Count carbon but don't forget the H2O

That’s the message professor John Swaffield is set to deliver in his presidential address Living with the Albatross at The Royal Society in London on May 8.

Failure to tackle the issues thrown up by flooding, excessive rainfall and drought will “put us in the unappealing position of the Ancient Mariner, recognising what we have done only when it is too late”.

In his speech Swaffield praised the carbon emission efforts of past presidents such as Terry Wyatt in 2003. But these now need to be built upon and CIBSE’s strength is the diversity of its members’ skills and knowledge that can be brought to bear on climate problems.

In an interview in the coming May edition of BSj, Swaffield calls for a water-issue group to be created within CIBSE. “There’s a space in the market. The Institution of Civil Engineers and the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management tend to look at these issues outside a building’s boundary, such as large-scale civil systems. Inside a building the rainwater, stresses, recycling, harvesting are all within the remit of CIBSE.”

Even outside a building’s immediate boundaries, building services engineers will be drawn into work on sustainable urban drainage, time-delay run-offs and holding tank design. To this end CISBE should influence planning processes to ensure overall water conservation and use.