West Coast Green Preview

SAN FRANCISCO — As green building aficionados file into San Francisco for the fourth annual West Coast Green sustainable innovation conference this week, they will find that they couldn’t have picked a more suitable city in the country in which to learn about the leading green products and projects on the market.
 
After all, S.F. ranks among the top three cities in the nation as having the greenest office buildings, according to the Green Building Index — a commercial real estate research group that measures such statistics.
 
West Coast Green 2010 (Sept. 30 – Oct. 2), held at Fort Mason Center, brings together industry professionals, entrepreneurs, and government leaders while providing attendees access to more than 300 next-generation products and some 175 green building “gurus,” according to organizers. 
 
“The big thing this year is exploring the smart grid,” says Andy Mannle, education director at West Coast Green. “The built environment is getting smart. In green buildings in the past we’ve talked a lot about better design, better materials, things like that. Now the state of the game is where technology is helping buildings become smarter. The way that’s happening is through better sensors for occupancy, for energy use, for the external environment, like the weather, things like, as well as through external systems, like transportation and city grids.”
 
The focus of the 2010 WCG is on two things: “Scalable Sustainable Solutions” and the “Power of 10,” Mannle says.
 
“There are two Powers of 10,” says Mannle. The first is 10 percent, which is the percentage of reduction in energy use, water use, and waste that many companies and communities are trying to achieve. The other is a look at integrating sustainable solutions together to make a “ten-fold impact.”
 
“It’s not enough to have a solution in a silo — we need solutions that can work across different disciplines and be integrated and the built environment is really where all the innovations in sustainability are coming to together,” says Mannle. “So the built environment is kind of the hub of where smart technology is allowing us to be more sustainable.”
 
WCG’s largest segments served are commercial builders and builder operators, as well as utilities and facilities managers.
 
“Large businesses, large buildings, and whole campuses are learning how to radically increase their ability to monitor and measure their energy use through this technology,” Mannle says. “And so we definitely have a whole variety of sessions targeted at that.”
 
For more information visit www.westcoastgreen.com