One of our very favorite conferences to attend each year is Greenbuild. Billed as the world’s largest conference and expo dedicated to green building, it delivers on all accounts. But the thing we love most is how such a large conference can draw so much enthusiasm from the people who put on the show, as well as the people who attend. For our sustainability enthusiasts, walking the halls of Greenbuild feels a bit like giddily running down the stairs as a kid on Christmas morning.
Like many other events, Greenbuild went virtual this year, and while we can’t attend every virtual conference out there (who can keep up?), we weren’t going to miss Greenbuild. People and businesses around the world are increasingly choosing to be more intentional in their efforts to keep current on all of the advancements happening in sustainability everyday, and green building is now a staple concern of many building projects. The COVID-19 pandemic may be keeping us from conducting business as usual, but sustainability goals should not be put on pause.
The Greenbuild 2020 virtual exposition, held November 10 – 12, offered three days full of practical knowledge, new technologies, new frontiers explored, and inspiring discussion. Greenbuild’s slick virtual conferencing platform was easy to use and provided a great home base for attendees. One positive to attending a conference virtually is that you can easily tune in and out to suit your schedule.
In addition to having a virtual expo hall, networking opportunities, and more than enough educational sessions to choose from, the USGBC also introduced new initiatives during the conference.
USGBC’s President and CEO Mahesh Ramanujam announced the launch of a new equity program, ALL IN, which will focus on developing tools and resources to help address social, health and economic disparities through green building. “To kick off the program, USGBC will be funding 500 people in underserved communities in their quest to pursue a LEED credential. An ALL IN draft strategy outlining additional commitments is available online, and USGBC is soliciting feedback before releasing a final version in Q1 2021.”
During the conference, the USGBC also introduced a new LEED Zero design rating system for new construction. “Currently, more than 20 existing building projects have achieved a LEED Zero certification in energy, carbon, water and/or waste. USGBC’s President and CEO Mahesh Ramanujam announced an aspirational goal that all new construction LEED project be LEED Positive by 2025 and existing buildings by 2050.”
Across the sessions we attended, the 2020 edition of Greenbuild featured programming that was very attentive to social equity topics and to women in green building. Many keynotes and other featured speakers were female, and it was great to see such a balanced show.
The first keynote, Christiana Figueres, spoke on “Facilitating Cooperation for Climate Progress.” “As the Former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and a key facilitator of the historic Paris Climate Agreement, Christiana Figueres knows a thing or two about fostering international cooperation. Now co-founder of Global Optimism Ltd, hear how she is continuing her work to accelerate the global response to climate change with a people-centric approach and learn how she forged a new brand of collaborative diplomacy that brings groups together to deliver critical outcomes.”
In her keynote, Christiana Figueres, the architect of the Paris Agreement, reinforced the agreement’s focus on increasing the number of net zero buildings, and that “LEED and other tools are helping to normalize the standards and conditions that will get the industry there. Meeting climate goals will require ‘stubborn optimism,’ but the building and construction sector has the greatest potential to bring us back in touch with our humanity.”
Another keynote featured a panel of three architects who spoke on the topic of “Innovation from Nature – Ancient Solutions for Building a Climate Resilient Future.” “Decades of rapid urbanization across the globe that works against natural systems has caused challenges such as flooding, heat island effect, pollution, and more. Many advancements in technology and development has ignored millenia-old wisdom of how-to live in symbiosis with nature. Solutions to these modern challenges may lie within indigenous and nature-based design strategies that create productive landscapes, increase urban resilience, strengthen communities, and buffer against climate-related emergencies.”
Each of these three designers embraces the concept of a “sustainable future, born from the past.” “Julia Watson is a designer, activist, academic, and author of Lo—TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism, who is tapping into ancient wisdom to advance climate resilience globally. Kotchakorn Voraakhom is a Thai landscape architect, whose work to increase urban resilience across climate-vulnerable communities across Southeast Asia uses a nature and community-based approach to productive landscape design. And Catherine Huang, Partner, Bjarke Ingels Group, an architect with a molecular biology background, takes an approach to design that embraces natural and community context.”
This session was the embodiment of a great Greenbuild session in that it helped you question the way we do and design certain things.
“Solutions are often embedded right into the traditional methods and cultures of local communities,” said Watson, whose book, Lo—TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism, focuses on how we often mistakenly understand many local techniques as unsophisticated.
Huang spoke about how designers faced with constraints shouldn’t shy away from them. “Constraints are the questions designers use to move forward,” she said. “Without that confinement, designers don’t find the edges.”
Although we can’t wait to get back to a more “normal” Greenbuild, we had a great time attending virtually this year. As always, we came away from Greenbuild armed with improved knowledge in sustainability, but also in many other areas – as sustainability touches everything we do. Cheers to designers finding the edges!