Jamming in Green

From Planning Commissioners Journal Editor Wayne Senville:

The green build movement reached critical momentum this week, as more than 20,000 people: developers, contractors, engineers, architects, planners, students, and assorted elected officials, jammed into the McCormick Place convention center in Chicago for the 2007 International Greenbuild Conference.

Sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, the Conference featured a keynote address by former President Bill Clinton, and well over 100 workshops and panel discussions. This was in addition to over 800 vendors who packed the exhibition hall (go to a post on Best Green Blogs for more on some of the vendors, including photos).

Wading into the largest lunch line I've ever encountered (see below), I was floored to see such enormous interest in green building practices. Another attendee had a similar reaction. And CNBC reporter Diana Olick reported that "I'm not often shocked, but I am today. And so were the folks running the convention. An unbelievable response, is all I can say. This place is so packed with people from all over the world that the registration line was literally two hours long."

Just across the street from the convention center was a sign bearing witness to the growing interest in green building: a new Chicago condominium project touting to potential buyers its green features.

At the start of the Conference, former President Clinton announced an initiative of the Clinton Foundation that will include:

• partnering with the City of Chicago to enable a "green overhaul" of privately-owned multi-tenant housing across the city, as well as of the enormous Sears Tower and Merchandise Mart buildings;
• a partnership with GE Real Estate to retrofit projects in GE's $72 billion global portfolio; and
• a major effort (with the U.S. Green Buildings Council) to create a "Green Schools" program to reduce energy consumption in K-12 schools, along with a comparable program aimed at colleges and universities.

Clinton noted in his remarks that "when it comes to climate change, the hurdles we face aren't technological, they're organizational ... the solution to the climate crisis isn't far off in the future -- it's in the buildings we inhabit, our civic infrastructure, and the way we organize our lives."

In terms of green building, Clinton observed that "what we have to do is prove that this is not a big bottle of castor oil that we're being asked to drink." Instead, he described green building as an enormous economic opportunity for the nation.

More on some of what I heard during the Conference in my next post.