CIBSE national conference

Challenging the status quo

The security of energy supply and making engineers the world leaders on low carbon were just some of the cutting-edge issues debated at the CIBSE national conference 2010. Reports by Bob Cervi and Carina Bailey

Photography by Simon Weir and Theo Wood

The party years are over

TRENDS

The party years of the noughties may be over, but this time, engineers are really needed, said Professor David Fisk of Imperial College, London. Although he highlighted some

Engineers must seize the green agenda

LOW CARBON

n

David Fisk... refits and refurbs offer opportunities.

of the problems that have been hampering building services in recent months, such as the ‘truck loads’ of consultations driven out by government, he did point out one true success story – domestic lighting. He also suggested new opportunities in the refit and refurbishment arena, and with smarter facades, pervasive monitoring, and embedded generation and smart grids. Richard Ward of construction

group Eversheds, saw robust contracts as key to survival during uncertain times. ‘People treat a contract like going to the dentist – they just get it out of the way. That’s a huge mistake and expense and is why so many things do go wrong,’ he said. ‘The contracts should

represent the key players setting out what this project is about and what it’s meant to achieve.’ While Terry Dix, a director at

Arup, told delegates that to avoid disappointments, the industry needs to make sure that buildings ‘do what it says on the tin’.

Engineers should act now on pushing forward with the low-

carbon agenda rather than waiting for new legislation or societal change, a construction industry leader told delegates. Keith Clarke, chief executive

of Atkins and chairman of the Construction Industry Council, said that the industry would end up being ‘massively too late’ if it failed to move forward in research and development (R&D) in green technologies. ‘We are a world-leading

profession, and it’s engineering’s time in history – to anticipate where society will be and invest,’ he insisted. ‘This is our time, and if we leave it to the financiers, to traders, to the market, we are in trouble [on cutting carbon]. ‘We have the legislative

framework; we’re brilliant at policy [in the UK] but absolutely appalling at implementation. The gap between the civil service and industry here is wider than in any other country. Financiers and management consultants have filled the gap, but it’s time for engineers to do so with R&D and technologies.’ This would inevitably mean

taking risks and getting some of the R&D and new technology wrong. However, Clarke added that industry would need government backing in the form of sponsorship

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CIBSE Journal June 2010

Keith Clarke... don’t leave the carbon agenda to financiers and the market.

and financial ‘leverage’. ‘But now is the best time to be in the built environment,’ he added. ‘And decarbonisation is more pressing than sustainability, and it’s starting now – you are world leaders today, but [with events moving so fast] will you be in 10 minutes’ time?’ Clarke, who was part of the

government-backed independent IGT body whose report on tackling climate change was published recently, said professional bodies in the sector now had an opportunity to work together to take the report’s

findings and recommendations forward. But he conceded that this would be difficult without extra funding being made available to the bodies. Clarke insisted that clients

were aware of the need for more sustainability and, even with a recession, were now very much ‘asking about this carbon stuff’. He said the challenge for the engineering industry and its R&D priorities is, ‘can I answer the question the client is not asking but should be?’.

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