The World Green Building Council celebrated its 20th anniversary in grand fashion by hosting the ‘WorldGBC+20: Leadership Summit for Sustainable Built Environments’ in London recently.
“Launched in 2002 as a network of five Green Building Councils (GBCs) with one mission, the network today stands at over 70 GBCs and its leaders from every corner of the world,” Cristina Gamboa, CEO, WorldGBC, said in a release.
“I am proud to stand on the shoulders of the green building giants — our GBCs, the members of GBCs, our past and present board members, our partners and staff. It is a collective effort, and it’s our collaboration that has driven our success. It is my privilege to serve this movement in such a critical time. Although this is a time to celebrate, it’s also time for a reality check,” she said.
As part of London Climate Action Week 2022, Green Building Councils from all over the globe connected with their fellow change-makers, discovering new solutions and celebrating 20 years of accomplishments across the WorldGBC network.
During the event, the Cambodia Green Building Council (CamGBC) made its official entry into the powerful WGBC fraternity. The summit brought together leaders and special industry guests from across the WorldGBC network.
Meetings and brainstorming sessions were held throughout the week, including a WorldGBC+20 Global Solutions Forum for Accelerating decarbonised and sustainable built environments, a Member´s Day that celebrates 20 years of WorldGBC and the Accelerating Impact: Regions & Global programmes Day.
The highlight of the week was the gala dinner at the Helix Bar on the highest floor of The Gherkin.
CamGBC was represented by one of its founding members, Bernard Sagaiyaraj, who owns the Blue Snow Energy Co Ltd, a green building consulting practice in Phnom Penh.
Speaking about the experience, Sagaiyaraj told Khmer Times, “The entire four days focused on solutions available now to scale up sustainability in the built environment worldwide and keep the 1.5°C scenarios within reach. CamGBC is now also officially part of the WGBC Asia Pacific Network (APN) which includes the GBCs of India, China, Asean, Australia and New Zealand.”
He said the APN held a separate session to regionalise global trends and opportunities and proliferate green building growth programmes within their own country GBCs as well as network with older APN GBCs to shorten the learning curve in mainstreaming green building in newer countries like Cambodia.
All working sessions were held at The Hub, Foster + Partners, Riverside and at Arup’s Headquarters at Charlotte St.
CamGBC brings green building practices to the Asia Pacific region, which is home to 60 percent of the world’s population, with more than two billion living in urban areas.
The vision of the CamGBC is that buildings and communities will cogenerate sustainability, health, and prosperity for the current and future generations. The greater mission is to transform how Cambodian buildings are designed, built, and operated to reach the Kingdom’s Net Zero Ambitions, an official said.
WorldGBC said in a statement that it defines Prospective Green Building Council (GBC) membership as bringing together key representatives from different parts of the building sector within a country and creating a founding group, who will initially lead the design and implementation of the GBC’s governance and business plan.
- Tags: GBCs, World Green Building Council