With a former president topping the roster of speakers, 20,000 attendees and nearly 100 educational sessions, the sixth-annual Greenbuild, which launched yesterday at McCormick Place, felt less like an environmental love-in than a paean to economic progress.
Making green building economically viable is a major goal of the US Green Building Council, which organized the three-day conference and expo, and it was a central theme of former President Bill Clinton's remarks yesterday morning at the conference kick-off (watch the video here).
Good strides have been made in our awareness about climate change, Clinton told the crowd that packed the Skyline Ballroom at McCormick Place.
"The sale's been made - otherwise Al wouldn't have gotten the Nobel Prize," he said. "But now what we have to do is figure out how to operationalize this…to prove this is not a big bottle of castor oil we're being asked to drink. This is the greatest economic opportunity that our country has had to mobilize and democratize (small "d") economic opportunity since we mobilized for World War II."
Earlier that morning Clinton and Mayor Daley announced a plan to retrofit several Chicago buildings, including the Merchandise mart and the Sears Tower, in order to make them more energy efficient. The Clinton Foundation in May announced a plan to green existing commercial buildings in a way that contributes to their fiscal health.
That spirit of entrepreneurship was in the air yesterday at Greenbuild's exhibit hall, packed with vendors' booths hawking a plethora of green goods.
An elaborate set-up by Mohawk Industries touted the benefits of the company's recycled flooring, including carpet for residential buildings made from corn polymer. Toto, the manufacturer of plumbing products, showed off low-flow faucets and dual-flush toilets, among other items. Other products were farther from the beaten track.
A company called Renewed Materials LLC uses post-industrial scrap waste to produce its Alkemi countertops, which look like metallic ribbons bunched together and trapped under a clear synthetic surface.
I wandered through the booths munching on a pretzel. When I was done with it, I found a bank of trash and recycling bins, alongside a poster telling me what kind of waste belonged where. It took me a few seconds to figure it out, long enough that a friendly Greenbuild staffer spotted my confusion and came to my aid. Although I recycle at home, it made me realize how thoughtlessly I throw things away in public places - a small-scale object lesson in the kind of everyday changes going green requires.
