Property Aspects Magazine had the pleasure of speaking with Amanda Clack, who is a partner at EY and President Elect at RICS. We discussed the current and future role of RICS and the challenges that it may face in the future.
How is RICS Improving the Property and Construction Sector?
“We are looking to develop standards in collaboration with a broad coalition of other professional bodies and we’ve got three standards that we’re working on at the moment”.
“One is International Property Measurement Standards, which we launched in Frankfurt at the end of 2014. For investors, it means that they can have confidence in what they’re buying around the world because the measurement of it is consistent globally. It wasn’t before because different bodies would measure in different ways”.
“I’m particularly involved in the International Construction Measurement Standard (ICMS) and that’s really about ‘what gets measured gets valued’. We’ve got a coalition that’s come together globally and I’m hoping that around we’ll be launching ICMS in 2016″.
“We are also looking at an ethics standard, which is very important in terms of having trust and gaining that public trust”.
“We want to give confidence around what we’re doing, through regulation and standards. It is also about understanding what our professionals are doing out there in the marketplace and helping to promote that to potential clients. In essence, it is really about delivering the strategy that’s set by our Governing Council”.
How Far Ahead is RICS Thinking?
“The reach of RICS is so vast. There are about 180,000 professionals and trainees associated with RICS globally. Our professionals are in over 150 countries and we’ve got offices in 27 of the major cities around the world. RICS is thinking ahead, in terms of where the profession is going to be at 2030”.
“We’ve done a lot of work called RICS Futures and It’s Our Changing World, Let’s Be Ready. It’s available for people to download. There’s also a four-minute video that summarizes a 76-page report, based on over 400 interviews. I’d recommend both but at least watch the video because it’s amazing and it starts to talk about where the profession needs to be in 2030, with the backdrop of where the world going to be in 2030″.
“At the moment just over 50 percent of the world’s population live in cities. By 2050 it’s going to be 6.3 billion or 66 percent of the world’s population. That’s a massive demographic change“.
“You’ve got growing middle classes in many of the emerging markets. That means that people are going to be more demanding of the environment in which they live and work. With that comes a massive opportunity”.
“You only have to look at a place like India that is talking about building a city the size of Chicago every year for the next 26 years to realise there’s a massive opportunity for the surveying profession going forward.
“You’ve then got aspects such as shortage of resources. We need 50 percent more food by 2030 than we did in 2012. Energy is 45 percent and water is 30 percent. That means that there’s going to be huge pressure on the world’s resources and that is something that surveyors can start to help and address. We have to do it because, without it, we’re going to have serious issues globally, let alone here in the UK”.
What are your fears for RICS over the next decade?
“The big challenges for RICS centre around remaining relevant, in terms of ensuring that we protect the public interest. There is a lot of distrust in certain areas, particularly banking, journalism and politics. It is really important that we maintain and adhere to our ethical standards and have regulations for all our professionals. It is also important that our professionals remain relevant too”.
“As a surveyor, all of us have a role to play in that in terms of making sure that we
- stay up to date with continuing professional development
- are engaging with our professional body
- understand where our thinking is going so that we are really on top of our game”
“We owe it to our clients to make sure that we are providing the best advice we can to them”.
For more information on Our Changing World: Let’s Be Ready, please click .
Alternatively, you can watch the RICS Futures: Our Changing World video below
