I have read with concern the view in BSj that CIBSE should call itself the Sustainable Building Institute or CIBSustE, CIBSE for short, and now in the latest newsletter that we are thinking of joining the Society of the Environment.

This is an area fraught with ambiguity and danger and I would avoid going down that path, as increasingly it is being admitted that saying something is good for the environment is heard by businesses as “more expensive”.

I am a member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA), which was the driving force behind CEnv, and I could, as an IEMA member, have taken foundation membership of the Society of the Environment. I strongly feel, however, that being an environmentalist is a passion not a profession and would not consider being a CEnv through IEMA or CIBSE.

I am also wary of putting sustainable in any title, as this implies we know what is “sustainable” and using the right “tool” will do the job. Humans cannot know what a truly “sustainable building” is; we can only continually work to reduce the loss to society resulting from its creation, use and deconstruction.

As Egan said, construction must be quality driven and I would define construction quality as that which “maximises the value added to society resulting from the creation, use and deconstruction of the built environment”.

Quality and sustainability are two sides of the same coin toss it and you can only win.

We have tried to reinvent the wheel for the past 18 years, since the DTI’s “managing into the nineties quality drive”; from quality to environment to corporate social responsibility to sustainability to the confusion and frustration of organisational management and the profit of management consultants.

The wheel rolls on and it is taking us right back where we started – quality, but more holistically defined – back to the future!

Derek Deighton, via email

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Building Sustainable Design