CIBSE President Elect John Swaffield Theme for 2008

One of CIBSE’s strengths is the diversity of its membership and this is reflected on our Board, our Consultative Council, our groups and societies and the spread of our members internationally. It is also reflected in the themes for our Presidential years.

I have recently returned from a trip to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Dubai accompanying our President Elect John Swaffield. John’s Presidential Theme will be water and spending time with John, hearing him speak to so many of our International members was time well spent.

We all look forward to focussing on water and public health – such vital issues for building services during John’s presidential year.

Recent Presidential themes have been sustainability and the nature of the construction industry. Sustainability along with related themes such as energy efficiency has been challenging enough but with the public embracing the challenge of climate change and governments concerned with security of energy for the future we have been pushing at an open door.

The leadership of our Presidents has catalysed many publications and events and the development of the Low Carbon Consultants Scheme and the 100 days of Carbon Clean-Up campaign. More recently our current President John Armstrong has focussed on whole life costing and building operation and this has enabled CIBSE to demonstrate that we are about all buildings, not just new build. This is vital if we are to address the energy wastage caused by existing buildings.

A very challenging issue is the improvement of the construction industry which, it seems, needs to be addressed right at its core. Like many other countries the construction industry in the UK is based on historical practices and processes. We have been aware of the need to change for a long time and various attempts have been made.

CIBSE’s membership base covers the breadth of the building services industry – specialists in specific services but also manufacturers, installers, supply chain managers, project managers, facilities managers as well as consultant designers. This is another great strength which allows CIBSE to take a broad perspective and identify the areas in the whole supply chain and procurement process that are weak.

At the end of 2007 CIBSE responded to the UK Government’s Strategy for Sustainable Construction and we stressed the need to change the industry for better and for ever.

2008 heralds a number of exciting initiatives for CIBSE. Hot on the tail of achieving our UKAS accreditation for CIBSE Certification we are now expanding the Low Carbon Consultant scheme to provide the basis of accreditation for energy assessors. We have also developed a flexible learning scheme.

As part of CIBSE’s obligation to the public good we have been looking at how we can provide training to services engineers after graduation, to help build on their degree training and fill in the gaps in their practical knowledge to enable them to develop as engineers. We will provide this through on-line and other electronic forms such as ‘i-seminars’ and web casts.

We believe that flexible learning will enable busy young engineers who may not have the time to attend seminars or go back to college to keep up to date in our rapidly developing industry.

Learning in a practical work environment seems to me to be essential if CIBSE members are to provide excellence in building services. Flexible learning, with its electronic delivery is well suited to our busy global CIBSE community.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all CIBSE members and readers of the BSJ a happy and prosperous 2008.

Stephen Matthews
Chief Executive