World Green Building Week – it came, it saw, it conquered.

At the UK Green Building Council we had an exciting week that saw the launch of a progress report on the ‘greenest government ever’ and a unique event on the sustainable lifestyle of a footballing superstar.

Our progress 'Report Card' launched last week rated the Government on key policies aimed at greening our built environment, including the Green Deal, zero carbon new buildings and the planning system. Read the news story here and login to the website to join the debate on our blog. The report saw extensive coverage in the media Building, *Construction News, BusinessGreen and *Architects' Journal. 

On Thursday evening 80 people turned out to our event in Manchester to hear about the journey of former Manchester United footballer Gary Neville to a more sustainable lifestyle. We had some great feedback about the event and Gary was well received in the Twittersphere.

@GNev2 excellent, considered, knowledgeble speaker on sustainability.good event @ukgbc #greenbuildingweek

You can read a write up of the event on our website and also on the BBC. If you missed the event, you can watch a video of it:

Member event highlights

We sent representatives from UK-GBC to as many member World Green Building Week events as possible and really enjoyed them all.  Here are some of the highlights:

On Monday, Jones Lang Lasalle held a panel discussion event in London to debate GRESB’s 2012 Survey results. A packed house discussed progress made at engaging the investment community in sustainability. If you attended this event, you might be interested in our new Smart Investments training course.

On Tuesday evening, Nicholas Hare Architects hosted a discussion evening that looked at sustainable refurbishment. The discussion focussed on the Arup Building, an iconic Sixties building in Cambridge that is to be refurbished for use by both the University and also the Cambridge Conservation Initiative – a group of organisations championing the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems globally.

On Wednesday, two of the UK-GBC team set off to the Museum of London to join one of their lunchtime Green Initiatives Tours around the Museum grounds and saw first-hand the fantastic things the team is doing for biodiversity, including the installation of seed carpets and beehives.

On Thursday, Cundall held an event to look at the energy consumption of office buildings, the contribution that renewables can make, the embodied carbon in construction and fit-out, and why a building’s location shouldn’t be ignored. 

Finally on Friday the Better Buildings Partnership and GVA launched their Managing Agents Sustainability Toolkit iPad App, to help managing agents meet the increasing expectations of occupiers and owners. 

Our thanks to the following organisations for hosting World Green Building Week events:

Museum of London, Cundall, Tishman Speyer, Interface, Jones Lang Lasalle, Dalen Strategies, Scott Brownrigg, Tuffin Ferraby Taylor, Integrated Environmental Solutions, MPA – The Concrete Centre, Guardian Sustainable Business, Nicholas Hare Architects, GVA, The Better Buildings Partnership and BSRIA.