NEWS CIBSE and BESA agree strategic alliance T
wo of the UK’s main building services engineering organisations have agreed to
work more closely to ensure progress on several key initiatives including the push for net zero in the built environment and the delivery of the Building Safety Act. Contractors’ trade body the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) and the industry’s professional institution CIBSE have drawn up a series of joint projects to help achieve their common aim of advancing and promoting the art, science and practice of building services engineering for the benefi t of society.
The two organisations have a long history of collaboration but feel that the growing urgency to transform the built environment in line with the country’s decarbonisation and healthcare aims calls for a more integrated approach. “Talking about collaboration is one thing – doing it quite another,” said CIBSE chief executive Ruth Carter. “The building services industry is in greater demand than ever as it increasingly accounts for a much larger proportion of the value of construction and facilities management projects. ‘Therefore, our supply chains must
be more closely aligned, and the diff erent professions more joined up to deliver the higher levels of digital sophistication and integrated design necessary to meet growing client demand and legislative scrutiny.” The two organisations have agreed
to provide deeper support for each other’s key events including national conferences, seminars, and awards, while continuing their already successful collaboration on a range of technical guidance. They will focus particularly on the Building Safety Act, developments linked to indoor air quality (IAQ), retrofi tting and refurbishment of the existing building stock to advance decarbonisation, and the growth in heat networks. They will also work together to understand the implications of artifi cial intelligence
(AI) for the industry and its potential to improve productivity. “There is now far greater
awareness of the role played by the building services profession in addressing some of society’s most pressing challenges, so this is the right time to deliver a programme of joint initiatives” said BESA chief executive offi cer David Frise. “We have worked closely with CIBSE for many years and the two bodies have a huge amount in common, but our collaboration has always been somewhat ‘patchy’. The sheer scale of the technical, legislative, and recruitment challenges now facing the industry calls for a properly concerted and joined up approach on behalf of the whole sector,” he added. Frise also congratulated new CIBSE President Fiona Cousins on her election and welcomed her focus on “reimagining building performance”. He said this could be pivotal in achieving the industry’s aims of tackling embodied and operational carbon as well as addressing some of the social and wellbeing issues linked to poor quality buildings. The two organisations have a
relationship that dates right back to the founding of BESA in 1904 by a group of leading engineers, many of whom were already members of the Institution of Heating and Ventilating Engineers (the body founded in 1897 and which became CIBSE in 1976).
12 August 2024 •
www.acr-news.com
Historically, BESA (originally the National Association of Master Heating and Domestic Engineers) represented engineering contractors, while CIBSE looked after the interests of individual engineers, many of whom worked for contracting fi rms. The success of CIBSE’s Building Safety Act awareness training and campaigns and BESA’s work to explain the operational detail of the legislation to its members means the two organisations will deliver joint sessions on the topic at both the BESA National Conference on October 17 and at CIBSE’s Build2Perform Live event on November 13-14. Both bodies have active IAQ
groups with members in common and have produced a series of guides aimed at improving professional standards around building ventilation. These have also prompted a closer liaison on the sector’s training requirements and improved links to the healthcare profession which is keen to address the impact of poor air quality on a range of respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. BESA recently revamped its young engineers’ group, now known as the NextGen Network, which aims to forge closer links with the thriving CIBSE’s Young Engineers’ Network (YEN) to give the emerging generation of building services engineers a stronger collective voice.
SKILLcard gets connected with app launch
E
ngineering Services SKILLcard has launched a digital version of its
traditional plastic cards allowing users to access all their technical and health & safety qualifi cations via a mobile phone app. SKILLcard, which is managed
by the Building Engineering Services Association, has been operating for 22 years and provides over 50,000 building services engineers with evidence of the qualifi cations they need to access sites. The new digital system gives users a single continually updated point of access to all their cards and the qualifi cations they hold in one easy to access place. It also enables site access via a QR code that can be scanned directly from the card holder’s phone using the Construction Skills Certifi cation Scheme (CSCS) ‘Smart Check App’. Providing a digital option will also allow SKILLcard to dramatically reduce the time between applying and being able to use the card, with access made available immediately after approval. It hopes this will encourage more applicants and ensure wider and more eff ective use of the cards.
The Building Safety Act is intensifying the scrutiny of competence and compliance across the sector as the government seeks to clamp down on sub-standard and unsafe working practices. The new digital SKILLcard is a direct response to this development and moves the industry closer to the ideal scenario where the skills of the entire workforce are instantly available, transparent, and constantly updated.
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