1. Slow-tech - It’s the title of a book by author Andrew Price. He’s putting forward a philosophy of robustness and efficiency which is more rounded than seeking short-term technological fixes to long term problems - this seems to fit chasing follies such as Code Level Six houses. And he’s arguing our current bunch of solutions are “neurotic” - he offered the example of Formula 1 cars when speaking on Start the Week last month. They last two weeks while ones built int he 1930s are still going now - “we are in an over-wound world trying to do too much too quickly.”
2. Lord Stern - Just listened again to his interview with my new favourite journalist Jarvis Cocker, who edited the Today programme last week. The current economic crisis could slow down our work on the climate crisis “if we let it”. Stern is optimistic - the ideas, technology and will are there for us to act. But we can’t underestimate “how big a challenge” this is. “we need to put together the biggest international collaboration the world has ever seen.”
3. Che Guevera - Perhaps a rather bonkers choice and one made rather hastily after watching the first part of the Steven Soderburg biopic (and not catching the downbeat second instalment where everything goes pear-shaped). What’s that pin-up revolutionary got to teach us? Admittedly this is largely from the film but I’d say instilling belief amongst people, whether you believe this is woefully misdirected or not. And where’s the pin up for environmental change? We haven’t got one yet.
4. The Green New Deal - “Finance will have to start to return to its role as servant, not master, of the global economy.” Timely words.. issued in July, just weeks before everything went tits up. The Green New Deal report is still required reading.
5. “Success is buried in the garden of failure.” Former Yes keyboard player Rock Wakeman in the heartfelt, fascinating and hilarious documentary on Prog Rock Britannia on BBC Four.
6. Clay Shirky - I’m still leafing through Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody. I’d describe him as a social scientist. I think he’s a seer on how all the buzz about new forms of communication can really spell change. I still have yet to see the examples and ideas that he cites becoming a reality in sustainability circles - a Sustainability 2.0 if you like, where the collaboration Shirky claims is on the horizon through new ways of communicating can be harnessed to tackle climate change. Many noble attempts, little real delivery as yet. Perhaps an event like this - the Social Innovation Camp - could spark such action.
7. “There’s a general sense of weirdness - wars which last for ever and are going nowhere, and policies which are nothing but rhetoric… they bear no relation to the facts..” one of many quotable lines from Gethsemane by David Hare, a brilliant expose of New Labour
8. Should we bring back stone to construction? Sculptor Emily Young was put the case for it as a more spiritually inspiring building material on the Saturday Live show on Radio Four. She grew up in Rome and says she is struck by the power of stone buildings in the City of London. “Concrete buildings don’t have that,” she said. Not sure about the sustainability of stone.
9. “Let’s go back to old times, and it will be progress,” Giacome Puccini.

• Practice what I preach - could/can I start an eco-refurbishment this year?
• Keep mucking in - not preaching from on high
• Watch less TV - must avoid Celebrity Big Brother
• Use as many wifi facilities as I can find in central London
• Achieve Sustainability 2.0 (or at least define what it is)
• Read more of Pepys’ diary
• Remember that eating five a day is a minimum not a maximum (thanks to my resolution guru Michelle for this one)
• Get 1,000 sites on the Building Sustainability search engine (890 and counting)
• Make more cakes
• Rediscover philosophy

Any resolutions out there - green or non-green?

So what does Zaha Hadid present us with this morning? Herself, her work and her friends. That pretty much covers it. So there was a report on the Wolfsburg Science Centre (her building), an interview she arranged with (I presume is her friend) designer Karl Langerfeld, reports on Iraq and the Middle East (where she comes from and where she now does a lot of work), a look back at the Architectural Association (which she went to) and to top things off an interview with herself. The topics covered? Architecture, buildings, design - oh and a bit more about architecture. And while there were some interesting ideas discussed there were a few you’ve heard far too many times before, including the chestnut question for Hadid about her lack of completed work on these shores.

I listening to the succession of lectures and lessons from the high priestess of design with a succession of sighs. I’m not one for architectural theory but listening to Archigram member Sir Peter Cook talk about ideas of the profession trying to widen its interests and offering to the public during the show offered a complete counter-point to what Hadid seems to stand for. Her world appears to be a narrow, high-brow one, sounding forth from her beautiful bubble of a flat where she deigned to be interviewed by presenter Sarah Montague. Precious little consideration for outside influences and ideas, which Cocker showed in spades. A very poor advertisement for the architectural profession. It confirms my former impression of Hadid after seeing an exhibition of hers at the Design Museum - great designer, bad architect.

The past few weeks or so has been a bit of a handover period. It’s allowed me to ask a series of questions, both related to how the hell I’m going to tackle a rather daunting challenge, but more importantly where our company and brands need to be going in 2009 and beyond. Here’s a random few to kick things off, and some very early drafts of some answers:

• Am I still a journalist/blogger? Undoubtedly yes. Although my responsibilities are now wider - encompassing technology, sales and marketing - I think that all of these areas flow from content. Driving our sites and digital offerings by what the audience want is a clearly vital and I’m there to try and achieve that.
• What about sustainability? A little thornier a question. It’ subject area that you don’t suddenly lose passion for if you lose if from your job description. A lot of what I will be focused on in my role will still be focused on the green agenda but this blog will not be able to dedicate the same amount of attention on that area. This is not an ideal situation, as the name and raison d’etre of the site was very specific. I’m obviously going to have to monitor the long term sustainability of this blog. Realistically it may have to become a more open one that discusses general areas of interest.
• What about the future? I’ve already been asked this question by colleagues related to the hyperactive world of online. “What’s the next big thing Phil?” they ask, expecting a sage-like response. Unfortunately as yet they get rather a blank stare and faltering reply. I’m reminded of the words of screenwriter William Goldman in his brilliant analysis of the film business Adventures in the Screen Trade- “nobody knows anything.” OK, that might be a tad flippant, but it’s somewhat absurd making predictions, barring that there’s more of it day by day. Knowing how particular audiences will behave, how online will interact with print and live, what will be a fad and what will be here to stay - those are the rather trickier problems. Ones that I will come back to in future posts - either in this blog or in another one.

So change has come — how many end-of-year reviews will be using that phrase? Those of us starting 2008 with grand hopes and visions for the embedding of sustainable design and construction principles in the UK ran into the stark reality of a full blown downturn by the autumn. The debate is still open about how economics will influence sustainability, but in the short term, many in the industry are faced with the reality of projects being pulled outright or having green budgets cut.

Perhaps the ultimate sustainable choice is not to build in the first place — but this is hardly a message that will inspire innovation to find solutions for addressing the energy and water use of new and existing buildings, and the waste produced before, during and after the construction process.

Barring that downbeat thought, I thought I’d offer a brief review of the year in the form of some stand-out projects/people/legislation. So here goes:

• Person of the year: RIBA president Sunand Prasad has taken a significant lead in driving the professions forward, so deserves special mention. However, I thought I’d go outside the architectural profession for this one. Constructing a sustainable building center (the use of the US spelling jars a little) showing renewable technologies and green design principles in practice was a brave step by distributor Wolseley. Most of the garlands for that achievement go to Tim Pollard, the firm’s sustainability director, for having the bloody-minded determination to see the project through.
• Project of the year: It may not be that beautiful, but the new headquarters building of contractor Fitzpatrick delivers on one key element that is woefully lacking in sustainability circles at the minute: data. It has stacks of it, and is a lesson to those who are talking big on sustainability but failing to actually measure it.
• Legislation of the year: Sorry to labour the “real data” point, but it has to be display energy certificates. These actually measure how buildings behave, rather than use the “finger in the air” or “fingers crossed” approaches other pieces of sustainable guidance or legislation seem to operate with.
• Technology of the year: No clear winner in this category. This year was more about discovering which ones definitely did not work (such as micro wind turbines). Will 2009 be about stitching technologies together to serve communities rather than individual projects?
• Hope for 2009? Barack Obama? Using an economic recovery programme to address energy supply and efficiency is sound from the president-elect. Let’s wait for the reality. Closer to home, I see the thinking and practice of BioRegional Quintain and its joint founder, Pooran Desai, becoming more and more influential both here and on the global stage. Desai recently made a plea for a reduction in the bureaucracy surrounding sustainability and called for the government to cut green legislation by 80%. His firm seems to be one of the few that is taking a holistic view of sustainability — from energy through to waste, recycling, reuse, economics and community.

• Serious bit - We ran two live webinars (live seminars). These went smoothly and were pretty well attended but I wonder whether the live element is all that necessary. I think the real strength of these events is the complete flexibility for the audience - they can come in when they want and dip in for however long they want. Scheduling something at a particular time restricts this somewhat.
• Silly bit - I’d stress that there was plenty of very practical and interesting stuff discussed in the chatroom area (we called it the Common Room - geddit?). There was also some entertainment. My thanks to Martin Stapleton for feeding my fix for sick humour in this unfortunate tale of a renewable installation: “I have to mention a moment regarding a wind turbine that was installed free of charge at a school near me. It was installed as an experiment for the pupils. It was situated next to the playground. Anyway, one rather windy day whilst the kids were out at playtime an unfortunate seagull took it upon itself to try to fly through the blades. Yes, thats right, the playground was covered in feathers and seagull bits. The children were taken indoors rather quickly whilst the mess was cleared up!!

I’ll declare a bit of an interest here, before things get in any way snidey. My company was and still is competing against this event, to some degree. We don’t organise an event on such a scale (Think RIP) but have and will continue to run conferences, debates and virtual events that are in this space. So I hope any comments I make on this event will not be seen as carping from the sidelines.

The indications you get suggest that Ecobuild will be as big as ever. Admittedly some of this perception is via the marketing department of Ecobuild, who are pumping out regular emails including one declaring that the event is “the biggest in the world for sustainable design and construction”. I met one new exhibitor to the event for 2009 this morning, who offered something of an insight into why next year may go swimmingly. Her firm saw a significant change from 2007 to 2008, both in size and in nature which convinced them to sign up for next year. It had cemented (is that an appropriate word to use?) itself for her firm as both a mainstream event and as one that was dominated by the exhibition.

Yes, there’s a big conference element again to Ecobuild. But I’m unconvinced that this is the main draw. People go for two main reasons - to see what new stuff is out there; and to network. It’s now established as the sustainable equivalent to the must-attend property event in the same month, MIPIM (with less champagne and no beach). At that Cannes event you go to be seen and meet the industry fixers - the conference and exhibition element for many visitors is almost irrelevant.

So I expect Ecobuild to go off pretty well next year. Partly because many exhibitors have confirmed for some time, perhaps even ahead of the late summer crash. So perhaps 2010 will offer a better gauge of how the market responds to sustainability in a slowdown.

And having dismissed the conference element somewhat I think the arena area of the show is shaping up quite well. The organisers have gone squarely for celebrities again but appear to have chosen more wisely than in 2008 (Janet Street Porter anyone?). I’m intrigued by the presence of arts critic and presenter Mark Lawson, and there will be the contrary viewpoint of author Bjorn Lomborg. I will no doubt see many of you there - perhaps a blogging meet-up is in order either within the event or at a local hostelry?

• Will undermine good building design
• Will very likely worsen the overall environmental impact of buildings
• Will discourage innovation in environmental building products and systems
• Is providing a barrier to SME’s in the environmental building sector
• Is providing a barrier to the import of green building materials

The report calls for a wide ranging review of the guide in relation to legislation, as a planning instrument and in the methodology used to come up with the recommendations in the publication. The authors of the report said they were willing to help in developing a “new approach” to develop the use of “genuinely environmental building materials”.

On the flip side of the coin the BRE warns clients not to misuse the Green Guide in today’s Building.
It’s reacting to concerns raised after Milton Keynes council made it mandatory for all new buildings to use materials with high ratings from the online tool. Paul Gibbon, BRE’s global director of materials, says: “Let’s nip this in the bud before we get 50 councils saying people have to specify A+ materials.”