Anyone planning on going to the BRE Offsite event in the 11th to 14th June?

I went two years ago and found it to be a very 'corporate' affair full of Sales guys.

I agree that we should be engaging with these people; I tried and just got a sales pitch thrown back at me every time.

The event is sponsored by the Concrete Centre who are actively promoting their product as the saviour of climate change (as it takes a long time to heat up in summer!)

The problem, with such events, is that everybody is trying to sell a product, the solution is of secondary importance. Concrete being a case in point where thermal mass is being promoted ( with the complicity of Arups and BRE) as the only solution to overheating, disregarding solar design and ventilation.

But this is the world we live in. For a more comprehensive 'green' approach to be taken seriously we need to be as sharp as those guys with the sales pitch.

Unfortunately being 'green' is complicated; So much so that the likes af Kingspan, etc, may have a valid claim to being green in an imperfect world. If they can deliver huge numbers of energy efficient homes then is it such a bad thing? (I am not making a judgement on this)

What you will see at Offsite is compromise; A blend of politics, regulation and market forces all presented as products.

I compromise every day, dealing with builders. I want to preach the green gospel that I know is right (every home not built to the highest standards is a wasted oppourtunity and an expensive to fix mistake), but I have to work on baby steps otherwise they go elsewhere.

But without 'us' there would be no critical appraisal of the political and corporate machines. So we need to be both supportive and critical. Not easy.

The main reason I will not go is the only realistic way of getting there is driving and the M1 is a nightmare!
- BRE recently held three training courses to convert the Ecohomes assessors to Code for Sustainable Homes assessors. They forced everybody (approxx 300+) to travel to Watford rather than hold regional courses and so reduce the travelling costs (CO2)

Keith, I will be going on the 11th as I sit between the commercial mass produced green world and and the idealist world, will take a few notes if you like?

I'm going on 11th but I'm involved in one of the houses and my colleague in another, so I think there would be a conflict of interests if I wrote an article to be published. I'll drop some comments onto the forum which will be my personal view and are a little anonymous.

Thanks all. It does look as though it will be very interesting. I'm particularly interested in the Kingspan house but don't know that I agree with their claim of the UK's first Zero carbon house. I know plenty of more far greener homes/owners that might dispute the claim. Also interestingly it looks as though it is designed to have it's back to the sun. Sounds like a lot of Welsh farmhouses I know.

Has anyone got any high res images of the homes built for the offsite demo discussed here please?
If so please e-mail them urgently to:

keith @ newbuilder . co . uk

(take out the gaps)
Wanted for publishing in Green building mag. full credit will be given to source.