The 11th annual Greenbuild International Conference & Expo was held Nov. 14-16 in San Francisco, and although final attendance figures were not available this morning, anecdotal reports indicated attendance was well beyond the figure of 23,000 at the 2011 show in Toronto.
The 11th annual Greenbuild International Conference & Expo was held Nov. 14-16 in San Francisco, and although final attendance figures were not available this morning, anecdotal reports indicated attendance was well beyond the figure of 23,000 at the 2011 show in Toronto.
The show kicked off with 7,000 attendees at the opening plenary, which featured MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-hosts Mika Brzezinksi and Joe Scarborough. The pair co-hosted panelists Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J.; George Pataki, former governor of New York; Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter; Gavin Newsom, lieutenant governor of California; David Kohler, president and COO of Kohler Co.; Paul Hawken, environmentalist, entrepreneur and author; and urban revitalization strategist Majora Carter.
This year marked the first time the NWFA officially participated at the show; in an effort to promote the NWFA's Responsible Procurement Program, the Forest Stewardship Council hosted the NWFA at its booth. NWFA CEO Michael Martin noted that while there were a handful of NWFA members at the show, among three exhibit halls of products designed for green building, the representation of wood products was limited.
"Unfortunately, given the friendliness of our products, we are under-represented at the show compared to other industries," Martin said. "There are opportunities here, especially for those companies in our industry that are focused on selling to the commercial market."
During the show, Google announced a $3 million grant supporting the USGBC and green building, and the USGBC announced the launch of its Green Building Information Gateway (GBIG), a web-based tool intended to accelerate innovation by providing greater transparency and understanding "green dimensions of the built environment."
Greenbuild 2013 will be held Nov. 22-22 in Philadelphia.