Leading Green Building Experts Visit Australia

Some of the world’s leading experts on green building are coming to Sydney in October 2003 for the annual summit of the World Green Building Council and the inaugural national Green Building Conference.

Australia is honoured to have been asked to host this year’s annual summit of the World Green Building Council. The WGBC is a global federation of Green Building Councils from the United States, Japan, Spain, India, Canada and Korea with affiliates in Mexico, Brazil and Hong Kong, and the summit will be a great opportunity for us to hear about the latest international trends and developments in green building from some of the world’s leading experts.

Many of these experts will be staying to speak at the inaugural national Green Building Conference which the Green Building Council is hosting with the Property Council of Australia on 14-15 October 2003 at Sydney Olympic Park.

Rick Fedrizzi, the President of the World Green Building Council and the founding chair of the US Green Building Council, was a member of the Greening of the White House  feasibility study team that developed the environmental, energy audits, and upgrade recommendations announced by President Clinton. Rick will deliver the keynote address at the conference, looking at the evolving role of economic drivers, fiscal incentives and market-based initiatives to encourage green development.

As the key author of the British Research Establishment BREEAM rating tool and now director of the North American rating tool system, LEED, Nigel Howard, knows a thing or two about  rating tools. Nigel will present an overview of international rating tools (BREEAM, LEED, GBTool, green star) and discuss their role in working within the marketplace to promote change, as well as providing an insight into how the U.S. Green Building Council’s message of market transformation is being realised.

Joe van Belleghem is the President of BuildGreen Inc Developments & Director of the recently established Canadian Green Building Council. Joe will present the inside story on the process that led to one of the greenest facilities in British Columbia, Canada – the re-use and retrofit of the historic Glendale Lodge which achieved a LEED v2.0 Gold certification. The design team coupled practical green design approaches with innovative community economic & social development efforts for an exemplary result, reducing material use, and allowing use of existing road, water and sewer services, with significant site development cost savings.
 
Last but not least, we are delighted that Kath Williams, the Vice Chair of the US GBC, will moderate the conference. Kath will be arriving in Australia on September 29 and will conduct a series of seminars and workshops in Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra before the Sydney conference.

I encourage everyone to come along and join us in October.