Build Green Now is back in 2023.

This is your chance to network and catch up on the race to zero. Following the launch of Building a Zero Carbon Ireland in October, we look at the implementation of the key recommendations on building for performance, whole-life carbon and circularity. How do we move from a design for compliance to a design for performance approach, how do we enable comparable whole-life carbon measurement? How can we enable whole-life carbon reduction with a transition from a linear make, break waste construction sector to full circularity?

If you would like to know more about exhibiting and sponsorship opportunities see the Sponsorship document.

Our first speakers have been confirmed and more to be announced soon. Check back regularly for updates!

Agenda

Our Speakers

	Janet Lynch is a Chartered Engineer and Circular Economy Lead for Arup Europe. She specialises in built environment decarbonisation and leads teams across Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. She chairs the NSAI Technical Committee, Circular Economy in the Construction Sector and her projects include the TII Circular Economy Plan, Crossrail and the London 2012 Olympics.
	Neil Menzies is Director of Sustainability with the real estate company Hibernia Real Estate Group (“Hibernia”). With almost 15 years’ experience working in the area of sustainability, he now has responsibility for managing the sustainability efforts across Hibernia’s €1.2bn property portfolio, all of which is in Dublin. This includes ownership of the Sustainability Strategy and ensuring its delivery, managing the Environmental, Social & Governance (“ESG”) reporting against globally recognised ESG standards and benchmarks, developing all ESG related communications and stakeholder engagement and researching and planning for future ESG trends and regulations.
	Charles Mitchell is the Senior Quantity Surveying Technical Advisor to the Office of Government Procurement and a Government observer to the Agreed Rules of Measurement (ARM) Committee. Charles is a Fellow of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) with in excess of 20 year’s experience within the construction sector. Previously a member of the (SCSI)Quantity Surveying professional group, Charles was involved in numerous working groups including the Mechanical and Electrical working groups and is currently a representative to the Standard Setting Committee of the International Cost Management Standards (ICMS) which provides reporting standards for Capital Expenditure, Operational Expenditure and Embodied Carbon in Construction. Charles was also a lecturer in TUDublin, specialising in Quantification and Costing of construction project, and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

Warren Phelan is Programme Manager of the EPA’s Circular Economy Programme. Warren is a Chartered Civil Engineer and Chartered Waste Manager and spent over 20 years working in the waste and resources industry before joining the EPA in 2022. The Agency’s Circular Economy programme covers a wide range of activities under pillars of advocacy and evidence, innovation and demonstration, regulation and partnerships.  Programme activities include waste data, characterisation, green public procurement, circular economy partnerships. food waste prevention, circular construction, national hazardous waste management plan, end of waste and by-product decision making.  Warren chairs the National Data Network Group, National Hazardous Waste Plan Working Group and is the EPA’s representative on the Construction Sector Group Sustainability Consultative Committee.

	Stephen Barrett is the Whole Life Carbon Lead at the Irish Green Building Council. He is working on Level(s), the EU initiative to promote a common language around the environmental performance of buildings, and the WGBC #BuildingLife campaign set up to drive change in public policy and private sector awareness of WLC. He has an MSc. in Sustainability & Adaptation in the Built Environment – his thesis focused on Life Cycle Analysis methodology and application and WLC assessment at the building level. His background is in data management, analysis and presentation.
	Audrey Nugent is the Director of Global Advocacy. She leads WorldGBC’s advocacy and policy work, collaborating with Green Building Councils around the world to champion ambitious and innovative public policies that drive the systemic change needed in the built environment. Currently, Audrey’s work is focused on elevating the profile of the built environment at COP27, and working with the global network of Green Building Councils to develop common policy principles needed to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.In Europe, Audrey works closely with representatives from the European Commission to ensure that the EU adopts legislation that delivers a decarbonised, circular and well-designed built environment.Audrey has a Master’s in urban planning and is passionate about how policy and advocacy can help deliver a holistic and integrated built environment that benefits people and the planet.
	Joe Jack Williams is an Associate and researcher at FCBStudios and, alongside Ian Taylor, leads environmental research for the practice, identifying, developing and enabling research across sectors and projects. He is a Certified Passivhaus Consultant. He led the development of FCBSCarbon, a tool which estimates the whole life carbon of a building to inform design decisions prior to detailed design. He has taught at a number of universities in the UK, including Oxford Brookes, UCL, UWE, University of Bath, and London Met, and is part of core research groups within Architects Declare, CIBSE and LETI.
	John Casey qualified in 1991 from University College Dublin where he studied Civil Engineering. He became a Chartered Engineer in 1998 and he has practised as a Consulting Engineer specialising in building structures in Dublin since graduating. Over this period, John worked with numerous different Clients, Architects, Design Teams and Contractors on many exciting and varied projects.

Susan Vickers is currently the National Sustainability Manager with Clúid Housing. She is responsible for the co-creation and implementation of Clúid’s Greening/Sustainability Strategy across the organization. This involves advising the business, leading initiatives, and developing programmes to drive environmental improvements and sustainable development across the organization, with climate mitigation and climate action key considerations to deliver sustainable climate resilient housing and low carbon culture in all aspects of procurement, maintenance and operation of housing stock. This work is leading the environmental aspects of the ESG strategy for the organization.

Philippa King has overall responsibility for managing the Regional Waste Management Office and managing the development and implementation of the “National Waste Management Plan for a  Circular Economy including the Strategic Environmental Assessment and Appropriate Assessment. Philippa represents the Southern Region on National committees and National working groups.

William O’Donnell has over 15 years of experience as a Chartered Building Services Engineer and is now an Associate Director at IN2 and forms an integral part of their Environmental team. William works closely with design teams from early sketch design to integrate passive design measures into the design philosophy of each building. Williams’s specialist areas of expertise include Retrofitting, Path to Net Zero, Dynamic Simulation Modelling, Wind Analysis, Daylight / Sunlight Modelling, Part L and NZEB compliance, and Building Portfolio Energy Benchmarking.

Joe Durkan is a mechanical engineer and is the head of the Technical Department in SEAI’s National Retrofit Directorate.  The role of the department is to ensure that the SEAI has the technical knowledge and expertise needed to meet the Authority’s home energy upgrade targets as outlined in the Climate Action Plan and other Government policies and programmes such as the National Development Plan.  The department encompasses a number of SEAI business areas including EPBD Concerted Action, Technical Standards, High-Performance Retrofit, Building Energy Rating (BER) Calculation Methodology, BER Software & Systems and BER Operations.Since joining SEAI in 2005, Joe managed the Energy Efficiency Obligation scheme and has been involved in a number of programmes, including Better Energy Communities, Greener Homes, and Building Energy Rating and has managed aspects of the implementation of both the Energy Performance in Buildings and the Energy Efficiency Directives.Prior to that Joe worked as a research manager for one of Ireland’s major sawmills.

Catriona Riordan is an Associate Director and Sustainable Procurement Lead within Turner & Townsend’s Contract Services team. She has a breadth of knowledge and experience in procurement, design management, contract administration and commercial management gained over the past 19 years working in the construction and utilities sector in Ireland and the UK.  She is an advocate of the role that procurement has to play in supporting organisations to achieve their sustainability objectives and contribute to addressing the biodiversity and climate change crisis.

Helena McElmeel is a Registered Architect and Principal of Helena McElmeel Architects, a Galway-based architectural practice, specialising in sustainability, passive buildings, and public realm projects and a BUS Methodology post-occupancy Partner.Helena is a qualified Project Manager with an MSc in Architecture in Advanced Energy and Environmental Studies, a WELL Accredited Professional, RIAI Accredited in Conservation Grade III, and a Certified Passive House Designer.  She is Chairperson of the RIAI Sustainability Taskforce, a Board Member of the Passive House Association of Ireland, and a Climate Ambassador for 2023.

Catriona Duggan is an architect and co-director of the design and research practice Gottstein Architects. Catriona’s work focuses on developing a socially and environmentally responsible architecture which supports the delivery of low-carbon, healthy and resilient designs. The practice and has developed expertise in mass timber construction and work on projects ranging in typology and scale, from small domestic design to large scale mass-timber warehousing. Catriona is also on the Steering Group for Architects Declare Ireland, part of the global network of practices acting to accelerate change across the construction industry to limit climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. Catriona has contributed to the publications of the ‘Architects Declare Practice Guide’ and formed part of the National Technical Committee for the IGBC’s publication ‘Building a Zero Carbon Ireland’.

Michael McCarthy is a chartered quantity surveyor and managing director of MMC Quantity Surveyors. He has a long-term interest in embodied carbon in buildings for the past 25 years and is currently undertaking life cycle assessments for a number of clients in Ireland and the UK. This experience has given Michael and the staff at MMC a unique perspective on the practical aspects of undertaking life cycle assessments.

Noora Khezri has a master’s degree in Sustainable Architecture and works as an architect and environmental advisor at Norwegian studio Mad arkitekter. She has over ten years of experience and a diverse project portfolio, working with all stages of the design process – from feasibility studies to detailed design. With expertise in this subject matter, Noora is passionate about reuse/circular economy and working with the development and rehabilitation of existing buildings. Noora is the lead project architect for the ground breaking project KA13, which implemented the reuse of building materials on a large scale.

Sponsors

Saint-Gobain designs, manufactures and distributes materials and services for the construction and industrial markets. Saint-Gobain in Ireland consists of Gyproc and Isover. 

ISOVER has a long and proud history of supplying market-leading insulation solutions in Ireland for over 40 years. ISOVER seeks to develop and supply complete insulation solutions to guarantee the thermal and acoustic comfort of Irish homes and businesses.We provide an unrivalled service to the many thousands of specifiers, contractors and off-site manufacturers throughout Ireland.

Gyproc is the market leader in plaster, plasterboard and drylining systems in Ireland; manufacturing in Ireland since 1936. Over the years, Gyproc has become a major authority in Irish construction providing innovative, cost-effective, and sustainable solutions that meet the demands of the local construction industry.

Unilin Insulation, formerly Xtratherm, is one of the largest Irish manufacturers and suppliers of insulation. The company has a 30-plus-year history of working in partnership with Irish construction professionals to close the gap between design and as-built performance. Higher standards of fabric performance required in NZEB and Passive call for greater adherence to best practice detailing. To help achieve this and to ‘close the gap’ between design and build, they provide resources and support to the industry. They have a dedicated Technical Team. Based in Navan, the team is qualified to the highest standards of competency in U-value calculation and condensation risk analysis. They have 3D Thermal Bridging and WUFI analysis covered also; being the first company in Ireland and UK to be assessed and certified under the NSAI and BRE thermal modelling competency scheme. www.unilininsulation.ie

SEAI is Ireland’s National Sustainable Energy Authority. They work with householders, businesses, communities and the government to create a cleaner energy future and are the main driver of the reduction and replacement of fossil fuel usage. SEAI focuses on six general areas such as grants, home energy, community energy, data and insight and more. SEAI has become a trusted collaborator, innovator, funder and educator.

Exhibitors

Aereco develops innovative ventilation solutions for residential and office buildings with a key concept: the modulation of airflow rates according to the needs. Several lines of products can be implemented in various systems, from natural and hybrid ventilation to MEV and MVHR.

Acutrace is a Software and Systems Integration Company measuring Energy Consumption in Commercial and Industrial buildings and presenting that data to users in clear, user-friendly graphics.

​The Acutrace Energy Measurement Platform allows users to pinpoint exactly where and when Energy is being used – and wasted – and helps them take corrective action to make significant savings.

Cosentino Group is a global Spanish family-owned company that produces and distributes high-value innovative and sustainable surfaces for the world of design and architecture. It works alongside its clients and partners to provide solutions that offer design possibilities, and value, and inspire people’s life. Carrying out all actions through our responsible and transparent ESG criteria.

Consentino Group are able to achieve this through their pioneering and leading brands in their respective segments such as Silestone®, Dekton® or Sensa by Cosentino®. Eco-friendly and technologically advanced surfaces that allow the creation of unique environments and designs for the home and public spaces.

Our ethos at Ecological Building Systems is to achieve ‘Better Building’ by adopting a ‘Fabric First’ approach to design, with the use of more natural materials to optimise building performance and durability.  We deliver quality products with full technical support.

 Ecological Building Systems was set up in Athboy, County Meath, Ireland in 2000, the UK division was established in 2007 and is based near Carlisle in Cumbria.  Ecological’s parent company is MacCann & Byrne, a family-owned company steeped in history having been established on the same premises in Athboy since 1906.

What can we anticipate from Build Green Now 2023? Take a glimpse at the previous conference’s noteworthy moments showcased in this video.