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NITO, the Norwegian Society of Engineers and Technologists, at its recent Congress, underlined strong commitment to high environmental standards.

“To protect the environment and find technological solutions to reduce green house gas emissions to a sustainable level is a big challenge for engineers”, says Marit Stykket, newly elected NITO President.

NITO is a partner in the Future Climate project, which was initiated by UNI affiliate IDA (Society of Danish Engineers) and involved engineer organisations from 13 countries all over the world, including the USA, Australia, India and several European countries. As the other partners NITO had developed a national climate plan, outlining ambitious targets for Norway, which were presented at the Future Climate Conference in Copenhagen earlier in September 2009.

NITO was founded in 1936 and has now over 63’000 members in private and public enterprises. NITO has grown over the last couple of years and includes also freelance and student members.

Despite the current economic crisis, which has hit Norway to a lesser extent than other economies, the unemployment among NITO members is relatively low with just 1 percent, though it has risen from a level of 0.2 percent in the previous year. There is still a remarkable shortage of engineers in Norway.

NITO members enjoy a broad range of services including expert support, legal assistance, professional courses and career guidance, extensive information through journals, internet and newsletters, and financial benefits such as discount schemes, bank and insurance offers, as well as private legal advice.

The NITO Congress, held on 24-27 September 2009 in Oslo, used a lot of high-tech. All participants in the Conference hall were connected to a dedicated wireless Congress network, received all the latest information through Twitter and life broadcasts and votes were cast online, using the laptops each delegate had on the table.