Norfolk Chamber of Commerce

Sustainability 2012 – world class event

Now in its third year, the Norfolk Chamber’s Sustainability Conference, sponsored by adapt+, Create Consulting Engineer Ltd and EDF Energy, was held at the John Innes Centre on Thursday 10 May and was superbly attended and supported both by the local business community and by a range of national companies that travelled into Norwich specifically for the event.

The conference got off to a great start when Andy Wood, Chief Executive of Adnams and Chair of New Anglia LEP, gave a fascinating presentation on Adnams sustainable credentials. Adnams won the Queens award for sustainability just a couple of weeks earlier and it was clear to see why. Tom McGarry, Communications Manager at Sizewell C from EDF Energy told the 200 delegates attending the conference of the opportunities available to companies through the sustainable supply chain portal www.sizewellcsupplychain.co.uk.

George Padelopoulos, Senior Sustainability Manager at B&Q provided a practical insight into the Green Deal and Dr John French and Benedict Binns, both from Adapt Low Carbon Group provided a detailed overview of the sustainable development of the Centre for the Built Environment at the UEA. Attendees also had to opportunity to hear about the Green Economy Pathfinder, a project initiated by the New Anglia LEP, from the Group Director of Anglian Water, Mark Pendlington.

The conference climaxed with a rare opportunity to hear from a truly inspirational speaker with big ideas and a great presence.  Gunter Pauli an entrepreneur in the true sense of the word really blew the audience away with his dynamism and pure business drive.

Gunter feels that it is not enough to protect our environment but to regenerate. His ideas relate to what he calls the ‘Blue Economy’ and he is looking to change the rules, encourage local entrepreneurship,  create jobs and change the business model to achieve competitiveness. This is one of those occasions where you really needed to be there to get the full effect, trying to write this down just demonstrates to me the power of presentation. Gunter’s thoughts and examples of his fantastic work are illustrated in his books about the Blue Economy and his children’s fables will be given to every primary school child in china and they have asked him to write 365 – one for each day of the year.

There was a great selection of companies exhibiting at the event ranging from energy companies to construction consultants, print and technology companies to transport solutions all showing how they could help businesses to become more sustainable.

The workshops bought up some interesting points. Paul Bourgeois, Zero Carbon Britain explained the bigger picture on Renewable Heat Incentives while Damian Baker, Ren Energy gave practical examples of how you can achieve this and gain the subsidy. Jonathan Cage, Create Consulting Engineers threw away sustainability rulebook and explained the variety of ways in which businesses could become more sustainable.

There were also some interesting workshops on Passivhaus in which Mark Lumley, Architype and Andrew Savage, Broadland Housing explained their particular projects and the benefits and challenges that they involved. This was drawn to a close by a debate on passivhaus and whether it should be the Norfolk standard which covered some very interesting points from both sides of the argument and the vote, although not unanimous,  was that it should be.

Photos from the event are avalible on; Facebook or Google+

Photo's by 'Keith Mindham Photography'