iiSBE Annual General Meeting is coming up

Submitted by nlarsson on Sat, 08/17/2013 - 17:34

The iiSBE Annual General Meeting (AGM) will take place in conjunction with the SB13 event in Graz (Austria) starting at 13:30 on 25 September. In addition to the election of new Directors, there will be discussion of progress in the SB conference series, detailed presentation on plans for the SB Challenge project for 2014, and a discussion of strategic issues, led by Greg Foliente. The AGM will be chaired by Luis Braganza, President of iiSBE.

Please note that iiSBE members are eligible for a 40 Euro discount on the SB13 Graz registration fees.

Annex 57 meets

Submitted by nlarsson on Fri, 08/09/2013 - 16:34

The IEA Annex 57 research group on “Evaluation of Embodied Energy and Carbon Dioxide Emissions for Building Construction” was held on 22nd and 23rd April in Munich, Germany. This was the second meeting of the working phase of this group, which held a previous meeting in Cambridge in October 2012, as well as two preparatory meetings in Helsinki in 2011 and in Porto in May 2012. The group includes 29 participants from 17 countries.

Open House meets in Brussels

Submitted by nlarsson on Fri, 08/09/2013 - 16:10

On Thursday, 25 July, we attended the Brussels Launch Event for the Open House (OH) project.

As stated by the OH steering group… the OPEN HOUSE project aims to merge existing methodologies for sustainability assessment of buildings towards a common view. With the aim of being widely adopted in Europe, the OPEN HOUSE methodology is developed in a fully transparent, collective and open process, with extensive communication and interaction between all stakeholders.

The small Brussels workshop event marked the successful completion of this project, which is of considerable interest from technical, process and market viewpoints. The many actors in this field range from essentially commercial systems such as BREEAM, DGNB, HQE and LEED; to NGOs with a permanent interest in the area but no specific system; and finally to government-funded research groups set up to encourage the development of a common model of building performance assessment within a defined time frame.

SB Conference series wins CIB award

Submitted by nlarsson on Fri, 08/09/2013 - 15:11

At the CIB World Building Congress, held during 5-6 May in Brisbane Australia, the Triennial CIB Construction & Society Award was awarded for the first time, and the SB Conference series was the recipient. The four international promoters of the series are CIB, iiSBE, UNEP-SBCI and FIDIC.
The award citation states that … the SB Conference series embodies everything that the CIB aims to achieve in promoting research and innovation that is to the benefit of society...

Accepting the award

The award was accepted on behalf the international partners by Chrisna du Plessis (South Africa) and Vanessa Gomes (Brazil).

SB13 conference series is underway

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 08/09/2013 - 14:59

The ambitious program of 2013 SB national conferences – 16 in all – is now well underway. The series is sponsored by CIB, iiSBE, UNEP-SBCI and FIDIC. So far, the events in Munich, Oulu, Vancouver, Colombo, California, Prague, Coventry and Seoul have all taken place according to schedule, and your Editor has attended two events so far, Munich and Prague. Both were very well organized and both featured a preliminary special day for Young Researchers. Emilio Mitre, coordinator of the SB13 events, has attended all except for Vancouver so far, and he will provide his impressions when he returns from holidays.