Update from Justin Young, RICS CEO - April 2024

I’m writing this while reflecting on a busy March, including my first visit to MIPIM. The annual real estate event is an opportunity to meet members, and it was fantastic to chat with the 200 RICS professionals who attended our reception. MIPIM was also a chance to catch up with key organisations in the built environment and agree where we can work together. Over the course of the week, this included improving sustainability, addressing skills gaps and encouraging the next generation into the profession, and shared standards.

Some of us had come directly from Paris, where we’d been invited to take part in the Buildings and Climate Global Forum. RICS is now a core member of the Whole Life Carbon Policy Coalition led by the UN Environment Programme, the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction – we're in an ideal position to influence the direction of carbon assessment globally, ensuring our profession is well-placed to make the most of this opportunity.

You can read the final declaration from the forum, signed by 70 nations, on the official website; it’s clear that we can expect more focus on building and energy efficiency standards, as nations seek to decarbonise construction and real estate.

RICS is championing harmonised standards to ensure that implementation is clearer and simpler for the professionals charged with making it happen. We already have the RICS Whole Life Carbon Assessment standard and we want to make sure this is even more easily accessible to all, so that our profession can work harmoniously with governments, the industry and investors.

We also launched new guides on whole life carbon assessment to coincide with the Global Forum. These support our drive for harmonised standards, to simplify introducing the assessments around the world. They include a guide to help clients understand what the assessments are, why they’re useful and how our profession can help. The guides address the knowledge gap among political and industry decision-makers, complementing new training and certification that we’ve developed for surveying professionals.

Another area where we’re supporting the profession is residential retrofit, with the launch of a new standard for the UK, in response to a demand for high quality, residential retrofit advice, spurred on by increasingly high energy prices and government net-zero targets. It will provide a framework within which RICS members can advise their customers on retrofit options in homes across the UK, supporting new lines of business while also supporting the nationwide effort to decarbonise the residential property sector. We’ll also be offering training to support professionals to deliver retrofit projects.

Retrofit is of interest to Ministers and MPs, so we have engaged with the Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance, and Ed Miliband, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero among others. Our influence on the policy landscape remains strong with RICS providing evidence to the Industry and Regulators Committee Inquiry on the regulation of property agents earlier this month, before briefing peers in the House of Lords on the Leasehold Reform Bill, and working with the Office of Place to advise on planning reform.

This busy month showcases how RICS works in many areas for the benefit of our members and the public interest: shaping policy; upholding standards; responding to new demands; supporting professional development.