IABSE Congress San Jose 2024 (ePDF)

The theme of this 2024 IABSE Congress is 'Beyond structural engineering in a changing world', and it puts several pressing issues at the top of the agenda, including decarbonization and climate change, de-constructability and the second use of structures. Personally, I find that these are some of the most important topics to address. The construction industry is responsible for a significant amount of carbon emissions and collectively we have a big responsibility to develop solutions that have a positive effect on the urgent challenges. It is not enough just to minimize impact, we need to provide solutions that have a truly positive effect – on climate, nature and biodiversity and of course for people. This is ambitious and the challenges are at a global scale, so to make a real diPerence we need international collaboration. We all have a responsibility and a role to play. This is one of the reasons to attend this Congress.