I was delighted to see Paul Clayton’s letter from Thailand in the October issue.

I too have been away from the UK for over 20 years but living in North America, not Asia. The ties that bind us however are the same.

I have attempted to share with our members some of the more progressive developments that are taking place in both Canada and the United States, to attempt to offset the normal stereotype. I enjoyed presenting the state of the profession on the West Coast of North America at last month’s CIBSE conference, with a paper titled ‘Understanding our sustainable buildings: Seven post occupancy evaluations in British Columbia’. I think it is important for CIBSE to continue keeping the door open for information and ideas from our members in far away places.

In particular, I was intrigued by the challenge Part L will impose on the industry and might suggest the training of the certification industry could borrow a lot from the training of green practitioners through the US Green Building Council (USGBC). In a largely uninformed market, just a few years ago, they have managed to train 16 000 Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) accredited professionals.

I’m sure the USGBC would be happy to share their market transformation methods with CIBSE to help the UK with Part L implementation.

Kevin R Hydes, CEng, PEng, PE, FCIBSE president & ceo, Keen Engineering, Montreal, Quebec; vice chair, US Green Building Council

Source

Building Sustainable Design