There's a moment, just after you say yes to something big, when it actually lands. For me that moment came somewhere between being asked to serve as CIOB President and standing up to give my first address. I'm not going to pretend it didn't feel enormous, because it did, and honestly, it still does. 

CIOB is approaching its 200th year. Two centuries of people who cared enough about building well to set standards, share knowledge and hold each other to something better. That's not a small thing to be handed. We now have more than 50,000 members in over 100 countries, which means whatever I say in this role doesn't just echo round one office or one country, it reaches people building hospitals in Lagos, housing in Manchester, infrastructure in Bangladesh. That's humbling. It should be.

So I want to be honest about what this role means to me before I tell you what I plan to do with it. It's a privilege, properly earned by everyone who came before me, and it carries a duty that I take seriously. We're a charity with a public benefit at our core, not just a professional network. People outside our industry are affected by the decisions our members make every single day, whether they realise it or not. That's the bit I keep coming back to.

Why I keep talking about tipping points

In my address as President I spoke about tipping points, the idea that systems don't always change gradually, they sometimes shift suddenly once a threshold is crossed. We usually hear that word used about the climate, and rightly so. We've just lived through eleven of the hottest years ever recorded, with the last three hotter still. I think we all know the records are just going to keep being broken as emissions accumulate in our atmosphere and planetary boundaries are exceeded. But I think construction is approaching a tipping point of its own.

The world we're building for is changing under our feet. Flooding that used to be rare isn't anymore. Heatwaves that used to be newsworthy are becoming routine. Homes built only a few years ago are facing conditions nobody designed them for. At the same time, the world needs more buildings, not fewer. We're adding the equivalent of a city the size of Paris to the planet every week. So the real question isn't whether we keep building. We will. The question is how.

Where I think CIOB needs to lead

We already know a lot of the answers. We understand low carbon materials, resilient design, whole life performance. The gap isn't knowledge, it's scale and it’s pace. Good practice exists in pockets when it needs to be everywhere, and that's where I think professional bodies like ours earn our keep.

This year, I want climate literacy to stop being something we talk about at the edges and become something every one of our members carries as a basic part of being a professional, alongside safety and quality. Through our CPD, our learning and our Academy, we have the tools to make that the expectation rather than the exception.

Professionalism has never just been about what we know. It's about what we do with it, and who we're accountable to when we do it.

A moment for confidence, not just caution

Tipping points sound like warnings, and often they are. But they can also be the moment things start moving in the right direction, once enough people choose to push the same way. I genuinely believe construction is at one of those moments now, and I believe CIOB, with everything we've built up over nearly two hundred years, is in a strong position to help our industry push the right way.

That's what I'll be focused on this year. Not because I think I have all the answers, but because I think this institution, and the people in it, are exactly the ones who should be asking the right questions.

Thank you for trusting me with this. I don't take it lightly.