Update on SB conferences and SBE 2017

The last series of national and regional SB Conferences has recently concluded with sixteen SB13 events. The World SB14 Barcelona Conference, www.wsb14barcelona.org will take place on 28 to 30 October 2014 and promises to achieve an even higher profile.

The next cycle of conferences will consist of national or regional events in 2016, followed by a global conference in 2017. For this cycle, the international co-promoters (CIB, iiSBE, UNEP-SBCI and FIDIC) have decided that a more appropriate title for the series is Sustainable Built Environment (SBE), rather than the Sustainable Building title used so far. This shift is a more appropriate reflection of the fact that we wish to cover small urban issues as well as building-scale concerns.

The international partners also decided to invite representatives of current and previous SB global events to take part in a Panel of Advisors. The group includes Emilio Mite, for WSB14, Pekka Huovila for SB11 Helsinki, Greg Foliente for SB08 Melbourne, Shuzo Murakami for Tokyo SB05 and Trine Dyrstad Pettersen SB02 Oslo, and Ronald Rovers for SB2000 Maastricht. This group of highly experienced organizers are expected to provide valuable advice on organizational issues over the next several years. A teleconference meeting is expected to be held on 24 June, to discuss SBE16 and SBE17 issues.

Six expressions of interest were received for SBE17, from Cairo, Edinburgh, Hong Kong, Juiz de Fora (Brazil), Singapore and Toronto -- a well-distributed range of responses. All six proponents were invited to submit a detailed proposal before 30 May. The selected proposal will be publicly announced at the Barcelona World Sustainable Building Conference during 28-30 October 2014.

For further information, contact the series coordinator Nils Larsson larsson@iisbe.org