Extensive exhibition featuring more than 1,500 world-leading organisations
Free to attend comprehensive educational programme featuring high profile politicians, cutting edge industry experts and renowned commentators
Ecobuild, the world’s leading event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment brought together more than 57,000 industry professionals from 20-22 March 2012 at London’s ExCeL. Over the three days visitors explored the products, services and innovations from more than 1,500 exhibitors including world-renowned organisations, Schueco, E.ON, Saint-Gobain, BASF, Kingspan, Vaillant, and Worcester Bosch. In addition to the industry’s heavy-weights, visitors were also able to explore up and coming companies in the exclusive entrepreneur’s zone, Green Shoots.
Running alongside the extensive exhibition, visitors were able to attend more than 130 free of charge conference and seminar sessions featuring a host of high profile politicians, cutting edge industry experts and renowned commentators. Well known names on the programme included: Jack Straw, Michael Portillo, Kevin McCloud, Monty Don, Janet Street Porter, Alan Johnson, Jonathan Dimbleby, Mark Prisk MP and Sir John Armitt. The success of the comprehensive education programme was clearly evident with many sessions having standing room only.
James Blue, portfolio director, Ecobuild says: “Ecobuild has proved once again that it’s the meeting place for the sustainable built environment community. Ecobuild is about sharing ideas and best practice, sparking debate and discussion and learning about the most current regulations and legislation. The event could not have come at a more critical time for the built environment sector.”
Ecobuild’s feature-rich show floor meant that visitors were able to gain vital information, advice and practical experience across a number of areas. The Practical Installer feature provided live demonstrations designed to help installers take advantage of the growing demand for micro-renewable technologies whilst Renewable Heat Focus illustrated the practical and financial benefits of the Renewable Heat Incentive to the marketplace. The Biodiversity Pavilion featured a series of practical talks and demonstrations to help designers and planners incorporate biodiversity and meet new regulations whilst Fabric First helped visitors understand how building fabric improvements can interface with each other to achieve theoretical performance levels on site. Solar Hub showcased a range of solar innovative systems and Renew gave practical advice on achieving one of the most important aspects of achieving an energy efficient building, a highly insulated, air-tight building envelope.
UBM, the new owner of Ecobuild is looking to further develop and enhance the event to ensure it maintains, and grows on, its position as the must-attend event for everyone in the sustainable design, construction and built environment industry. UBM already has a strong stable of products within the built environment including the leading brands, Building, Property Week and BD as well as RESI, Building Future Education and Sleep Europe. Blue says: “Our experience and existing products within the built environment mean that we’re in a strong position to grow Ecobuild and to continue to provide the industry with an event which encourages debate, discussion and innovation.”
Ecobuild 2012 was hailed a success by visitors and exhibitors alike.
Rebecca Cope, marketing manager at Reynaers says: “We’ve seen a significant increase in the number of visitors to our stand from last year and certainly more architects and contractors, a key target market for Reynaers. We’ve already had some really positive project enquiries and the scale and number of live projects being discussed with us as a direct result of Ecobuild seems to have increased considerably versus last year.”
Deborah Bird from Schueco says: "Ecobuild 2012 was a vibrant event and we were delighted to be the lead sponsor. Visitors were good quality and they had a genuine interest in what Schueco had to offer. Constantly evolving, Ecobuild proved to be a must attend event for the entire industry."
Linda Vieira, International Sales Director at Secil Argamassas says: “Whether you are established in the UK market or not, Ecobuild is a must do! Although Secil Argamassas’ presence in the market is still quite recent, we soon felt the need to be in what is the largest construction show in the UK. We are focused in R&D for the sustainable construction market, which is growing rapidly each year all over Europe. Therefore, it made sense to be at Ecobuild. This event has allowed us to experience, first hand, the market needs and the huge potential of green materials. There is a growing environmental awareness, increasingly better informed. The British consumer is more and more concerned with energy efficiency issues, but also with the impact and sustainability of the materials used in the construction of their homes. Ecobuild has allowed us to retrieve valuable information that will allow to better plan for sustainable growth in the UK Market.”
