The Green Building Press will not be attending or supporting Ecobuild in 2009.

Why have we chosen not to promote, attend or support EcoBuild this time?

This has been a regular question over the last few weeks. Many of you will propbably know that we have been involved in helping to promote EcoBuild since 2004 when it started out as The Green Building Conference and Exhibition within CityScape, officially launched as EcoBuild in 2006.

For that very first we provided most of the contacts for the speakers. Well, it has become very popular and much bigger, with much greenwash being evident at the 2008 event.

Furthermore, we have, for some time we have been concerned regarding the environmental impact of such large events, both with regards to the resources used and travelling implications so in 2007 we instigated a policy of only supporting 'larger' events which work to the BS 8901 Sustainable Events Management System.

In 2008 EcoBuild advised us that it was working towards this standard but we are concerned that little progress has been made in making the event more sustainable.

We have therefore taken the decision to support only smaller more local events, where there is more control regarding the exhibitors and which encourage less national and international travel.

For example, we are actively supporting Homes for Good, on the 17th and 18th April 2009.

I am soooo tempted to get a bunch of (really difficult to remove) 'Eco Bullshit Award' stickers made up and wander round in the evening, offering the award to the most suitable stands and displays...Unfortunately my idea of being dressed as a green ninja while attaching the stickers, would get me arrested I suspect...!

I cannot speak for my employer, but I too share your concerns over the event. Last years greenwash was becoming laughable, even compared to one year previously. It was a noticeable change last year - I too have attended since 2004.

I think however there is a place for such an event to 'sway' the mainstream construction industry, and the environmental cost of such an event is more than off-set by the gains made in better buildings.

I also think that the show should be working to this BS8901 immediately - not trying to achieve it.

Agreed - I fell around laughing at a presentation by a company a few weeks ago. Thankfully someone else in the room took up the questioning (I was the other speaker at the event) - and ended up deeply embarrassing the company who were 'out greenwashing' everyone....

Keith

Interesting.

The company I work for will be there and should have quite a pressence this year.

I think its a double edge sword. On one hand we want to spread the word, and trade shows are a good way of doing that, however all the traveling, car miles, power useage at the event, etc etc will add up to a lot of unecessary energy useage and associated carbon and generaly badness emissions.

Perhaps as a company I could suggest ways to make our pressence create less of an impact. Any suggestions? Car share? train? how as an individual or a company can we do more?

Timber

You can't beat seeing products first hand...

J

Posted By: James NortonYou can't beat seeing products first hand...

J

And you cant beat meeting potential customers fist hand.

As a business, we took all our stand and the ThermoPlan used to build all last years EcoBuild cafe's down by one truck and all staff stayed 1 night in london/2days on stand and traveled by train. The cafe/stand ThermoPlan was then sold to be used/some was damaged and is now a display at headquarters and our BBQ

At that time of year I would expect a patio heater per person!

Go by bus. £24.50 for 2 from Bristol to Earls Court.

I want to thank Chris Herring, Mark Siddall, Liz Reason and others for their devoted seminar teaching at Ecobuild to packed audiences - must have been 150? A mini AECB/Passivhaus fest!

Exeter to London bus return with senile discount £13.15 - dep 04.35, dropped at the door 09.15 on the way in, return 18.30 - 11.20 - clockwork!

Posted By: Timberpeople want to be able to buy green off the shelf, but not necesserily live by it!

I wouldn't say that - the numerous seminars - 30 2-hour ones yesterday - were packed with people wanting to learn the 'live by' or 'design for' stuff - hardly any of the seminars looked like CPD-style disguised sales pitches. On top of the all-day Conference programme and the all-day celebs and ministers doing their sound-bites in the Arena programme. Three days of that. So it's not just a giant trade fair.

Did they have air conditioning running this year?

Yeah - I went down for all three days, caught some amazing seminars that were very useful and made some good trade links. It was pretty damn profitable in all manner of ways for me.

Proper knackering tho, 3 days finished me off...

yup. it was still quite warm, with occasional blasts of the Arctic. I remembered this and dressed appropriately, but I did have a laugh at the expense of those all suited and booted so very nicely...

indeed. it is unfortunate that ecobuild can't walk it's talk in terms of venue and utilities - it's horrible walking around and seeing all the cafe's touting their wares with never a locally sourced vegan wholemeal muffin in sight

seriously tho, it would be good to see them have an impact on earls court and similar venues in terms of retrofitting and making them more suitable. But I think that the benefits that can be gained in terms of 'spreading the good word', networking and demonstration of appropriate technologies are worth the problems it creates in terms of waste and resource use.