I landed back in the UK last month, and due to the usual backlog being at a show creates, the Christmas break, and to be honest it’s just been hard to find the time to sit down and reflect on last year’s show! So here I am trying to turn all those conversations and discussions into a cohesive review of our experiences at the world’s largest green building show where an estimated 30,000 people came together to learn, share, discuss and network.
Last year Greenbuild returned to Chicago’s McCormick Place West, the site of Greenbuild 2007 – but with twice as much space! If you didn’t make it along yourself, believe me the show was massive with an estimated 1,800 booths!! Actually one could argue too large. As an exhibitor at the show for the last 5 years we’ve seen it go through a number of changes; its size being the biggest. Last year was a turning point; instead of it being a green building exhibition it felt as large and comprehensive as any conventional building show.
Maybe I’m a cynic but when I see the likes of Vinyl exhibiting it feels like the specialism and possibly some of the value has gone from the show floor – is this a bad thing when we want green building to become the norm for the sake of the planet? Or is it just helping cloud the real issues with even more greenwash? Or greenmist?
There’s a show here in the UK called 100% Design that takes the unusual step of limiting the number of exhibitors and setting panel selection guidelines to keep the level of innovation and design quality high. An idea for Greenbuild perhaps?
Comment below to let me know your thoughts…
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it was a unsuccessful show, just that the volume of noise at the show which makes it hard to stand out as exhibitor must also make it hard for visitors to pick out the solutions of real interest.
However, on a different note, although I didn’t manage to get along to any, I heard the seminars were especially informative and inspirational. The show has ended but we do have an opportunity to watch some videos online and hear from some of the speakers that rocked the show this year.
So what did we get up to last year? Well with all the noise we’ve been making recently I’d sincerely hope you didn’t miss the launch of our ASHRAE 90.1 VE-Navigator solution which is designed to speed up and make LEED Energy Modeling easy. Also, not to leave out the Architectural market, we doubled the analysis capabilities of our VE-Gaia early stage analysis tool and announced a partnership with Trelligence to incorporate IESVE analysis into their Affinity programming and schematic design tool. Phew we’ve been busy!! You can see Don our founder and CEO being video interviewed about this online at Buildaroo.
One of the most interesting announcements at the show from our perspective was from the USGBC regarding their new LEED Automation program designed to link LEED Online with third party technology companies offering better collaboration and a more streamlined document submission process for users seeking LEED certification. Read more at Eco-Structure.
Plus, a first for us last year, we had a number of customers and partners spend their time with us on stand, presenting and talking about their experiences using our software and what we’re doing together. Building Momentum Group, HGA and Trelligence were all excellent IESVE sales people, even if not on the payroll!! While some of our key customers who have been testing the ASHRAE 90.1 VE-Navigator over the last 6 months as we’ve refined it were kind enough to let us know their thoughts.
Actually, I’d like to pick up on this point and say a BIG THANK YOU to them, as well as all of our valued customers who regularly wax lyrical about our products to their peers and give us valuable feedback that helps us stay at the cutting edge of Building Performance Analysis year on year. Oh and I mustn’t forget our highly skilled consultants who regularly push the limits of the software on leading analysis projects around the globe – 7-years plus working with Wal-Mart on their store optimization plan now that’s something to talk about if only we could go into detail!
To wind up, I’d like to congratulate the USGBC Leadership Award winners and Brian Wolfe of HKS who was the winner of our very own VE-Gaia competition. I blogged about it from the show here…
Edwina
This month, we have had loads of questions from you about UK Compliance and the changes with Part L 2010. So we will be focussing on how to use the Virtual Environment to create UK EPCs, if you are outside of the UK, sorry, this one is VERY specific!
