Guide to Building Materials and the Environment finds keen audience at Bulgarian Green Building Week events

The latest revision of the Guide to Building Materials and the Environment travelled to Bulgaria in September, at the invitation of the Bulgarian Green Building Council, and was met with great enthusiasm by the country’s built-environment community. Launched by Stephen George + Partners (SGP) in collaboration with the GreenSpec website with support from CIAT, the guide is a practical response to the building industry’s push towards Net Zero Carbon. As part of Green Building Week, Chris Halligan, Senior Chartered Architectural Technologist at Norse Consulting in Leeds and author of the Guide, gave keynote speeches at both the Bulgarian Green Building Council’s Sustainability Forum Sofia and a Business Breakfast hosted by the UK Ambassador.

After giving a broader overview of the threats to the environment a review of the meaning and impact of embodied carbon and the imperatives of achieving Net Zero at the Forum, Chris went on to the Business Breakfast, delivering an outline of the RIBA award-winning Guide, reviewing its latest revision and its roots in SGP’s SusCon project, a sustainable construction training and research centre in the UK.

Chris Halligan said: “There is a great appetite in Bulgaria to embed sustainable materials and ways of working in their construction sector, and many professionals in the country look to the UK as technical leaders in the field. Bulgaria faces many challenges with an aging, Soviet-era built environment, particularly in the housing sector, but many of the people I spoke to see that as an opportunity to avoid some of the mistakes that countries like the UK have made, adopt the latest technology and put sustainability into the heart of their building stock.”

After giving a broader overview of the threats to the environment a review of the meaning and impact of embodied carbon and the imperatives of achieving Net Zero at the Forum, Chris went on to the Business Breakfast, delivering an outline of the RIBA award-winning Guide, reviewing its latest revision and its roots in SGP’s SusCon project, a sustainable construction training and research centre in the UK.

Concludes Chris: “I would like to thank Alexander Daw, Managing Partner SGI, who invited me to speak at both the events, which were hosted by the Bulgarian Green Building Council. It was an honour to be asked to help open the Forum and introduce Lara Ivanova, founder of Green Human Being, a start-up devoted to protecting the environment and the health of babies by promoting the use of hypoallergenic and biodegradable nappies.”

To download a free copy of the Guide to Building Materials and the Environment, please visit: Guide-to-Building-Materials-and-the-Environment_v3.1.pdf