2022’s Greenbuild Conference and Exposition took place in San Francisco, CA with big name headliners like Jane Fonda and senior governmental employees from the EPA and GSA among many others. Every year this astonishingly large conference attracts thousands of architects, developers, and contractors who come to learn about the latest innovations in the mainstream building sector. We were thrilled to see some local natural builders representing here, including CASBA showing off the Verdant S-SIP panel and the Stak Block. This three-day event seemed to cover the full spectrum from genuinely hopeful and exciting projects to dystopian greenwashing efforts by the Silicon Valley faction. But what does a conference like this mean to the people who have less of a stake in the construction industry than they do in the actual climate and future? To help answer this question we grabbed five Greenbuild Volunteers on the last day of the conference, all young students attending for the free ticket, and asked them each the question: “Do you feel hopeful for the future leaving this conference?” The volunteers names have been changed at their request to preserve their anonymity.
“I can’t say this conference will change everything, because it will take so much time. There are a lot of things going on and people researching things, but there is generally a lag between the research and the industry, so if people are noticing these issues here it will normally take some time to get the industry to have the response and then an even longer time to see the results. So it should be a very long process, but it was exciting to see what people are discussing.”
– Erdene Expediter
“Um, I think so, generally. I’m volunteering because I’m trying to make one of the projects I’m working on [in school] LEED platinum certified. So I came here to learn more about the green building industry. I honestly didn’t know what Greenbuild was until a few days ago.”
– Laken Leedlover
“I’ve mostly been more of a climate optimist than a pessimist mainly because I’ve been working on smaller changes rather than really large ones. I focus on a lot of things in the local sense. So when the headlines are saying we’re doomed and the fires are gonna kill us all and climate change is like getting worse every year, I’m still up to date with it, but I think it’s better to have a more positive mindset, especially in sustainability, because otherwise we won’t get anything done and we won’t have any hope. I don’t think this conference specifically will affect me a lot, mainly because I’ve already had this kind of mindset from a few years ago.”
– Hayden Halffull
“Greenbuild is kind of a place for me to get reconnected with what’s happening in this industry and it’s really different from what I’m learning in class, like you don’t really get news articles or things happening right now. We often read papers written a few years ago, but here it’s all the stuff that’s happening right now, seeing everyone’s new inventions. It’s just cool to be in this kind of setting.”
– Noor Newsflash
