The Romania Green Building Council is pleased to organize and host a “RoGBC Green Cafe”: a meetup dedicated to creating an informal, yet constructive dialogue between various green building stakeholders in the construction sector: architects, technical consultants, engineers, developers, educators, students, etc.

The theme for the 16^th of July will be the “Future of Green Buildings”. A short film will be viewed followed by a moderated discussion among the participants. Popcorn, light food and drinks will be served.

Who: Participants from all construction disciplines are invited. Seats are limited to 25 persons.

When: July 16th, 2009 – 4pm.

Where: The RoGBC office  (click here for directions).

Cost: This event is free (If you register but do not attend or cancel your registration prior to the event, a 100RON payment will be invoiced).

To register, please send the attached form to alina.kartman@rogbc.org. The list with participants will be published on the RoGBC blog once the seats are filled.

As of 13.07 the number of seats available is 13.

To be eco-friendly is no longer only a necessity, but also a fashion trend. Being uber-eco is a must have for every person desiring a socially responsible look. This is what is supposed to also drive the companies into having an eco-approach to corporate social responsibility programs.

The legitimacy of these programs, in an environment dominated by the thirst for obtaining a fast profit, was the leitmotiv of the forum. Dedicated to green business, the event was organized by the Biz magazine, on June, 26 at the Stirbey Domains.

Although developed under the business etiquette, the event has reunited representatives from the state sector as well as the private sector. The debate started with a discussion on business and financing opportunities, in addition to the legislative approach to the green topic.

Aside from case studies of the CSR projects of companies like Vodafone or Cosmote, also the projects of NGO’s like Copacul de hartie or ViitorPlus were the focus of the almost 100 participants.

As a representative of the RoGBC, Bogdan Draganescu held a presentation on building a green corporate culture.

The event ended with a series of presentations on finding relevant and suitable marketing and communication strategies in order to develop and maintain a sustainable brand.

By far, the most provocative speech was the one of Lucian Mandruta, who critically addressed the hypocrisy of green CSR, by framing it as another facet of “competitive altruism”.

The presentations will soon be available on www.bizforum.ro

Alina Kartman – alina.kartman@rogbc.org

„Why should one need to go outside for fresh air? Why couldn‘t indoor air be as fresh as outdoor air?“ This was the dillema John Wollett, co-author of the book „Air“, said was behind the initiative of writing a whole book on indoor ventilation.

As Swegon representatives say, the purpose of the book is to convey neutral and objective information on indoor air quality sollutions. This is one of the main reasons why the contributing authors were chosen among national and international experts, as well as among Swegon’s own specialists.

The book, currently translated into English and Swedish was launched in Bucharest last Thursday, during a DCD – Swegon Air Academy seminar that focused on energy efficiency in buildings.

Florin Dobrescu, member of the RoGBC board of directors and manager of the Certification and Training Task Groups, was one of the three guest speakers at the event. His presentation advocated for the sustainability of building green providing eloquent examples for the „fundamentally skeptical people”.

Alina Kartman – alina.kartman@rogbc.org

Members of the RoGBC were present at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) conference on energy efficiency and climate change mitigation that took place on June 5th at the UN House in Bucharest.

Leaders from both state and business side of environment related institutions addressed current instruments for tackling environment problems, during the 3 hour round table discussion organized by the Romanian division of the UNDP. RoGBC member companies like Nemetschek, Somfy, Schneider Electric, Jetrun, WSP Group, Landscape Technology, Aquarius Grup, Alukoenigstahl, CEMS Technologies, Naturalpaint, Holcim, BNP Parisbas Real Estate, Cundall Engineering, Angel, Lizac & Associates demonstrated their support for green business solutions to climate change. At the same time, public authorities from the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Development, UNESCO provided an insightful panorama over the state administrative context of energy efficiency issues.

Steven Borncamp, President and CEO of RoGBC highlighted the economic opportunities that arise in the perspective of climate change mitigation, by presenting several successful green building projects and taking advantage of the demonstrative power of successful real life business examples.

One especially hot topic was the “Casa Verde” Programme, officially approved two days ago. The main conclusion of this topic was that an authentic collaboration between public authorities and environment related organizations would be nothing but beneficial to sustaining the public interest.

Photos from the event (first in a series promoting the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, scheduled for December 2009) are available on RoGBC’s Flikr account.

Alina Kartman – alina.kartman@rogbc.org