Greenbuild 2008

Well, we did it. Greenbuild 2008 is over, and it was a success! The Greenbuild International Conference & Expo is our annual green building industry trade show, and this year it was in Boston. It was my first visit to Boston. We got there Sunday afternoon and were there until Friday afternoon, and every day I was in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center from as early as 4:30 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m., but there was still a little time out on the town - mostly just for dinner and then early to bed. So I can't really say I've seen a lot of Boston, but what I did see was fantastic.

The U.S. Green Building Council (my employer) has hosted Greenbuild since 2002, when there were about 4,000 attendees. This year, we had more than 28,000. More than 850 companies and organizations exhibited on the HUGE expo floor, showing some of the coolest, latest and greatest in green building technologies and products. We had more than 100 educational sessions, an opening plenary session keynoted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, our first-ever Green Homebuilder's Day with Kevin O'Connor from This Old House and tons of excitement. Working a show is a lot different from attending one – I didn't actually get to see any of the education sessions or plenaries, though I will watch the plenaries online later – but I did get to hang out with Steve Thomas from Planet Green's Renovation Nation and help him find cool stuff to film for an upcoming episode. I saw the kids from Greensburg, the show about a small town in Kansas that was destroyed by a tornado and is now rebuilding the whole town green. I talked on the phone with Kevin O'Connor. :) I hung out in the press room and had some awesome dinners and had a blast with coworkers. Greenbuild is exhausting but really exciting.

I was too busy to even get any photos, so I had to steal a few from a coworker's Facebook. First, this gives you a tiny idea of what the exhibit floor looked like. Seriously, HUGE:



And here's the Leadership Awards party at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, a big party the last night of Greenbuild where we celebrate the winners of our annual Leadership Awards. It's a really great way to unwind after a long week: