European Network Meeting
The Europe Regional Network is a coalition of Green Building Councils (GBCs) around Europe that work together in their common mission to shift the market to green building practices. Together they become more that the sum of their parts in furthering policy and education initiatives and building capacity within the European Region.
The European Region holds both great opportunities but also significant challenges due to its geographic and cultural diversity, and the wide range of practice with regards to green building.
The development of the Europe Regional Network has been gradual and
organic, arising from networking and communications between various GBCs
in Europe. The UKGBC and German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB), as
the first Established GBCs in the region, began looking forward at the
opportunities of bringing influence on the European region scale.
Meanwhile, other GBCs in the region (at various stages of development)
began networking in order to learn from one another’s successes and
challenges.
As at May 2010 the region is made up of 27 GBCs at various levels of
development- bringing significant strength, representation and potential
for driving the green building agenda from a regional scale.
Meetings
The Europe Regional Network meetings are paired with GBC conferences.
- 2009 Consense Conference in Stuttgart
The initial discussions around developing a Europe Regional Network began at the 2009 Consense Conference in Stuttgart, which was attended by several GBC groups. At this point in time a pilot network model was introduced in the Asia Pacific Region.
- 2010 Build Green CEE Conference in Budapest
The next official Europe Regional Network meeting was held at the Build Green CEE Conference in Budapest (April 2010) where discussions around the needs of (and possible structure for) the Network yielded three main areas of focus: Capacity Building, Education and Policy. Tapping in to the resources currently available it was agreed that the European Network would have a coordinator, a Policy Taskforce, an Education Taskforce and a possible Steering Committee in the future. Here some more information
- 2010 Consense Conference in Stuttgart
The third Europe Regional Network Meeting took place at the 2010 Consense Conference in Stuttgart (June 23-24th). This meeting held very positive results in further developing the network into a strong coalition of GBCs focused on supporting one another's initiatives while coming together to further the green building agenda within the region. Here some more information
- 2010 SAIE International Building Exhibition in Bologna, Italy
The latest Europe Regional Network Meeting will take place at the SAIE 2010 in Bologna on October 26th. This meeting has the aim to review key actions of the last meeting, to introduce possible sponsors for supporting the Network, to discuss common challenges of the GBCs partners on Policy and “Green Building” Education Programs across Europe. - 2011 ECOBUILD in London, UK
The next Europe Regional Network Meeting will be organized by the UKGBC in London on March 4th, 2011 in line with the ECOBUILD, the world's biggest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment. One of the most important aims of this meeting is to organize a workshop to discuss about the Network strategy.