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Think review part 3 - skills and gender

I mentioned in a previous post that chairing the Think conference sessions was a highlight of the event, if a rather stressful experience. I found the session on skills a really fascinating one. It's an issue that rarely gets that much of an airing and is probably seen by many as a little worthy, but is clearly fairly fundamental to making any significant change in the industry. The session started rather worryingly with the assertion by Gill Taylor from the Academy for Sustainable Communities that the skills gaps the organisation highlighted last year in the landmark Mind the Skills gap report have actually worsened since it was published.

Don't blame OPEC for oil scarcity

I'll say it again. Whatever your climate change questions- is it happening? is it that bad? when will it happen? There are a whole set of other answers about sustainability are coming in. But they are about resource scarcity instead, particularly oil.

In today's FT, Economics columnist, Martin Wolf produces a handy guide to peaking or struggling  oil production for free marketeers.

Think review part 2 - rhetoric to reality?

My mantra for the Think event for this year was rhetoric to reality. It was about showing projects or practices that actually worked. I think we delivered this up to a point. There were some sessions I chaired or attended that either offered proof of the right directions that countries, regions, companies or individual schemes were taking. I'm afraid there were others where you felt the dreaded word greenwash was hovering not too far above. This is where I accept some of the analysis of the event from fellow bloggers Mel and Martin.

Think review part 1 - experience and highlights

I've just come up for air after the marathon that was Think last week. My first involvement proper with an event on this scale and boy was it energy sapping. From meeting and greeting speakers, chairing conference sessions, firefighting when crises emerged, overseeing video and print coverage etc etc. And then to finish it off sit on a platform with the environment secretary, pontificate on policy and sum up all that was discussed and pick holes in his speech on the existing stock. Such was my state at the end Thursday that I subsequently misplaced most of the notes I had made during that day as well as my phone (it was discovered the morning after). My highlights?

Dunster and Egan - the unlikey pair

Two fundamental problems and challenges facing the industry in the past decade. Two figures with wildly different backgrounds and perspectives who come up with eerily similar conclusions. Step forward the unlikely pair - industrialist Sir John Egan and the architect Bill Dunster.

Egan wrote his report, Rethinking Construction, ten years ago and there's a good catch-up on what has, and hasn't, happened since in last Friday's Building.

Last minute thinking

Final preparations for next week's Think 08 event - writing speeches, preparing notes for fellow speakers etc etc. I'll be chairing four sessions at the conference on Wednesday and Thursday at ExCeL, including three discussion panels, which should be challenging. I've been mugging up on the great energy debate, ridding the industry's waste mountain and the skills challenge, no mean feats. All should be good discussions, especially the first and last ones.

The Apprentice wishes you Happy Greenwash Day!

Last night, I belatedly watched the Apprentice on iPlayer, wherein Kevin Shaw, a strange West Country mutant blend of David Brent and Vicky Pollard with a stuttering gaze, was fired for failing to flog his line of eco-themed 'greetings' cards to Celebrations and Clinton Cards. Tesco bought 1,500 - a miniscule, hedging PR investment for one of the UK's most-watched shows: there wouldn't be enough cards to go round if you sent one to each store.

Fashion and sustainability

Today's Guardian profiles Marie Claire editor Marie O'Riordan, who is taking the celebrity tile into a new environmentally conscious direction - this month's edition (it's out later this week) comes in a recyclable brown paper bag, runs interviews with eco-heroes and offers pages of 'guilt-free indulgences'. The piece offers a decent insight into the potential pitfalls of taking on such a challenge, especially when it's for a magazine dedicated to consumption. "I think we're just trying to reflect the reality of our readers' dilemma and confusion. There's not point in us saying 'you have to stop shopping' or 'you have to stop flying'," she says.

A Quiet Revolution in Wimbledon

Friday, was out beyond Wimbledon in Merton, filming the launch of the first ground-mounted Quiet Revolution turbine in London. Various parties, including EDF energy, had donated money to buy the elegant beast to supply energy for a children's theatre on an offbeat developer's market plot. It's another world - both that of filming and of suburban dignitaries. Of the former, as soon as the camera under the elegant Sam Toy,  began 'rolling,' out from the bushes and round corners, emerged thousands of elderly women noisily eating sandwiches and walking backwards into the camera, men dragging and dropping a score of empty, metal office cupboards; birds in the trees began hollering like Janis Joplin and the street became transformed into Silverstone, circa 1937.

Swiss Re's disappearing natural ventilation

Here's a cautionary and probably typical tale for post-occupation. Swiss Re was dubbed "London's first ecological building" when it was completed back in 2003, which would lead to up to 50% less energy use than a traditional office. This was partly down to its natural ventilation system. Martin Spring's revisit in today's Building offers the reality - Richard Stead, the current property services director says such savings are "a bit over-ambitious" as now that the building is multi-lease only one occupant (Swiss Re itself) is using natural ventilation. Why so - maximum comfort, tenants that want confidentiality who put up partitions and a lack of financial incentive in energy savings for firms that are paying top dollar rents for grade-a space.