Alistair Gould, social entrepreneur behind the award-winning sustainable conference and events centre - The Pines Calyx, near Dover, will tell delegates to the next Sustainability Explored workshop (September 10th) that they aren’t doing enough to ready themselves for the challenge of meeting new building codes which become mandatory in some sectors within five years.
“Zero Carbon homes can’t be built by the majority of companies because the technologies, techniques and skills required are not those they currently use. There is a major need to upskill the construction workforce” he said. “Architects, designers and planners also need to appreciate that low and zero-carbon homes require a different approach and way of thinking”.
Sustainability Explored, a series of workshops sponsored by English Partnerships and The Carbon Free Group, includes cutting edge briefings from some of the leading practitioners in the field who are already highly experienced in sustainable building. The workshops are being held at the Pines Calyx conference and events centre at St. Margaret’s Bay in Kent. It is the UK’s most sustainable conference and events centre and has a growing reputation as a hub for environmental businesses. The workshops are aimed at all professionals in planning, housing, design and building.
“Developers keep saying that zero carbon homes are expensive to build, yet we can prove they are wrong and we’ll be featuring a design which will cost only £1100 a square metre, only marginally more costly than a conventional house today. And we’ll be telling people how that can be done” says Jae Mather of the Carbon Free Group, who is leading the event series. “There have been a lot of developments in the way people think about building low carbon and sustainable buildings, particularly homes” says Alistair Gould. “Our own building is a great example, but there is a pressing need for the whole building industry to really understand what is involved.”
The idea for the workshops came from members of the Carbon Free Group of environmental businesses who are working together to apply low carbon building techniques. They recognise that to construct energy efficient buildings, the whole industry needs to change and understand how to use new technologies and techniques. The biggest challenge of all is to meet new building standards which mean every new home built by the public sector will have to be a ‘zero carbon home’ in just five years time. 
“These are exciting times, but also in some ways confusing with new regulations, new designs, new technologies” Alistair observed. “So far the mainstream industry has been very slow in changing, but the pace of change is going to accelerate in the coming years. We are giving people a chance to get up to speed.”
The first of the series on ‘Green Roofs Explored’ was enthusiastically received by delegates and three more events are taking place this autumn. The thematic events include:
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Zero Carbon Homes (Sepember 10th),
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Sustainable Communities (October 8th & 9th)
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Low Carbon Solutions and Technologies (November 5th).
Each workshop costs £95 per day and places can be booked at www.sustainabilityexplored.co.uk
