDIC Carbon management ecosystem allows to move from commitment to action. FIDIC's carbon management guides, available since January, cover the full project lifecycle from procurement to contracting. Alongside them, the Carbon Management Framework reads a project's maturity level and points teams toward the right tools for that stage, helping teams move from assessment into action. 

New FIDIC guidance on collaborative contracting is on the way to support the industry. FIDIC's contracts committee is building new tools on early market engagement and collaborative contracting, with first results to be presented at the Official FIDIC Contract Users' Conference in London this December. 

AI adoption should start with governance, not tools. At FIDIC's Global Leadership Forum, 100 CEOs discussed AI more with cautious optimism than anxiety, treating it as a disruption to manage rather than a threat. Zammataro's advice: Before scaling AI into delivery work, define internally who can use it, for what, and who signs off on the output. Someone with real experience still needs to check the output against reality before it ships. 

Zammataro's message to the industry for the next 12 months: "Invest in upskilling people now and focus on proper project preparation," which she identifies as the root cause behind many project failures.