There has been some debate (again) amongst CIBSE patrons about what CIBSE should stand for and how best we can attract the next generation of engineers into the building services profession.

I'm convinced that the time has come to re-invent the term ‘building services engineer' since it provides precious little indication of the increasingly important (fundamental?) role we play in reducing the environmental impact of buildings.

Perhaps CIBSE should rename itself the Chartered Institution of Building Sustainability Engineers? It's interesting to note that a number of our major consultancies are now styling themselves as ‘Sustainability Engineers'.

If we were being even more radical (and for the sake of brevity) we could delete the word ‘building' from the Institution name - however, this does result in the somewhat unfortunate acronym CISE!

David Strong, managing director, BRE Environment

Source

Building Sustainable Design