News

November 25th

SB11 Helsinki Final report has been published

September 30th

Please, click here to download the programme of Afrikan Tähti - African Star, the seminar that will take place in Haaga-Helia University as part of the Parallel Programme of the conference. African Star will show a panorama of different initiatives around the African continent towards a more sustainable development. The seminar in held on Wednesday at 18.00-20.00 and it is free of charge to all registered SB11 participants.

September 12th

Please, have a look at the Parallel Programme of the conference and read the interview with Satu Laaksonen from KAVA (National Audiovisual Archive), where she talks about KAVA's collaboration with SB11 Helsinki and how films can contribute to a more human and sustainable society.

September 5th

Click here to read an interview with Martha Herrera González, Director of Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility for CEMEX Mexico and CEMEX-Tecnológico de Monterrey Center for Sustainable Community Development.

August 22nd

Please, read here Ritva Ohmeroluoma's views on her work for Women's Bank as Chairperson of its Steering Committee, the role played by women in developing countries, and the collaboration between WB and SB11 Helsinki towards a more sustainable development. For more information, click on the picture to download her bio in PDF.

Women's Bank is a community and a fund for supporting women's sustainable entrepreneurship and livelihood in developing countries. Continuing the action that started last year during the regional SB10 Finland Sustainable Community - buildingSMART conference, SB11 Helsinki World Sustainable Building Conference has become a shareholder of the Women's Bank. Read more from the WB website http://www.naistenpankki.fi/en/

SB11 Helsinki: When and how did you join Women's Bank? What's your job there?

Ritva Ohmeroluoma: Matti Pulkki, from SOK Corporation, introduced me to Women's Bank in 2008. He told me about this new idea and I said "why not", so I went to the first meeting, and then to the second... and pretty soon my hands were full of work!

I took it as my responsibility to spread the word about WB in Finland. We started everything from scratch, with a small group of volunteers here in Helsinki. Now 800-1000 women collaborate and we have 25 working cells from Hanko to Rovaniemi. WB has experienced a rapid growth since its beginnings.

SB11 Helsinki: How does your own working experience influence your activities at Women's Bank and vice versa?

Ritva Ohmeroluoma: as CEO of Nordia Management Oy I run an investment fund. For some years now, Nordia Management Oy has been a member of Finnish Business & Society Association (FiBS), an enterprise network to promote financially, socially and ecologically sustainable business in Finland. And, I have myself been Chair of the Board of FiBS for several years.

In general, as an essential part of my job, I've been sitting on many boards and I know how hard it is to be an entrepreneur. You need to be creative to find a way to make a good business profitable, like it happened in Moomin World, as an example.

However, when life in business is going too smoothly, I get bored! What really interested me at Women's Bank was this new way of doing things.

We try to develop different kinds of products to raise money for WB, and we basically decide on the strategy to follow while always trying to stay true to our mission. We follow up where the money goes very strictly asking for a very detailed monthly report on the ongoing projects, and we also hold an informative annual meeting for investors. In relation to this, I'd like to remark that one of the most important things I've learned at WB is that understanding the places where our projects are carried out is fundamental to their success.

SB11 Helsinki: What can you say about the role played by women in the economy of developing countries? Can you give an example of a success story that has particularly impressed you?

Ritva Ohmeroluoma: Women are mostly the poorest in developing countries but they are still responsible for their families.

I remember now a case in Liberia, where Women's Bank supports a so called Mother's Club. Helena, a young woman, is learning to read and write to be able to get a regular paid job for the government. This is very important to them because they get independent and, for the first time in their lives, they can have dreams for the future.

SB11 Helsinki: What characterizes women's entrepreneurship in developing countries? Are there any common obstacles for women's entrepreneurship in developed and developing countries?

Ritva Ohmeroluoma: Each country is different and offers different opportunities. In some countries, women cannot even open a bank account and need men's permission. They are really willing to learn and give everything they have to be able to have this opportunity. It can be something very simple, like growing their own vegetables and sell them.

In developing countries it's more often a "macho" culture. Women don't have independence. In Africa, girls go to school but they also have to take care of the house, the meals, etc. so, very soon, they are taken out of the school to help their mothers. In this context, the project run by Finn Church Aid to educate girls in Liberia has a great impact and works at several levels. For example, at the same time the girls learn a new word, like let's say "soap", they are also taught how to make soap from natural ingredients.

In the end, women have the same concerns and worries in Finland and in Liberia. I have realized that the world is the same. However, when I look at developing countries, I have to say that, as a woman, we don't have any problems here. They amount to nothing!

SB11 Helsinki: Based on your experience at Women's Bank, what would be a key element to boost sustainable development in these countries?

Ritva Ohmeroluoma: This is a question about morals also. We have used our nature with very heavy hand. In Africa for example, they don't over-use nature, they grow what they need around their houses. However, developed countries and emerging economies take their resources.

We should cover the damages we have caused. They should own the resources, or the companies that own them should be forced to keep them.

SB11 Helsinki: How do you see SB11 Helsinki's contribution to Women's Bank? Can this type of collaboration be pursued further?

Ritva Ohmeroluoma: We could start to think if we can implement the knowledge generated by companies and research communities to help WB projects in relation to building, but not only, also in daily life.

At WB we try to teach women to use the money we are giving them in a sustainable way, so they don't destroy nature and keep their resources. But we need to think better what "sustainability" means when we give money to certain projects to ensure they are really sustainable. In this sense, this collaboration could be very fruitful.

SB11 Helsinki: Are any of the projects supported by Women's Bank related to the sustainable built environment?

Ritva Ohmeroluoma: Not yet, but there is a big potential for the future.

August 17th

Report from Argentina has been published

June 23rd

Pekka Haavisto, Member of Finnish parliament and recently announced green party’s candidate for the president in Finland, is one of the keynote speakers in SB11 Helsinki. Before starting your summer vacation, please see video about his global opinions on sustainability and opportunities for the future. For the video click here

June 16th

Please read here Ilari Aho's views on sustainable businesses and the opportunities they present. Ilari Aho is Vice President of Indoor Climate Business Group, UPONOR Corporation. For more information, click on the picture to download his bio in PDF.

SB11 Helsinki: Uponor is a Platinum Sponsor in SB11 Helsinki. What does our slogan “opportunities for making new business” mean to your company?

Ilari Aho: For us at Uponor it means that the more our customers in the construction industry are focusing on sustainability issues, the more opportunities we have for advocating the benefits our system offering provides. We are not looking at the sustainability agenda as a burden or as a source of additional costs, but a genuine driver for creating more business by improving the quality and performance of buildings.

SB11 Helsinki: What kind of leadership is needed in today's companies if we want to achieve a more sustainable development?

Ilari Aho: Leadership with an open mind and ability to adopt new ideas, not just technologically, but even more importantly from the process point of view. Too many opportunities for improving the quality of our built environment are lost every day because of the “that’s not the way we are used to doing it” attitude still being so strong.

SB11 Helsinki: Can you say something about differences in various markets where you operate? Is the motivation for sustainability there in environmental, economical or social aspects?

Ilari Aho: This is perhaps more a question of cycles of economy, rather than differences between markets. Environmental drivers tend to be higher on the agenda when the economy overall is good, and social and economical aspects receive more attention in a downturn – such as we have seen over the last years in many parts of Europe. Of course there is still a big difference between established markets in West Europe and emerging or new market economies in the Eastern part of our continent, but these differences are in my view due to differences in the stage of economic and market development rather than any inherent differences between the markets.

SB11 Helsinki: You were nominated as the first iiSBE president in 1998. How has the world changed since then what comes to sustainable building?

Ilari Aho: Still at the end of the 1990s most of us that were preaching for sustainable building were regarded as a bunch of idealists with nice ideas but no touch-point to practice. Nowadays talking about sustainability is mainstream across the construction industry and we have seen also promising steps towards practices changing.

SB11 Helsinki: You participated actively the SB Conference series until SB05 Tokyo and naturally still follow closely international SB research? Which are the major changes there over time (research focus etc.) you could point out?

Ilari Aho: In the 1990s research focus and also a main focus of the SB series and its predecessors were on methodologies for assessing sustainability, and on applying these methodologies for comparing various technical and design approaches. Also our conference audience at the time was predominantly from the research field. In the 2000s all the SB conference organizers have taken a strong focus towards attracting practitioners by providing dedicated industry/practice streams or even dedicated industry days during the event, with presentations and discussions focusing on application issues rather than theory. This has been a good development, but of course a scientific conference must maintain its scientific quality and not fully focus on practice issues – high quality of scientific contributions has always been and hopefully will be one of the main aspects of the SB series.

SB11 Helsinki: In general, what do you think companies need in order to improve their performance as regards to SB? Are there particular skills lacking?

Ilari Aho: The main skill that we as an industry are lacking is the ability to sell performance: we always tend to fall back to talking about price and cost, and are not able to articulate what the value is that our customers received from improved building performance. However, I am relatively optimistic about skills development since I have been observing the younger generations graduating from universities with much better skills sets on sustainable construction and property business than my own generation has ever had.

SB11 Helsinki: What do you expect out of SB11 Helsinki?

Ilari Aho: What I would personally wish to see is an open dialogue between research and practice, with hopefully the sessions of the conference successfully attracting participants from both sides. We also should focus more and more on case studies and analyses of efficient ways of changing industry structures and operating processes towards sustainability, rather than analysing the performance of technical solutions or design approaches. Technical solutions are already there and will keep emerging, the critical question is how to ensure they have a level competitive playing field in an industry traditionally focused first on cost aspects.

May 30th

Tarja Halonen, President of Finland, acts as benefactor of SB11 Helsinki World Sustainable Building Conference.

April 21st

Read what Rainer Mahlamäki thinks about sustainability and SuvelaSURGE student competition from: www.sb11.org/competition

April 14th

Please read the interviews of SuvelaSURGE Jury members Arja Lukin, Sakari Toikkanen and Sebastià Jornet from www.sb11.org/competition

March 18th

SB11 SUPPORTS WOMEN IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

World Sustainable Building Conference SB11 Helsinki has become a shareholder of the Women’s Bank. This action continues the collaboration with WB that started last year during the regional SB10 FINLAND Sustainable Community buildingSMART -conference.

Women's Bank is a community and a fund for supporting women's sustainable entrepreneurship and livelihood in developing countries. It was founded in May 2007 by Finn Church Aid and a group of influential women who had visited Liberia and were moved by the living conditions of women there. Women's Bank has acquired now 1050 shareholders.

WB channel donated funds for projects that promote women's economic livelihood, skills and rights. Main means of action are small loans, vocational training and other activities to encourage entrepreneurship. WB funds new, innovative pilot projects aimed at promoting women's entrepreneurship.

In SB11 Helsinki we will especially follow the stories and results from the projects* in Nepal, Peru and Congo. Read more from the WB website http://www.naistenpankki.fi/en/projects/?id=807

*Development project for women entrepreneurs, Nepal (2008-2011)

Develops the professional and entrepreneurial skills of women and sets up new small businesses run by women. The intention is to create 600 new businesses run by women during the life of the project.

*Village banks, Peru (2008-2011)

During the life of the project 30 village banks (bancos communales) engaging in savings and loan operations will be set up. The project will also arrange training related to entrepreneurship and financial literacy.

*Entrepreneurship development for the young in Congo (New project)

The objective is to help the young people who have grown up within war and conflict to build an independent and responsible life of their own. Annually 100 will be trained for a profession that allows them to act as entrepreneurs. Half of them are teenage mothers.

March 14th

Reports from Colombia and Libya published.

March 14th

The SuvelaSURGE promotion video is now published! Watch the video on Youtube here.  Useful extra material for contestants published on http://suvelasurge.blogspot.com/

March 4th

The registration to the international student idea & design competition SuvelaSURGE is now closed! More than 50 teams registered to the competition see the map where the contestants come from.

February 28th

Registration to the international student idea & design competition SuvelaSURGE closes on 4th of March at 12:00 noon GMT.

February 21st

Registration is now open. Programme at a glance has been published. Information about the keynote speakers has been added. New sponsors has been announced.

February 15th

The members of the Jury for the International Student Idea & Design competition for Sustainable Neighbourhood Regeneration SuvelaSURGE , have just been announced! For more information, please go to www.sb11.org/competition

February 1st

Expression of Interest (EOI) have been issued for the conference series SB2013-14

CIB, iiSBE and UNEP have released their EOI for the next cycles of international conferences, to take place in 2013 and 2014. Responses to the EOI are due on 16 February, after which selected proponents will be asked to submit full proposals by 30 June. The selected national and international events will be announced at the SB 2011 World SB Conference, taking place in Helsinki during 18-21 October, 2011.

For further details, contact Bill Porteous at bill.porteous@cibworld.nl

Expression of Interest (EOI) have been issued for SB Challenge 2011

iiSBE has issued its call for Expressions of Interest (EOI) for the SB Challenge process, covering projects to be selected for display and discussion at the SB11 conference in Helsinki, to be held 18-21 October, 2011. SB Challenge is held in conjunction with the global SB conference that is held every three years. The EOI is intended to attract displays of projects that represent very high levels of sustainable performance, and is a continuation of a process begun in 1998. Responses to the EOI were due on 28 January, after which selected project teams will be requested to submit full proposals.

For further details, contact Giulia Barbano at sbchallenge@iisbe.org

Launch of Global SBC Forum in Geneva

On 12 January, a meeting took place in Geneva to launch a new organization to be called the Global Sustainable Building and Construction Forum.

The purpose of the founding members is to establish a global forum of international organizations whose members will exchange information through a website, virtual meetings and occasional face-to-face meetings on GHG-reducing actions being taken by their constituencies. The goal is the development of common global GHG mitigation and adaptation strategies for the building sector that fully recognize the imperatives of sustainability. The founders plan to establish a small secretariat in or near Geneva, and they hope that the work of the group will lead it to be recognized as an international representative of the built environment sector.

Founding members who participated include iiSBE, CIB, FIDIC (the International Federation of Consulting Engineers), and ILO (the International Labour Office). UNEP-SBCI is also considering its participation. Other key organizations to be approached in the future include WBCSD, WGBC and UIA.

January 18th

SB10Brazil - Instrumenting change was held in São Paulo from 8th to 10th November 2010, organized in collaboration by UNICAMP, UFES, UFSC and CBCS, and co-chaired by Prof. Vanessa Gomes (UNICAMP, CIB, iiSBE), Prof. Vahan Agopyan (CIB) and Marcelo Takaoka (UNEP SBCI).

SB10Brazil marks the tenth anniversary of CIB 2000 - From theory to practice, one of the first large-scale attempts to foster and smooth the transition from sustainable building into practice in Brazil and Latin America. In the past decade, strong efforts have focused on levelling the playing field, on envisioning a more sustainable future for the country, and on exploring management and innovation for sustainable building. SB10Brazil took the challenge of helping to instrument such change. Under the scientific coordination of Prof. Marina Ilha (UNICAMP), the main topics covered by the conference were:

1. Advanced building design and construction

2. Affordable social housing and settlements

3. Sustainable renovation and refurbishment

4. Sustainable urban models and infrastructure

5. Policy and legislation for SB

6. Integrated project delivery and updated contracting models

7. Methodologies and tools for sustainability assessment

8. Sustainable facility management

9. Business models for sustainable building

10. Education and training for SB

During the conference, inspiring keynote speeches were delivered by a wide group of specialists from around the world, such as Daniela de Fiori, Christopher Wells, Edward Schwarz, Marcelo Takaoka, Charles Kibert, Martin Fischer, Norbert Lechner, Werner Sobek, Nils Larsson, Alex Abiko, Andrés Borthagaray, Wayne Trusty, Christer Sjöström, Julien Hans, Cassia Ugaya or Silvia de Schiller.

Revised versions of the SB10Brazil's best papers, in addition to selected national and international invited contributions, will be published in a special number of Revista Ambiente Construído in 2011.

More information can be found here,

http://www.fec.unicamp.br/~sb10brazil/

Proceedings,

http://www.fec.unicamp.br/~sb10brazil/downloads.html

SB10 Western Europe took place from 11th to 13th October 2010 in Maastricht (the Netherlands), Heusden-Zolder (Belgium), Liège (Belgium) and Aachen (Germany). Focusing on "Towards 0-impact buildings and environments", the conference was organized by Hogeschool Zuyd/RiBuilT in collaboration with CeDuBo, Fachhochschule Aachen and Haute École de la Province de Liège. Being held in 4 locations in 3 different countries, it has been a great example of cross-border cooperation and knowledge exchange, and attracted around 190 participants.

Two of the venues where the conference took place.

During these intense days, interesting and challenging keynote speeches were delivered by a group of international experts and local authorities: John Kerkhoven, Rolf Disch, Hermann Scheer, Ronald Rovers, Alain Hubert, Nils Larsson, Thomas Rau, Hubert Rhomberg, Peter Vadasz, Karel van Rosmalen, Paul Depla, Frank Smeets, Bert Kersten and Marcel Phillip.

Keynote speaker John Kerkhoven.

Keynote speaker Ronald Rovers.

The scientific themes of the conference were organized according to 5 categories (materials, buildings, neighbourhoods, cities and regions) and included:

1. Zero impact buildings in general

2. Zero energy buildings and strategies

3. Zero materials approaches and strategies

4. Zero water areas and strategies

5. Zero ground usage

6. Zero polluted air areas

7. Technologies and management for energy efficiency

8. Instruments and evaluations for zero approaches

9. Zero impact cities and regions

10. Environmentally/energy neutral cities

11. Urban agriculture

12. Zero refuse districts

13. Zero fossil fuel-burning transport

14. Instruments for cities and district zero approaches

15. Policy and implementation of zero approaches

One of the most innovative initiatives associated to the conference was the Concept Cafeteria sessions where, in parallel to the presentations, representatives from companies, science and public authorities gathered in a joined effort to make a transition of the conference results to practical use. The themes of the six concept cafeterias followed the contents of the scientific sessions and the usual design and construction process in building industry.

Concept Cafeteria.

There is one conclusion that can be drawn already: people can make an enormous difference. People with drive, people with leadership qualities. All keynote speakers were examples of this, and therefore not surprising they had one and the same general message: "Just start doing it!". It was best illustrated with the words of Peter Vadasz, Mayor of Güssing: "It is always we should, we could, we might, we try. But it should be: no, we will and we do!". And he did, and now Güssing is producing more energy than it consumes. A second conclusion is that the advantages of sustainability should be made economically visible and aimed at a regional level. A third conclusion is that we should focus in the near future on the priorities and protocols on the use of land, water, material, air and energy.

More information can be found here,

http://www.sb10.nl/home

Conference proceedings are available as a USB stick and can be ordered by sending an email to m.ritzen@ribuilt.eu

January 14th

4th Nordic Passive House Conference will be organized together with the SB11 Helsinki in the same venue on 17 -19 October 2011. Abstract submission is now open. Find more information on the website www.phn11.fi

December 15th

The 2nd Announcement of SuvelaSURGE student competition:

International Student Idea & Design Competition for Sustainable Neighbourhood Regeneration in Espoo, SuvelaSURGE, is now open! 

The competition is part of the programme of activities associated to SB11 Helsinki. Click here for more information

December 2nd

The Second International Conference on Sustainable Architecture and Urban Development, SAUD 2010 - SB10 Amman, held in Jordan from 12th to 14th July 2010, was organized by CSAAR (The Center for the Study of Architecture in the Arab Region) in collaboration with the University of Dundee and the University of Jordan, and under the auspices of CIB, iiSBE and UNEP. More than 425 full papers were received and only 120 accepted to be presented at the conference. Around 100 authors attended from more than 35 countries worldwide.

Scientific Committee Co-Chairs, Jamal Al-Qawasmi and Husam Al Waer.

Professor Raymond Cole, from the University of British Columbia in Canada, delivered the keynote address "Design responsibilities and performance expectations in a carbon constrained world". Matthew Kitson, Director of Sustainability at Hilson Moran (UK), facilitated the workshop "Sustainable Urbanism: the challenges and opportunities for the Middle East".

Keynote speaker Raymond Cole, on the left, discusses with Aaro Söderlund, from Finland.

The conference main themes were:

• Urban Planning and Urban Design for Sustainability
• Design for Sustainability
• Whole Life Urban Sustainability and its Assessment
• Governance and Local Planning for Sustainability
• Climate Change versus Sustainability

Conference participants enjoying a break.

A visit to Petra, one of seven wonders, was organized as part of the programme of activities associated to the conference.

The Treasury, Petra.

More information can be found here,

http://www.csaar-center.org/conference/saud2010/

Proceedings,

4 Volumes including all accepted papers, ISSN 1992-7320

The New Zealand Sustainable Building Conference, SB10 NZ Innovation and Transformation, held in Wellington from 26th to 28th May 2010, brought together a wide range of industry stake holders to focus on the issue of sustainable building in the New Zealand environment. The 2 days of presentations yielded plenty of robust discussion about the challenge of making New Zealand's buildings sustainable.

The conference gathered local and international speakers (like Adrian Leaman, Nils Larsson, Vivian Loftness, Profs. Brenda and Robert Vale, Nick Collins, Pieter Burghout, Craig Pocock, Garry Pellett, Dorothy Wilson, Nigel Isaacs or Maurice Williamson) to share their knowledge and insights on innovative, high performance and low impact approaches to developing, maintaining and retrofitting the built environment for sustainability.

During his keynote speech, Hon. Maurice Williamson, Minister for Building and Construction, stated that sustainability is an over-used term, but he supports cutting-edge innovation and excellence in buildings.

Minister Williamson.

The main streams were:

• Defining sustainable building value.
• Police frameworks for innovation and change.
• Sustainable building case studies.
• Towards Zero Energy, Zero Waste and Zero Carbon approaches for buildings.
• Materials, products and building systems for sustainable building.

More information can be found here,

http://www.sb10.co.nz/

Proceedings,

http://www.sb10presentations.co.nz/

26th November

Download here the more detailed SB10 Finland report in pdf

SB10 Finland Sustainable Community - buildingSMART™, held in Espoo from 22nd to 24th September 2010, was organized by RIL (Finnish Association of Civil Engineers) and VTT Technical Research of Finland. Although geographically addressed to the North of Europe, it received more than 350 participants coming from more than 20 countries during three intense days in which over 130 academic or industry presentations highlighted different aspects of the main themes of the conference.

SB10 Finland's opening plenary session.

When opening the conference, the Finnish Minister of Housing, Jan Vapaavuori, described the approach and challenges currently faced by sustainable communities in Finland. Olavi Louko, Director of the City of Espoo's Technical and Environmental Services opened the Get Together reception where Hannu Rossilahti, Director General of ARA (the Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland), talked about sustainable renewal of the housing stock.

Minister Jan Vapaavuori welcoming the audience to SB10 Finland.

Inspiring keynote presentations were delivered by professors Anne Grete Hestnes from Norway, Thomas Lützkendorf from Germany, Björn Malbert from Sweden, Arto Kiviniemi from UK and directors Anne Stenros and Marco Steinberg from Finland.

Anne Grete Hestnes, NTNU.

Thomas Lützkendorf, KIT.

The keynote plenary lectures were followed by 25 parallel sessions related to the themes of the conference: Sustainable Processes, Sustainability Assessment, Sustainable Solutions, Urban Planning, Performance Management and Well-being, and other additional topics like Indoor Environment and Building Information Modelling.

Parallel sessions.

Two professional excursions were organised in Espoo to show good local sustainable practices from day care centres to shopping malls.

Dr. Greg Foliente from CSIRO, Australia, facilitated the Workshop resulting in the following SB10 Finland statement:

Built facilities will deliver a whole-of-life performance that support more sustainable communities. This will be achieved through

•  Leadership – in urban planning and governance, building policies, regulations, standards, R&D and technical guides in Nordic countries and across the EU
• Innovation – in procurement, design, delivery &management of built assets through integrated processes and smart (BIM) tools
• Net Zero Energy (& Emission) Buildings – for new buildings; and low-energy or low-emission refurbishments and whole building stock
• ‘Smart’ stakeholders – highly capable and skilled workforce, and highly knowledgeable, responsible and empowered consumers/users

Greg Foliente from CSIRO, during the workshop.

Panel discussion, facilitated by Bill Porteous, gathered together Ilari Aho from Uponor, Kaj Hedvall from Senate Properties, Thomas Lützkendorf from KIT and Eva Häkkä-Rönnholm from VTT, to discuss the steps one should make to implement present knowledge into practice by SB11. The panellists discussed also issues that should be developed by the following SB14 World Conference.

Ilari Aho, Kaj Hedvall, Thomas Lützkendorf and Eva Häkkä-Ronnholm.

The paper "Urban rail enables efficient land use and efficient communities" by Bianca Byring and Hanna Teerihalme from SITO Group, was selected as the best paper in SB10 Finland.

Donations were collected during the Conference to Women's Bank, a Finnish community and a fund for supporting women's sustainable entrepreneurship and livelihood in developing countries (more info on their activities can be found on their website, http://www.naistenpankki.fi/en/). The progress will be followed towards SB11 Helsinki and reported both in SB10 Finland and SB11 Helsinki websites.

More information can be found here: http://www.sb10.fi

22nd November 2010

The CESB10 Prague, Central Europe towards Sustainable Building "From Theory to Practice", was held in Prague, Czech Republic, from 30th June to 2nd July 2010, intended to engage primarily the Central European region (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland). However, more than 30 countries were finally represented in the conference.

In her opening speech, "Public awareness condition for success of sustainable building", Rut Bízková, Minister of the Environment of Czech Republic, talked about the need for sustainable building and activities and support of the Ministry of the Environment, the Green Investment Scheme and the Operational Programme Environment.

Minister Rut Bízková during her opening speech at CESB10 Prague.

The keynote speeches that followed were delivered by a group of international experts, like Rab Bennetts, Steve Burroughs, Charles Kibert, Nils Larsson, Christophe Lesniak, Thomas Lützkendorf or Ronald Rovers.

British architect Rab Bennetts delivering his keynote address.

The main topics covered were:

• Advanced building design. Integrated design, challenging strategies, case studies, urban consequences, best practices.
• Energy efficiency. Solar energy and sustainable building, low energy, passive and zero energy buildings.
• Material efficiency. Durability, reliability, high performance materials, renewable, recycled and alternative materials.
• Quality of internal and external environment. Functional and operational quality of buildings, indoor climate, optimization, simulation and calculation tools.
• Assessment methods. Sustainable buildings assessment schemes, LCA, building quality optimization tools, certification.
• Economy. Low-cost buildings, LCC, added value, economical benefits of sustainable buildings.
• Policy and legislation. Legislative support, standardization, public activities, active approach of governments and local authorities.
• Education and information. Education at secondary schools and universities, lifetime education, information dissemination.

Exhibition space at CESB10 Prague.

More information can be found here,

http://www.cesb.cz/en

Proceedings,

http://www.cesb.cz/en/cesb07

The Sustainable Building Conference SB10mad that took place in Madrid, Spain, from 28th to 30th April 2010 was organized by GBC Spain under the auspices of the Spanish Ministry of Housing. With nearly 750 registered participants and a broad programme both in terms of scientific contents and parallel activities, the conference focused on "Sustainable building, revitalising and renovation of districts: an urgent and essential step”.

As stated by Spain's Minister of Housing, Beatriz Corredor, when opening the conference, energy efficiency achievements in new construction housing are not sufficient to meet the international climate change commitments. Reaching the sustainability objectives will be impossible unless action is focused on the large existing dwelling stock of big cities.

Spanish Minister of Housing, Beatriz Corredor, addressing the audience.

In the words of Fernando Prats, prestigious architect and urban planner, and one of the keynote speakers, the logics of last decade's unlimited and indiscriminate growth have seriously damaged the institutional culture, making our cities' urban expansion even worse.

Architect Fernando Prats during his keynote speech.

The main thematic areas of the conference were:

• Sustainable renovation of districts; Best Practices.
• Traditional techniques and district rehabilitation.
• Methodologies and tools for sustainability assessment.
• City, building and tourism: a Mediterranean challenge.

Industry panels at SB10 Mad.

The conclusions reached by the end of the conference can be summarised as follows:

• The main objective is the satisfaction of people's needs. The satisfaction of the habitability needs of people, starting with the neediest, must be the chief objective in the vital conversion of the building sector towards sustainability.
• Citizen's participation is a must. Awareness boosting and a social consensus on the need for a global change is urgent, and is the foundation for citizen's participation on the construction of the new sector.
• The action scale is urban. The sector must understand that the problem we face actually has an urban scale, so solutions must be proposed that recognize productive and territorial aspects far beyond local, to interrelate with the global problems we face.
• Rehabilitation is crucial. The sector's instrument is rehabilitation, the interpretation and intervention in the built object, as the foundation of physical and conceptual resources with which to face the global change. Rehabilitation at urban scale requires a redefinition of its own field of action and its own tools.
• Rehabilitation must be built. Rehabilitation demands thus research and innovation. Technological innovation starts with an understanding of historical knowledge itself as a conceptual, technical and managerial resource to sustainability, progresses with the development of adequate efficient technologies to intervene on the built stock, and demands data, information and precise tools design to evaluate and monitor its evolution.
• An appropriate social and political agreement is required. With innovation mostly in management, with new actors and a multi disciplinary approach to engage the various professionals involved, a participative management in demand of new legislative and financial scenarios, and a appropriate social and political agreement to support them is required.

More information can be found here,

http://www.sb10mad.com/en

Proceedings,

http://www.sb10mad.com/ponencias/ (available in Spanish only)

15th November

In order to enrich the content of the conference website, we are opening a new section that will include highlights of recent initiatives worldwide towards a more sustainable built environment, sent by a group of volunteer reporters from around the world and presented in the form of short reports on interesting events, research projects, case studies, achievements, etc. generated in their home countries.

The initiatives highlighted shall be linked with the topics of the conference and will allow to have a quick panorama of what is happening internationally, and therefore to what can be shared and discussed during SB11 Helsinki World Sustainable Building Conference.

If you are interested in becoming a reporter for your country, please contact us at SB11Secretariat@vtt.fi

For more information, please go to link

25th October

Abstract submission deadline is extended until 7th November

Click here for instructions how to submit an abstract.

28th September

If you haven't submitted an abstract yet, now is the time! There is less than four weeks time left to submit. Download here the call for papers leaflet or click here to find out how to submit an abstract

28th September

During the SB10 Finland Conference SB11 Organization had several meetings. Here are few pictures of the meetings. More pictures can be found at SB10 Finaldn Conference website www.sb10.fi

EMG meeting on 22nd September

Local Organizing Committee had a meeting with Greg Foliente (Chair of ISC SB08 Melbourne) on 24th September

Carmen Antuña and Greg Foliente visiting Helsinki Exhibition and Convention Centre on 25th September

2nd August

As part of the programme of activities attached to SB11 Helsinki, we are launching an International Student Competition aimed at the sustainable urban regeneration and development of the Suvela area in Espoo, Finland.

SB11 Helsinki intends to carry even further the high standards set by the previous SB08 Melbourne by getting more countries involved, and increasing the technical quality of the conference contents. This objective goes hand in hand with the desire to channel the participation of students from around the world by contributing their fresh ideas and proposals to a more sustainable city of the future, and linking them with the main themes of the conference.

Therefore we are making the 1st Announcement now so that the multidisciplinary teams interested in participating can start to get assembled. A 2nd Announcement will be made in the autumn and the current information will be fully updated.

We are looking forward to receiving the contribution of young generations to SB11 Helsinki!

Download here the 1st announcement for the student competition.

24th June

Conference office is closed from 24th June to 1st August.
Organizers want to wish you all a great summer.

22nd June 2010

Call For Papers leaflet has been published. Click here to download the leaflet.

17th June 2010

The theme of Portugal SB10 was Affordable to All. It focused in Low Cost sustainable technical solutions in Algarve, on 17-19 March. 45% of 220 participants travelled to Portugal to hear 80 presentations covering the main topics of

• Policies to low cost sustainable construction
• Low cost sustainable building solutions
• High performance sustainable building solutions
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Case-studies.

The main conclusions were that

• the increasing impact of buildings on sustainability makes it vital that means of assessment of sustainability are developed
• climate change is one of the forces pressing us to alter our present dynamic of increasing consumption and waste
• making things less bad is not enough – more ambitious aims will be more effective
• goals such as near zero energy consumption are possible and desirable
• we must go beyond just being green and alter the paradigm on which our economy rests
• change must involve all the actors in the business of building and a reassessment of the basis of property value
• there is a will to shift to a sustainable way of living, starting with our buildings
• the increasingly higher expectation of sustainability drive the need to share examples, perspectives and approaches
• better incentives, including tax measures, are needed to encourage realistically affordable sustainable building
• environmental performance has to be considered concurrently with the other aspects of building that affect sustainability.

SB10 Algarve: Affordable to All.

For more info, see

http://heyblom.websites.xs4all.nl/website/newsletter/1004/algarve_report.pdf

11th June 2010

The first SB10 Regional Conference was held 23-26 February 2010 in Seoul, Korea. Approximately 150 papers from 13 countries were presented in three symposia: Sustainable Education, Sustainable Super Tall Building and Sustainable Evaluation. Prof. Ronald Rovers emphasized that the new starting point has to be education to achieve a sustainable environment and commented that the world is now working for zero impact on environment, energy consumption and climate changes. Dr. Sungwoo Shin said the super tall building is an essential part of new urban areas and the sustainable tall building needs to be considered as an alternative in the evolution of the eco-city. Mr. Nils Larsson stated it is very important to develop the future assessment system to take account of regional and urban issues.

Andrea Moro, Ronald Rovers and Sungwoo Shin in SB10 SEOUL.

For more info, see http://heyblom.websites.xs4all.nl/website/newsletter/1004/seoul_report.pdf

7th June 2010

Abstract submission for the SB11 Conference is now open! To find out more click here

2nd June 2010

Exhibition and sponsorship information leaflet has been published. Detailed exhibition floor plan has been published. Click here to find more information.

1st June 2010

A news column will start in the SB11 website in June 2010.
It will update weekly, if not daily, the progress of the SB11 Helsinki World Conference preparations until October 2011.