Tag Archives: @greenbuildexpo

When a wall is looking this good you’ve got to love it!

Amidst grand sustainability strategies, the upcoming virtual green build expo and the recent corporate green build events, its sometimes easy to overlook the core basics of good green sustainable construction. I was reminded of this just this week by the nice people at Greenstone in Todmodoren, with an email and invite for their straw bale and cob building and courses this summer.

When introducing Living Building Challenge (as I did this week at the Lancs Construction Best Practice Clubs Earthday event and at GreenBuild EXPO) I love introducing concepts of biophilia to people, as often it’s new, an area not on most construction people’s sustainability radar at the moment. It’s a point in the presentations where people always come alive, ask questions and jot down the references to E.O.Wilson or Last Child in the Woods.

However, in addition to biophilic aspects in design that create better, healthier buildings to live or work in, and indeed in addition to applying biophilic considerations for temporary site accommodation, we need to understand better and promote biophilia in construction, working with natural materials that not only have no health hazards, possibly have health benefits, give real joy and satisfaction in construction as well as all the good local and community benefits.

 

Greenstone are running a series of self-contained green building courses, led by the wonderful Emma Appleton, with a focus on Straw Bale and Cob Building as part of building a new straw bale classroom at a local school in Todmorden. Courses are running in July and August, for more information contact info@greenstone-design.co.uk or check out the twitter accounts for GreenStone and Emma

Now I need to find the space in my diary and try to get to one of these courses!

Be2Camp at Green Build Expo

Social Media meets Sustainability – From Mindfulness to Oculus Rift 

logoBe2camp returns to Green Build Expo in Manchester this May – this time on the main arena stage with probably the best yet line up of social media meets sustainability shorts. Below is our exciting agenda for the afternoon, but as with all things be2camp a degree of flexibility and ‘unconference’ is to be expected!

Join us from 13.30 on the 7th May and be sure to Register with Green Build Expo here

gbe13.30 Welcome, Introduction and Be2Camp Sustainability Manifesto. Martin Brown, Fairsnape @fairsnape

13.40 Your brain as your best renewable building material. Anne Parker @BrainyToolBox

13.50 Social Sharing in a Circular Economy Alex Whitcroft, &Share @alexwhitcroft

5 Min Break

14.05 Sustainability Event sharing across social media, Claire Bowles, Green Vision @lsigreenvision

14:15 Construction Carbons Vassos Chrysostomou, ConstructCO2 @constructco2

14:25 Social Studio, Collaborative Learning for Sustainable Futures, Jenni Barrett UCLAN @cloud_meme

14.35 Scissors, Tweets, Stone: social media the new paper? Claire Thirlwall, Thirwall Associates @thirlwallassoc

5 min Break

14:50 A census of sensors – Internet of things, Mike King Innovys

15:00 Immersive Environments – The Social Building Model, David Burden, DADEN @davidburden

15:10 Immersive BIM – Through the Looking Glass, Vin Sumner Clicks & Links @vinsumner

15:20 BE2 and the Be2Awards 2014 Martin Brown, Be2Camp @be2camp

You can follow and engage with us during the session on twitter using the #be2campgbe hashtag. And as usual a live stream feed live on the be2camp pages.

Other, related,  Green Build Expo sessions of note on the 7th May

10.45 I will be Introducing the Living Building Challenge with Claire Bowles at Green Vision in the Yellow Seminar.

13.00 Claire is in the Blue Seminar Room talking Healthy Buildings with Skanska.

Its going to be a great day, so do join us.

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Can social media drive built environment sustainability?

2 Replies

Can social media drive built environment sustainability?

Over the last few weeks I have been working with Ryan at the Construction Network and the team at Sustainability Now on an exciting project to bring social media discussions into the free to attend virtual online Sustainability Now event on the 9th and 10th November

There are two main linked themes to this initiative, a unique sustainability social media ‘list’ and an online social media lounge

The listing, in collaboration with Peerindex ranks UK sustainability twitter users on authority in sustainability and is derived from other lists recently curated by the Construction Network (eg Architecture with Su Butcher and Built Environment Paul Wilkinson for example). It includes all aspects of the built environment from civil engineering to FM to PR to architecture to products to construction and more.

Being ranked on authority in sustainability we will see some surprises when the list is launched at midday during the show. Those with low a Peerindex score, or low activity may well see themselves quite high on authority listing, whereas those with very high activity or Peerindex scores may not rank in the top 100 at all.  Quality not quantity perhaps?

Peerindex describe authority as the measure of trust; calculating how much others rely on your recommendations and opinion in (sustainability), and is one component of the overall PI score. ie, it is where people will go for sustainability information on twitter (At least to UK sources, we may well expand to a global list next time)

The second exciting initiative is the social media lounge. Over the two days of the show a number of social media practitioners and advocates will be in a virtual lounge discussing the use of social media in the built environment, and in particular how it can be used to drive sustainability.

Those in the lounge will include @gb_news and @greenbuildexpo, @EEPaul @CKEgroup, @SuButcher @KirstieColledge @priteshpatel9 @KLHSustain @carinawtweets, @DIEMltd.

Amanda Jones @Peerindex will also be online to answer questions on the sustainability list, alongside myself and Ryan (@fairsnape and @ryanbriggstcn)

For more background information see:

Sustainability Now Registration Page

Social Media Lounge Residents 

Sponsors and Supporters 

 

 

Green Build News Article