UK-GBC Conference: Making Sustainable Development Happen

On 24th November 2009 UK-GBC held its first conference “Making Sustainable Development Happen”, in collaboration with Building Magazine.  The event was a great success,  featuring high profile speakers from the industry, politics and opinion leaders from the third sector, media and elsewhere. Delegates were asked to roll up their sleeves and actively participate – to help make change happen, to have a real impact on Government and the industry.

Lots of announcements were made during the day, a quick summary of content is outlined below: 

     •  Paul King of the UK-GBC challenged the industry, government and building occupiers to aim for a 50% cut in emissions by 2020 from our homes and  buildings, saying an ambitious target like this can help us focus on the obstacles that stand in our way. 

     •  Conservative Housing spokesman Grant Shapps confirmed the party’s commitment to the zero carbon agenda, but urged a conclusion to the debate on the definition as soon as possible. He outlined Conservative plans to offer home owners a ‘Green Deal’ through a Pay-As-You-Save style financing scheme. 

      •    Lend Lease committed to carry out DECs on all their buildings, as Land Securities have already for their London buildings, and which UK-GBC is encouraging of all commercial property owners

     •    Ellen MacArthur reflected on her own experiences and challenged the sector to embrace a radically different, resource efficient mindset

      •   Joe van Belleghem spoke about his experience of developing Dockside Green, Canada and outlined the extensive environmental, social and   economic   considerations that contribute to its sustainability

      •    Berkeley Homes model of new homes and regeneration, Arup’s vision of low carbon office refurbishment and the Pay As You Save finance scheme   were scrutinised by ‘green dragons’ James Cameron of Climate Change Capital and Paul Turner of Lloyds Banking Group.

      •    Housing and Planning minister John Healey set out a range of announcements, including the launch of the zero carbon non-domestic building consultation and the proposed energy efficiency standard for zero carbon homes.

      •    UK-GBC ended the day with a draft ‘green building manifesto’ comprising some of the key messages heard throughout the day:

1.    Buildings should be recognised as the most significant sector for cost effective emissions reductions

2.    We should develop shared ambitions to cut emissions by 50% by 2020 from our built environment

3.    There should be no let up in drive towards zero carbon buildings, with a similar clear direction outlined for refurbishment through strong policy signals, incentives, regulations and financial mechanisms like PAYS

4.    We must measure the real performance of buildings, including rolling out DECs to all non-domestic buildings as soon as possible

5.    We should develop a shared roadmap between government and industry for the delivery of a sustainable built environment so it is must be achieved, by who, when and how.

Links and more information:

•    You can access the consultation 'Zero Carbon New Non Domestic Buildings: Policy options' here.  UK-GBC will be playing a key role in co-ordinating industry’s response to the consultation. 

The following speaker presentations are available for download:

• Joe Van Belleghem, on Dockside Green
• Stewart Davies, Sustainable Development Commission
• David Kennedy, Committee on Climate Change
• Dan Labbad, Lend Lease
• Roger Lewis, Berkeley Homes

Video highlights from the conference will be available shortly, please check back soon.

Sustainability Awards

Congratulations to all of the winners at the Building Sustainability Awards following the conference. A full list of award winners and runners up can be found on the Building website.

An exhibition of the winning projects opens at The Building Centre, 26 Stores Street, London WC1E 7BT from 1st December.  

Congratulations to the following UK-GBC members who won awards:

Rab Bennetts of Bennetts Associates who won Sustainability Leader of the Year and also a Sustainability Project of the Year award for Elizabeth II Court

Feilden Clegg Bradley who won Sustainable Designer of the Year

Atelier Ten who won Sustainable Consultant of the Year

Gentoo Construction who won Sustainable Housebuilder of the Year. 

InterfaceFLOR who won Sustainable Manufacturer of the Year 

Igloo Regeneration who won Sustainable Client of the Year

Congratulations also to the many runners-up:  Land Securities, Lend Lease, South West Regional Development Agency, British Land, Jones Lang LaSalle, Aecom, Atkins/Faithful+Gould, BDP, Davis Langdon, Hilson Moran, WSP, Willmott Dixon, Bovis Lend Leas, NG Bailey, United House, Aedas Architects, Cundall, PHA Consult, PRP, Ramboll, Berkeley Group, Crest Nicholson, ICI Paints Akzo Nobel, Aggregate Industries, Kingspan Insulation, LaFarge Readymix

For more information about the conference or awards please visit: www.building.co.uk/ukgbc

For more information, please contact Alexa Driver or Chad Harrell:

T: +44 (0)207 580 0623
E: events@ukgbc.org