Changes for Greenbuild Boston

The Greenbuild International Conference & Expo has experienced tremendous growth since its inception in 2002. If you were with us last year in Chicago, you saw firsthand the overflowing crowds at President Clinton’s opening plenary session, many of the educational sessions, and at the registration desk. We were thrilled that so many people chose to spend those days with us, but we shared your frustration over the long lines and many sold out sessions. For this year’s Greenbuild in Boston, conference organizers will make wholesale changes that will create a smoother, more predictable, and richer experience.

Among those changes are:

* Self-service kiosks for session and conference registration
* Ticketless entry to events—your name badge is all you need
* More room, including 50% more exhibit space, additional educational session space, and more registration counters
* Access to the plenary sessions, expo hall, opening reception, and leadership awards for all full conference attendees
* Pre-registration for educational sessions—more than 100 in all.

The attendance at last year’s Greenbuild in Chicago (22,726 people) was a nearly 75% increase over Greenbuild 2006 in Denver. While we had experienced steady annual growth at Greenbuild, even we were in awe of the numbers of people who came to Chicago. At the time, USGBC president and CEO Rick Fedrizzi compared Greenbuild 2007 to Woodstock, when the fences came down and the stream of people never stopped. Although that was tremendously exciting, it was also a sign that the time had come to rethink Greenbuild for Boston.

This year, Greenbuild attendees will have the entire Boston Convention and Exhibition Center to themselves. There will be more breakout rooms than ever for Greenbuild’s educational sessions and the General Session Hall is designated to accommodate all full conference attendees. The exhibition hall will be 50% larger, with more than 300,000 sq. ft of exhibition space—enough to comfortably hold the conference’s more than 1,400 booths showcasing leading-edge green products, processes, and technologies. Responding to attendee survey results, the Greenbuild agenda will also feature longer breaks for exploring the exhibit hall.

You’ll also want to use those breaks to plan your educational sessions. The sessions have been selected through a peer-review process from among more than 1,000 abstracts. The results include new session tracks and Master Speaker presentations on topics including green venture investing, planning for the impacts of climate change regulation on real estate valuation, and a new educational track entitled “People Power” that examines topics such as diversity, affordability, and green building in the developing world. For the first time, you will be able to reserve a seat for all sessions and see the speakers you most want to see. Pre-registration is now open.

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