GreenBuild Attracts 22,000-Plus To Learn Energy-Efficient Design And Construction

Nov. 21, 2007
Although many attendees fumed during the hour-long wait in the registration lines that snaked through the cavernous McCormick West Building at the U.S. Green Building Council’s GreenBuild, held Nov. 7-9 in Chicago, when they finally got their registration badges they could feast on an enormous banquet of information to help them design and build energy-efficient buildings.

Although many attendees fumed during the hour-long wait in the registration lines that snaked through the cavernous McCormick West Building at the U.S. Green Building Council’s GreenBuild, held Nov. 7-9 in Chicago, when they finally got their registration badges they could feast on an enormous banquet of information to help them design and build energy-efficient buildings.

Dozens of seminars, more than 800 exhibits and a keynote address by former U.S. President Bill Clinton were the highlights of the three-day event in Chicago’s 823,000-square-foot McCormick West Building, billed as one of the greenest new construction projects in the United States. Clinton’s address to a standing-room-only crowd estimated at more than 8,000 drew loud cheers and applause that made the event seem more like a political campaign rally than a trade show and conference dedicated to energy-efficient building design and construction.

Clinton was always known as a supporter of environmental causes during his presidency, and his William J. Clinton Foundation has been keeping that issue front and center over the past year with the launch of several initiatives aimed at providing financial backing for businesses and local governments in their efforts to cut energy use and reduce carbon emissions (see related story on page 1). His foundation’s efforts are based on the premise that the green movement now makes good business sense in addition to be good for the environment. “This is the biggest economic opportunity that our country has had to mobilize and democratize economic opportunity since World War II,” he said.

Seats were reportedly tough to find at some of the GreenBuild seminars, and the aisles of the trade show were packed with attendees talking with vendors selling energy-efficient products, including recycled commercial carpeting, environmentally friendly paint and “green roof” products such as interlocking containers for growing rooftop gardens. On the electrical side, vendors included Acuity Brands, Advance Transformer, Cooper Industries, Osram Sylvania, Philips Lighting and WattStopper/Legrand.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system was a hot topic of conversation in seminars and on the show floor. While some architects and designers criticize the cumbersome LEED standards, they seem to be quickly gaining acceptance in the design and construction communities for the development of many types of commercial buildings. One notable exception so far seems to be K-12 schools, and Rick Fedrizzi, LEED’s CEO, president, founder and biggest cheerleader, jokingly reported at the open session that there are more LEED-certified prisons right now than LEED-certified schools. The 2008 GreenBuild International Conference will be held Nov. 19-21 in Boston.