zerochampion

From virtual to live

I'm now switching seamlessly from avatar status to live form this week, chairing a conference on the regulations, codes and legislation covering non-domestic buildings on Thursday. Other speakers at the event will include Paul King from the UKGBC, LABC chief executive Paul Everall, the irrepressible David Strong and Rachel Wooliscroft from contractor Wates. The conference title has been shortened to the sustainable non-dwelling conference - hopefully not a reflection on the current state of the construction market. Still wondering whether to use that as an opening gag.

Sustainability Now- success and lessons

It's a few days since the Sustainability Now show which took place last week (you can still look around now, although there's no live interaction any more - register here or click here if you've already registered). It proved a real success and confirmed to me that there is an audience out there that really responds, and gets involved, in such a format. We had 1,500 visitors on the two days and nearly 2,000 downloads of content in the auditorium, which ranged from video and audio to two live seminars. Here's a few lessons from the event:

Sustainability Now is go

To quote Murray Walker the virtual doors to the online show I'm chairing will be opening in the next few minutes. Come in, wander around, have a chat and catch the stack of content that is on show. There are video reports, presentations, two live seminars, links to the best content from Building as well as a number of exhibitors representing leading consultants and manufacturers. We've got over 3,000 people registered for Sustainability Now, taking place today and tomorrow, so it should be a good event.

Re: REA; the Renewable Energy Annual Conference

When I am making notes at conferences, in an attempt to remember what might make good copy later, I put asterisks next to speaker points. At today's REA Energy Annual Conference  today, Rab Bennetts got three stars as did Bill Dunster (although he speaks so fluently of technical matters, that I am not quite sure what they referred to just now.) Even the Shadow Energy Secretary, crinkly-haired Greg Barker, did quite well with two - mostly for speaking longest about investment in carbon capture and storage which is a proven technology, just not on, ahem, a large scale. Tim Evans, of Renewable Zukunft (it means future) did very well, of which more later.

But our own, dear, drab, Bob Ledsome, who is deputy director climate change and sustainable development team at the DCLG, got no stars at all.

Think review part 2 - rhetoric to reality?

My mantra for the Think event for this year was rhetoric to reality. It was about showing projects or practices that actually worked. I think we delivered this up to a point. There were some sessions I chaired or attended that either offered proof of the right directions that countries, regions, companies or individual schemes were taking. I'm afraid there were others where you felt the dreaded word greenwash was hovering not too far above. This is where I accept some of the analysis of the event from fellow bloggers Mel and Martin.

Think review part 1 - experience and highlights

I've just come up for air after the marathon that was Think last week. My first involvement proper with an event on this scale and boy was it energy sapping. From meeting and greeting speakers, chairing conference sessions, firefighting when crises emerged, overseeing video and print coverage etc etc. And then to finish it off sit on a platform with the environment secretary, pontificate on policy and sum up all that was discussed and pick holes in his speech on the existing stock. Such was my state at the end Thursday that I subsequently misplaced most of the notes I had made during that day as well as my phone (it was discovered the morning after). My highlights?

Last minute thinking

Final preparations for next week's Think 08 event - writing speeches, preparing notes for fellow speakers etc etc. I'll be chairing four sessions at the conference on Wednesday and Thursday at ExCeL, including three discussion panels, which should be challenging. I've been mugging up on the great energy debate, ridding the industry's waste mountain and the skills challenge, no mean feats. All should be good discussions, especially the first and last ones.

Think conference - the doers not sayers

Part of my dereliction of blogging duties in the past month has been the small task of amassing a bevvy, or whatever the collective noun is for this, of speakers for this year's Think08 conference - there's about 80 of them, including bloggers Casey and Robert Kyriakides. I've tried to attach the latest brochure document here, but to no avail - you can download it here. So what's this year's Think show all about?

Green on Red

Guest post from France by Phil's boss Adrian Barrick
To Cannes for Mipim, the alcohol-fuelled annual gathering of Europe's property and construction clans. In many ways, Mipim is an odd setting for a serious debate about sustainability. Apart from a few laudable souls who take the train, or - bravissimo! - cycle, most of the pin-striped pilgrims jet in to nearby Nice airport, immediately jump in a cab, and spend the next three or four days emitting sufficient hot air to blow a hole in the ozone layer the size of France.

Sustainability Soon - all ideas received

Those quick-witted amongst you may have spotted that we've changed the date for the online event, called Sustainability Now, we were originally planning for next month. It's now going to take place on 1 and 2 July. A message will be going out to those of you who've already registered, so fear not. I could use the age-old excuse that it was all down to the technology, but that would be bending the truth somewhat. The event morphed from a virtual fair where users could wander around and visit company "booths" with information on their services and products to an editorially driven programme of events (seminars, Q&As, videos, audio etc).

11th Hour review

To a swish Soho hotel last night for a preview showing of new film The 11th Hour. This was care of consultancy firm Gleeds, who had managed to bag an early copy of the Leonardo Di Caprio-backed and fronted offering before its UK release. The firm invited a pretty impressive guest list of industry green figures along, a few of which (Paul King from the UKBGC, RIBA president Sunand Prasad) discussed the challenge raised by the film after the showing. Unfortunately I found the film somewhat of a disappointment.

East London - refurbish and recycle

Two strong pieces of content in this week's Building Design, both focused on east London. The first concerns the paper's fantastically well supported campaign to save the Robin Hood Garden - editor Amanda Baillieu widens the argument from the architectural to the sustainable, vigorously claiming that the east London block of flats "is a sustainable community". Surely there must be red faces all round at quango English Partnerships, who is proposing the demolition of the estate.

Comedy blogging part 2

Here's a post from Richard Herring's blog that he read at at the comedy gig I attended last week that got me giggling. It's about yogurt.

Dunster video - Code 6 house costs 150K

Blogging comedy night

As I highlighted in my last post I went along to a comedy gig devoted to blogging last night. It was part of the London Word Festival and the line-up include Richard Herring, Simon Munnery and Donal Coonan. The host for the night was a guy called Matthew Crosby, who has his own blog called Stand-up Geek. He kicked off the night by asking who in the audience had a blog. I gamely stuck my paw up but it all became rather awkward.

Ecobuild and beyond

What I did today:
9am - Arrive at Earls Court with trusty video man Sam for a full day. First meeting with Building Sustainability columnist Jerry Yudelson in the entrance lobby (we can't get in yet). He looks remarkably perky for recently arriving from the US and we chat about his appearance at Think08. Quick video interview - he's a pro.

Virtual event

Here's a new thing I'm working on - an virtual show called Sustainability Now. It will take place on 15 and 16 April and works a bit like an online conference. More information here. Interested in any thoughts on the content of the show, which will be programmed similarly to a live event, with seminars, audio, debates, surgeries etc. I'll be putting up the programme I'm working on later in the week. You can register for it for free here.

Switched on

I'll admit to being in total ignorance of the Switched On London event, now in its second year, until last night. Living and working very close to the area where the event, which consist of a series of light installations in and around London and Tower Bridges, that is somewhat embarrassing. The festival "aims to highlight the importance of sustainable lighting design in the night-time urban environment". It seems an attempt on the lighting industry's behalf to counter the perception that it's a wasteful sector caring little for energy use.

Waste event

Here's a useful link to an event that took place last week on designing out waste. It's an area that the Building Sustainability channel we be focusing on in more detail during 2008. Organised by the East Midlands Centre for Constructing the Built Environment (bit of a mouthful) the evening attracted a good cross section of the industry and there's a comprehensive report on what was discussed, including downloads of five out of the six presentations from the speakers on the night.

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song

To New London Architecture to hear Peter Ackroyd launch the exhibition, "Waterfront London." I seem to be nearly alone in finding Ackroyd's London a Biography almost as annoyingly fanciful as it is knowledgeble but it was good to hear the man talk in person about the lost rivers of London. Apparently, there was river called the Bean and the Hole-Bourne (now Holborn, of course) and the famous Fleet. Plans are - apparently - afoot to resurrect this legendary lost flow. Ackroyd himself was a most alarming colour (linseed putty?) and consistently and fell onto the podium.

Witty Wicks

To the House of Commons last night for a birthday bash in honour of the Association for the Conservation of Energy, which is a quarter of a century old. Very well attended, not least by a barrage of politician keen to display their environmental credentials. I spotted quiet a few Liberal Dem MPs and Lords, deputy mayor Nicky Gavron and a sprinkling of Tories and former ministers, including former energy minister Elliott Morley. Guest of honour was current incumbent Malcolm Wicks, who's been having a rare old of time of it of late.

UKGBC xmas bash

To the Building Centre for the UK Green Building Council Christmas do. I thought I would pop in for half an hour but after several glasses of wine, and not the greenwash cocktail on offer by sponsors on the night Inbuilt, made it out to Tottenham Court Road at around 10-ish. The usual array of conversations one has at such events: the relative merits of SBEM and SAP; a new green building council in Vietnam; blogging; new zero carbon cities in Abu Dhabi; driving to work and using taxis; and EPCs. No wonder I had a headache this morning. Or was that the wine?

Planning co-ordination

I think I'm largely repeating points that have been made before this week. Anyhow. An interesting chat with a client at lunch today. He was positive about how both project teams and end users are becoming more and more enthusiastic and demanding about going green. There was a but, of course, and it's the profession that usually gets it - planners.

Sponge debate

Rather arse about tit day yesterday. To a business exhibition, The Thames Gateway Forum, to see a politician (Gordon Brown, with no sign of Yates from the Yard in tow) in the afternoon and then to the House of Lords in the evening to take part in a debate with a bunch of business professionals on off-site renewables. The debate was held by the Sponge group in the splendidly ornate Moses Room and was to discuss the motion "This house believes offsite renewables have an essential role in delivering the Government's zero carbon building targets". Motion was, unsurprisingly, overwhelmingly passed.

Renewables and the credit crunch

I've just gone through some notes from an event I attended last week on energy, offered a perspective of the state of the renewables sector from a source I hadn't heard from before - a banker. Mark Muldowney, head of the energy and utilities group at Fortis Bank, gave a fascinating insight into the view of the financier on how attractive a sector it is for him to fund. His conclusion? Good and bad. Positive in the fact that renewables is now seen as "mainstream" according to Muldowney, negative in the potential affect from the credit crunch.

Sustainability Awards video

US lessons

Martin over at Fairsnape has been saying nice things about my Building site, so I'm going to says something nice about a response he made to Paul King's piece on how we can inspire change in the industry. I've been banging on about the momentum building up around sustainability over the pond and Martin confirms this, pointing to a webcast organised by the Greenbuild event earlier this month that attracted 7,000 people online through the Greenbuild365 site (which nealy crashed my computer). "The growth in the green building sector in the US is remarkable - because it makes commercial and good business sense - not because of legislation," he says.

Post Policy Evaluation

Barring the fainting incident I mentioned earlier today the Policy Connect event was intriguing. Here's an attempt to bring together the world of politics and business. As one of the speakers put it the group is trying to get over the "MPs are from Mars, Bosses are from Pluto" syndrome. The group, which was formerly called Networking for Industry, has had close ties to the waste and recycling sectors traditionally so there seems scope for it to keep up that work as well as integrating this with construction, design and development. I was also struck by a speech from Tory MP Tim Boswell.

Painful Portcullis

Continuing my rather harsh concentration on the environmental performance of the work of architect Sir Michael Hopkins (see posts on Portcullis House and Wellcome Trust building). I attended the launch of a newly branded group called Policy Connect which encourages networking between MPs and business leaders. The bash was in a room at Portcullis House - perhaps the heating has been left on for too long as it became pretty uncomfortable by the third speech in. So much so that an unfortunate networker fainted midway through. He appeared to recover fairly quickly and the event pressed on. It's somewhat surprising that the room was so stifling in early November.

Lifecyle Vs Recycle

I'm shamelessly reusing this catchy phrase from a debate I attended this morning organised by the sustainability conference Think (to declare an interest this is organised by my company). It came from Alan Smith, corporate communications director at contractor Kier, who was explaining the attitude of some clients to new projects, namely that they see them lasting for only seven years or so before they move onto the next model. Such is the pace of change amongst retail brands is that they feel the need for new to catch the attention of their clients. It led to the point being made that new buildings had to have inherent flexibility, or future proofed.

Open House does its bit

Open House is a good opportunity to get out and see some real examples of completed projects and to meet the people actually walking the walk. I managed to see three in south London, part of an eco-trail over the weekend organised by sustainable networking group Sponge. I took in two houses and a mixed use scheme(part office, part flats) and they showed that so-called "eco-buildings" can sit comfortably in the context of their surrounding neighbourhoods.

Gordon Brown will be sustainable....

... According to Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the RSA. He's in a pretty good position to voice such opinions given his background - before taking up his current post last November he was chief adviser on political strategy to Gordon's predecessor, one Tony Blair. I quizzed him at an RICS event he attended on Tuesday morning launching the Institution's new Surveying Sustainability document.

The King's Cross tour

I attended a couple of events at Architecture Week, one of which was a tour around the land north of King's Cross train station which is due for a massive facelift over the next decade under the control of developer Argent. Our guide? None other than Argent head honcho Roger Madelin, who turns out to be very far from the public stereotype of a property magnate - dry, softly spoken, witty and approachable. He had managed to charm the 15-odd walkers before the two-hour trot around the 67-acre site, called King's Cross Central, had finished.

Gleeds receives mud slinging. Give them a break

I posted an intriguing story up on the Building website on Friday of last week which led to some mud (geddit?) slinging from an anonymous reader at QS and projetc management firm Gleeds. The firm set up a tent at the Glastonbury music festival for revellers to confess their eco-sins at. Mr anonymous piped up and called hypocrisy for a firm that "encourages car allowances and large lavish offices in the centre of bustling cities" wanting people to admit they "dont always rinse and return their milk bottles".

How the hell do we measure our carbon footprint?

Businesses need a single, unified standard for displaying the carbon impact of their activities to ensure companies can see a visible competitive advantage to sustainable development. While educating consumers to change their lifestyles is vital for reducing emissions, a panel discussion found a lack of clear standards for measuring carbon footprints was a major obstacle to change.

The sustainable skills crisis

Good event last night organised jointly by sustainability networking outfit Sponge and engineers Atelier Ten. Mobilizing the New Environmentalists looked at the skills crisis facing the engineering profession from two perspectives: the sheer lack of numbers in the first place; and the different skills needed by engineers to respond to demand for more sustainable buildings. These were via a practicing engineer, Atelier's managing director Patrick Bellew, and architect Paul Monaghan, partner at Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM).

Here is the Think action plan - any thoughts?

As promised last week's Think event came up with a ten-point action plan. Some obvious points, some new ones. You can go to the Think site itself and agree/disagree with the proposals. Fell free to share any thoughts on them on this site. Here goes:

The Four "R's" at Think 2007: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rethink

One of the final sessions at Think 2007 sensibly looked at next steps. What are the practical, concrete measures that can be taken in an office to reduce wastage and limit emissions? The session was in many ways a brainstorm, going through everything from the design of light bulbs to using hemp as a form of insulation. Dan Epstein, Environmental Policy Manager at English Partnerships gave the "macro" look at the issue. His major concern was the amount of waste that our society is now creating — as he put it, "we are a throw-away society throwing away money."

Mayer Hillman: our actions on the climate are "too little, too late"

Dr Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute today condemned the actions of many environmental campaigners as "too little, too late." "We are", he said, "tinkering at the margins of what we should be doing." Furthermore, he disparaged a number of speakers at Think 2007 - including Prince Charles, Lord Coe and Al Gore - as myopic in their view of exactly how bad climate change is.

Prescott on Climate Change at Think 2007

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had the difficult job of following Al Gore at the Think event yesterday. Having received hearty praise from Gore in his role in striking the Kyoto agreement Prescott launched into a stout defence over his Government's environmental record. He opened his speech by saying that climate change was real and unavoidable, but that the UK was still on course to beat Kyoto targets. Indeed, he went on to say that tackling climate change was a "pro-growth" strategy. Not to act, he said, would cut GDP by 5%.

Al Gore on growth, green mortgages and nuclear

Al Gore offered a broad perspective on the challenge posed to the built environment by climate change and possible solutions at the keynote address today at Think. He was speaking via video link from New Orleans. Here's my highlights of his speech:

• Growth - Gore pointed to the massive jump not only in population, which now stands at 6.5 bn and is set to increase to more than 8 before long, but as a result the built environment itself to house the extra bodies. "Some studies show that if you add up all the built environment in the entirety of human civilisation, that total built space will double in the next 40 years." Quite a responsibility then for built environment professionals to get things right, Gore added.

The Business Case for Action

What can big business do to reduce carbon emissions? This was the question put at the first sustainability session of the Think 2007 conference. Three leading experts in the field addressed it: former CBI director general Lord Turner, Professor David Cadman, charman of Upstream and Stewart Wallis, director at the New Economics Foundation. Though there was agreement on the urgency to do something now, how this was to be done brought a range of differing - and sometimes conflicting - responses.

My Zed masterclass

It's plug time for a major event this week. Think, organised by my employers CMP Information, promises to be something of a watershed for the industry. It should offer an opportunity for fresh debate amongst leading built environment professionals with regard to sustainability. Judging by the names we've managed to pull in (Al Gore, the Prince of Wales and a host of bosses) I'm hopeful it can deliver real momentum for change rather than warm words that often ring out from such events.

In case you needed another reason to go (you can pay on the day) yours truly will be chairing a session on Wednesday afternoon where architect of BedZed Bill Dunster will offer delegate a Zed masterclass. Any questions you want me to pose Bill?

Energy performance directive event

The Government is to explain how it will implement Energy Performance of Buildings Directive between 2007 and 2009 at a one-day conference on 8 May. Speakers at event, held at the BRE's Watford HQ, will include housing minister Yvette Cooper and representatives from the European Commission and the British Energy Efficiency Federation.

CHP explained, apparently

More on this site's hot topic, that of CHP. There's a useful seminar on the subject as part of the Sustainable London exhibition currently running at the Building Centre. CHP and Communities on 17 April will look at how the technology can be incorporated into new developments, running from the technology itself to the financial and engineering infrastructure needed to get the systems up and running. Speakers will include Michael King from the Combined Heat & Power Association, Paul Woods from Faber Maunsell and Andre Giibbs from the Argent Group.

There's also an event sustainability in office design on Monday 23 April that is worth looking at.

The next generation

I attended a new networking event called Phase One last night. Organised by Building (to declare an interest I work for the magazine's publisher) it attracted over 200 younger professionals from a range of specialisms varying from architecture engineering to surveying and contracting. Building columnist and legal legend Tony Bingham belted out (the acoustics weren't too great) a rabble-rousing speech to the attendees imploring them to step forward as leaders in the industry. His speech was inspiational as well as informal and it was great to chew the fat with the younger generation of professionals out there. There was interesting sustainability talk from nearly all the guests I bumped into. Here's a snapshot:

• The Terminal 5 problem - I met a couple of guys working there who underlined a bit of a PR issue there. How can one shout about the sustainable qualities of the building itself, due to open in just under a year, when the whole point of the thing is to attract more air flights?

The decadent dangers of MIPIM

What's the abiding impression one had from MIPIM 2007? Decadence. Something akin to the last days before the Fall of the Roman Empire. And this was not just manifested in the usual gargantuan consumption of booze. The amount of cash that was sloshing around Cannes, be it in the lavish tents and events on show and the wildly ambitious projects, beggars belief. And for some it is a worrying sign of a correction in the UK property market and beyond. "It feels like the late 1980s," one developer at a lunch told me over lunch last Thurday. He was worried about the recent housing slowdown in the US filtering through to the UK and creating a massive domino affect around the world. The Observer's Nick Cohen has an interesting piece on the US affect, with plenty of comment from here and across the pond.

Five key message from MIPIM

Some key messages to come out from Cannes delivered by speakers:

• Carbon pricing is critical in order for emission reduction targets to be hit. London's deputy mayor Nicky Gavron stressed this the two times I saw her speak. "It will happen. We will start to anticipate that," she said.
• Should we end new-building? I was involved in a debate in Building Design on just this issue this week. It was partly inspired by a talk given at MIPIM by DEGW's Despina Katsikakis where she put forward the theory that new construction should be the choice of last resort for the industry.
  

The MIPIM sustainability cynics

This year saw an inevitable increase in discussion, both formal and informal, over sustainability in Cannes this year. It wasn’t hard to detect some cynicism though. As we prepared to hear deputy mayor Nicky Gavron detail the bold and grand plans for making London the greenest city in the world at a breakfast session on Wednesday morning I overheard one of the audience quip: “I’ve come along to hear what we’re going to be clobbered with next”.

What's the carbon footprint of MIPIM?

Bit of an obvious question but probably worth posing. The estimate doing the rounds amongst delegates is that there are upwards of 28,000 business bods down here. So that must mean at least 25,000 flights and then you can sling in hundreds of thousands of cab rides (usually crawling through the gridlocked streets) as well as all the facilities, food, lodging etc etc etc. I'm not quite sure how we can justify it.

Can Cannes cope with MIPIM?

I have a serious question as to whether Cannes can really cope with MIPIM any longer. The conference is bursting at the seams. This is a result of a hot property market that seems to exist across the globe. The almost inexorable demand for investment and space has led to the exhibition space itself spreading beyond the