CIB is devastated to hear that Jeremy Gibberd passed away suddenly in South Africa on August 30th 2025.
Jeremy held the role of Coordinator of CIB Working Commission W116 – Smart and Sustainable Built Environments for many years and was exceptionally committed and active in that role. In May 2025 CIB was proud to award him the Wim Bakens Award for substantial leadership contribution to impactful global collaborative research within a Working Commission or Task Group. Our tribute at that time is available here.
Jeremy ensured that W116 was one of the most active of CIB’s Commissions, as demonstrated by its blog, with a regular webinar series (freely available to view on CIB’s youtube channel), launching and leading the editorial team for Emerald’s SASBE journal, and hosting the annual SASBE conference series. Just within the last month, Jeremy provided another excellent contribution to a CIB webinar for Early Career Researchers, this time on The Interplay of Economic, Social and Environmental Sustainability on Construction Projects, communicated with us in his capacity as CIB’s representative on the GLOBE Board, and helped to conclude MOUs with the publishers of Review of Studies on Sustainability and the NHBRC in South Africa which includes membership of CIB and support for the highly successful CIB City Centre Sustainable Housing Design Competition, which Jeremy was instrumental in establishing and was the head judge.
Jeremy Gibberd’s leadership and commitment to W116 and CIB were truly outstanding. He leaves a huge void which will be hard to fill. Someone like Jeremy who epitomized servant leadership is probably irreplaceable. His insightful and thoughtful contributions to creating a better smart and sustainable world will be sorely missed by all whose lives he touched, and especially the CIB global community. Our thoughts are with his family and his colleagues at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the University of Witwatersrand.
Don Ward/Theo Haupt
CIB Chief Executive/Support Director
4 September 2025
So sad that Jeremy passed. We were in the same class at secondary school. A great person. At a reunion he said that after turning 50 it is time to do what you like. I found support in that.