CIBSE Review of 2007

Reading back my BSJ column for January, I am struck once again by how fast time flies! My second Christmas at CIBSE already and I am now fully emerged in the high and lows of working in an engineering institution. What a diversity of activities and issues touch the Institution. Certainly we have made progress during 2007 but of course we can always do more and will be looking towards the New Year with a sense of achievement and of motivation for 2008.

In my January column, I remarked that, with regard to CIBSE’s position within the engineering institutions, CIBSE is the relatively agile, responsive one in the land of dinosaurs. Do I still feel that to be the case? Have we started to adapt and evolve? To both questions there is a definite …Yes! Perhaps the one issue for me is that we do need to maintain our agility, especially in the arena of Climate Change; yes there is intent and substance but in other ways progress has been much slower at the political and regulation level. Certainly our profile and standing as the prime source of knowledge for sustainable buildings has risen significantly. It is how we as individuals and collectively can best bring the engineering knowledge and skills to bear for the benefit of society – that remains our challenge.

Are we any further in identifying volunteers and developing the Patrons Scheme? Well at best probably “Not Yet”. True there has been some work in this area, there are plenty of green shoots and we are starting to develop some plans for 2008. I am particularly interested in how we generate and maintain the volunteer stream. So much of our work is dependant and predicated upon our army of members who give so much of their time and energies to the Institution, simply I cannot take you for granted. Getting our young members to participate and influence our work is crucial element of our development.

2007 has been such a busy year for CIBSE that it is difficult to mention just a few highlights – we have had a productive 12 months and the proof can be seen in good publication sales, membership levels, improved industry connections and successful seminars.


CIBSE Young Engineers have had a positive year, with a number of meetings, events and social evenings helping to strengthen the role they play in ensuring the Institution remains relevant to the younger generation. Projects such as the second 100 Days of Carbon Clean Up campaign, the Low Carbon Consultants Register and the revamped website have spread the word about CIBSE to new audiences and underlined the need to engage with key issues within the industry. Meanwhile the work to establish CIBSE Services and our Certification with energy performance regulations will mean that 2008 is an exciting year for us all.

As 2007 comes to a close I would like to take this opportunity, from all of us at Delta House, to send our very best wishes of the Season to our members and friends throughout the world.


Stephen Matthews
CIBSE Chief Executive

CIBSE's Carbon Footprint

Carbon 60

CIBSE is respected within the industry for its guidance and advice on making buildings more energy efficient, and on the role of the building services engineer in this task.

It is therefore important that we practice what we preach and make our own efforts to ensure the carbon footprint of CIBSE HQ is reduced. This led to the decision to hold a competition to encourage innovative ideas to reduce the CIBSE HQ’s emissions by 60% by the end of 2009.

Run by CIBSE’s ‘Carbon Task Force’, a group of leading figures in low carbon in buildings, the competition was won by Fulcrum Consulting who continue to be involved in the implementation. The competition process opened up the initiative to the wider industry and provides a model for others to replicate.

With a working building that has been adapted significantly over time and a yearly budget, the changes must be phased in. We began with planning and establishing baselines to work from including an occupancy survey to benchmark the continuing comfort of staff and building users. This will be repeated so that we can ensure comfort levels are improving

Phase One of the implementation is coming to an end - we now have new boilers, new water tanks in the roof and effective loft insulation. Controls have been fitted to enable staff members to control the radiators directly when the heating is on. The heating will be switched on centrally and will also respond automatically to the outside conditions but it was felt that the ability to control the indoor environment is important to the comfort of individuals. Longer term, information collected automatically about building use and heating requirements will also be used to provide our heating so we will have a modern and energy efficient heating system.

CIBSE is committed to promoting renewable energy and for this reason we are looking at the possibility of heat recovery, energy generation on site from renewable sources and passive measures such as solar water heating and summer shading.

One of the key objectives of this project has been to demonstrate how companies can make improvements based on targets and how they can balance quick wins with measures that may need investment and have a longer term payback. Although CIBSE has been supported by business benefactors, eager to support the project, our phased implementation is being documented to demonstrate the real costs so that others, who may not have benefited from donations of time and equipment have something to base their decisions on.

Many businesses occupy similar premises to CIBSE – converted dwellings or older buildings that have been adapted over time and it is this existing building stock, not built for current use that has great potential. Improvement of these buildings ticks al the boxes – comfort of the workforce, reduction of energy bills and reduction of carbon emissions. The CIBSE Carbon 60 initiative will show that companies can tackle reducing their own carbon emissions in a market situation based on achievable targets

The Great Refurbishment Event took place last month, highlighting the issues that arise from starting out on a refurbishment project, with a high number of delegates attending, including 100 participants from the 100 days of carbon clean up campaign. CIBSE events always aim to provide guidance and up to date information on timely issues, so the success of the refurbishment event confirmed that more and more organisations are becoming aware of the need to make existing, not just new, buildings more energy efficient and that refurbishment can be a ‘green opportunity’.

I look forward to keeping you updated on the progress of our ‘green opportunity’ and will hopefully be able to provide some before and after photos to show the results in action.

Stephen Matthews
Chief Executive