Taking a stand: Futurebuild underlines role of events in building a sustainable future

No-one walking the halls of London’s ExCel earlier this month could miss the message at the heart of this year’s Futurebuild. The event is built around a promise to “provide the stage for inspiring ideas, innovative solutions and knowledge sharing to drive sustainable construction and help us reach our goal of net zero” – and this ambition was evident everywhere you looked.

From the seminars and conference sessions to the discussions among delegates, sustainability stood head and shoulders above any other topic of conversation. On the Polygon stand, everyone we spoke to, from students and trainee architects all the way through to director-level executives, talked about the challenge of working towards a more sustainable future, showing how this issue cuts across generations and is everyone’s responsibility.

Returning to live events reminded us of the incredible value that can be gained by bringing people from across the built environment together face-to-face, allowing them to explore new innovations, understand future directions, and discuss possible collaboration.

Video-conferencing and remote meetings now have a clear place in our working lives, but they cannot replicate real-world conversations. When you are face-to-face with customers both existing and prospective, unexpected corridors of opportunity can open up and unforeseen solutions to business problems can be found.

On the Polygon stand, we were delighted to have some incredibly interesting and productive discussions. Many of them started in one place and ended up going in an entirely different direction altogether when we got to the heart of the issue, allowing us to draw on the strengths of Polygon’s broad portfolio of services that prevent, control and mitigate the effects of water, fire and climate.

In one case, a discussion about our Water Damage Prevention technology led to a proposed solution for improving air quality and safeguarding valuable retail products with our ExactAire® real-time remote monitoring and control system. Other discussions enlightened people to the environmental benefits of restoration over replacement for damage-affected properties, highlighting the skills within our Hard Surface Repair division. We also alerted property managers  to the potential cost savings of taking a data-driven approach to damage prevention.

From all these conversations, it was clear that some people are still in fact-finding mode at the beginnings of their sustainability journeys, and as a provider of CPD, we are very happy to support them through information and sharing of expertise. Others, in contrast, have a much clearer blueprint for implementing carbon-reduction strategies within their buildings, and we are excited to have the opportunity to demonstrate how our technologies and solutions can support their goals.

As a sector, the built environment might still be some way off achieving net zero, but Futurebuild underlined that these conversations are crucial in building towards that sustainable goal. They are the sparks that ignite collaboration, inspire innovation, and keep up the momentum behind change for good.