Budapest hosts the 2nd Build Green CEE event
By Nathan Johnson
ALL EARS: Participants gather inside the awe-inspiring Hungarian Academy of Sciences for the Build Green CEE plenary session. Photo: Davin EllicsonApproximately 200 people gathered in the Hungarian capital of Budapest during April 15-16 to take part in the second edition of Build Green Central & Eastern Europe. Green Building Council representatives from around the world attended the event, as did a number of architects, academics, students, urban planners, members of the media and green-building enthusiasts. The goals of this regionally focused event, according to Build Green CEE's post-event press release were to "share knowledge about market opportunities to build green, important legislation, fiscal incentives, building and professional certification initiatives and innovative materials and solutions specific to green building."
The World Green Building Council has 20 'established' members worldwide. There are, however, 14 Green Building Council's active throughout Europe at various stages of development. Much of the 'GB' growth momentum comes from Central and Eastern Europe, and the Budapest event featured eight speakers from seven countries in the CEE region. According to the World Green Building Council website: "[We are] rapidly building an international coalition that represents the entire global construction industry. Collectively, these nations represent 50 percent of global construction activity, and [our] councils touch more than 10,000 companies and organizations."
Building momentum
The venue for day one's busy plenary session was the venerable Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Steven Borncamp, president of the Romania Green Building Council and panel discussion moderator, introduced the session by saying that the green building trends will bring "benefits too numerous to mention." The following speaker, Jerry Yudelson, a prolific author and founder of Tuscon, Arizona-based Yudelson Associates, claimed that "green building is here to stay," adding that it will result in "a virtuous cycle."
Yudelson argues that, with the right kind of thinking and planning, builders can "do green on a conventional budget," and that green building today is less a question about pure economics than it is about financing. "It's not a question of 'Is it a good idea?' he says. "It's rather, 'How do I pay for it?'" Regarding green office building construction, Yudelson makes the case that a more comfortable office space and work environment results greater employee satisfaction, enhanced productivity and lower turnover rates.
A concept that was introduced very early on in the panel discussions, starting with Yudelson, was that of 'green building certification' and the variety of certification systems in place around the world. While the LEED and BREEAM systems predominate in the US and UK, respectively, other countries in Europe have either developed their own systems (such as Germany's DGNB), or are adopting other systems, sometimes in combination.
Regarding certification, the World GBC "supports the adoption and ongoing development of market-based green building transformation systems systems that meet local needs for each country ... [and] does not promote any particular system or methodology as a global standard."
For those unfamiliar with these certification methods, they are basically rating systems that focus on various aspects of building design and life-cycle performance. The LEED system, for example, comprises six primary categories: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation and design process.[1]
Taking the floor
The following eight speakers from seven countries[2] were on hand to deliver presentations on their respective Green Building Councils: Agnes Vorbrodt-Schurma (Poland), Steven Borncamp (Romania), Imola Frei (Hungary), Ira Rubenstein (Czech Republic), Erin Inglish (Croatia), Duygu Erten (Turkey), and Kiril Velitchkov and Ward Miller (Bulgaria). Each presented a different 'situation on the ground' as far as green building developments are concerned, and also offered varying degrees of emphasis on new constructions and the built environment, and on commercial interest and public benefit.
Some highlights: Agnes Vorbrodt-Schurma described Poland's Green Building Council as having enjoyed robust growth in membership since its establishment in 2006. She pointed also to the fact that Poland has been the only country in the region to enjoy GDP growth since the economic downturn, which has provided an additional boost. Poland currently uses both the LEED and BREEAM rating systems.
While Romania GBC is reaching out to media as a point of reference to stir 'fragmented interested' in green building, the government hopes to achieve a 13.5 percent reduction in energy consumption by 2016. Steven Borncamp from Romania GBC referred to what is known as a 'sandwich approach' towards green building initiatives; that is, a mixture of top-down and bottom-up efforts. Borncamp pointed out that there is currently a shortage of qualified energy auditors in Romania.
The Hungarian Green Building Council was legally registered in January 2009, and now has six members and three sponsors, said Imola Frei, adding that Hungary also needs to build professional capacity. One of the country's concerns is a high percentage of vacant office space. Of new office space, 90 percent sits unoccupied, and the national rate for all office space in Hungary is 21.9 percent, compared to 16 percent in Romania, 11.6 percent in the Czech Republic, and just 7.3 percent in Poland.
Going 'retro'
In a compelling presentation, Diana Uerge-Vorsatz, professor and director of Central European University's PhD Programme for Environmental Sciences and Policy, shifted the emphasis away from new constructions and towards the economic and social benefits of greening existing, built environments. "Retrofitting is more important to the developed world," she said.
Properly retrofitted buildings can result in extraordinary reductions in energy use (to 80 percent) and increased energy efficiency (to 60 percent), the professor claimed, which is extremely important in a region where 'fuel poverty' is rife. (Fuel poverty is when home energy costs account for 10.4 percent or higher of disposable income.
Uerge-Vorsatz warns, however, of what is known as the 'lock-in effect', that is, when retrofitting is not carried out comprehensively enough to prove economically or environmentally beneficial over the long term. While it is difficult enough to win over the majority of occupants needed to carry out any kind of retrofitting, it is next to impossible to gather the necessary support to carry out another, more thorough, retrofitting operation just a few years down the road. Those buildings which have been inadequately retrofitted are now unlikely to be improved in the foreseeable future are considered to be 'locked in'.
The CEU professor argues that green building needs to be brought into the mainstream as well as to luxury projects, and that there are ways for national and municipal governments to access EU structural funds to carry out 'deep-energy' retrofit work for "non-sexy options." She adds, however, that where sub-optimal solutions are considered, it is actually "better to do nothing."
Wrapping up
The scene shifted the following day to Central European University, where a number of half-hour workshops, covering a wide range of topics, were offered to participants from 9 am - 1 pm. I managed to take in three: a presentation on nano-materials in construction by German interior architect and author Sylvia Leydecker; a journalist workshop to discuss key issues in sustainable construction, presented by Romania GBC's Steven Borncamp and Raul Cazan from the 2 Celsius Network; and, finally, a presentation from Thomas Kaissl and Ferenc Kis on behalf the WWF's Eastern European Programme Office.
A few days after the event concluded, Green Horizon asked Steven Borncamp a few questions related to Romania GBC's organisational role in Build Green Central and Eastern Europe, and about previous and upcoming events.
Green Horizon: As far as organisation is concerned, what is the relationship of Romania GBC within the GBC Europe and the World GBC? And, how did this event come together, and on whose initiative?
Steven Borncamp: The Romania Green Building Council is a non-profit, non-political organisation founded in Romania. We affiliated to the World Green Building Council and have achieved the status of 'Established Member', meaning a full member of the World GBC federation. We are a strong supporter of a 'European Green Building Council Network' to collaborate closely with existing and newly emerging GBCs in Europe on matters of international, European and national policy.
The Build Green CEE event came together from discussions with leaders of the Romanian, Polish and Hungarian Green Building Councils. In addition, the World Green Building Council indicated their support for including a Europe-wide meeting of Green Building Councils, which we helped facilitate.
GH: How did GBC Romania end up playing a large part in the organizing the Budapest event? And how difficult was it logistically to arrange?
Borncamp: Romania had already organised the first 'Build Green CEE' in Bucharest, and offered to use its format, organising team and relationships with supporting partners to jump-start the process. We asked other Green Building Councils to participate and to inform their memberships and communities to encourage participation.
In addition, one day before the Build Green CEE event, we held an internal meeting of fourteen Green Building Councils and benefited from the support of your colleagues at the REC. We utilised their very green Conference Center in Szentendre, which was, of course, an excellent venue to discuss how to transform the industry toward greener buildings.
GH: Can you share a couple of highlights from the first GB CEE event in Bucharest, and point out some key changes that have taken place since then?
Borncamp: The first event was organised by a private company I had founded. I knew it was more appropriate for the green building cause to have non-profit association of businesses come together to mobilise support, but I was simply unable up to that time to organise this type of association. It was, in fact, at the opening speech of the conference where we invited interested companies to join us in forming the association that would become the Romania Green Building Council.
GH: What's next on the agenda as far as regional events are concerned, and who is likely to commandeer the effort?
Borncamp: The next Build Green CEE event will be in Poland, and we are just now finalising the date. We had a number of people tell us they want to see more of these types of events, and are considering holding them more often as part of other events. Given the speed of growth of interest in green buildings, I believe we will need to focus both on physical events and virtual events to build connections and share knowledge quickly throughout the region.
[1] Krishnan Gowri, 'Green Building Rating Systems: An Overview', ASHRAE Journal, Nov. 2004.
[2] Bulgaria currently has two organisations with similar green/sustainable building objectives: the Bulgarian Green Building Council (BGBC) and Bulgarian Sustainable Building Council (BGSBC). Discussions have taken place to cooperate, but no agreement has yet been reached.
