FOOTPRINT+ Past Events: Highlights from 2022 to 2025

2022

FOOTPRINT+ was launched to provide the property world with a forum to promote skills and services to reduce the 42% of the UK’s Carbon emissions from the sector. Located on Brighton seafront overlooking the Rampion offshore wind-farm with the theme ‘Goodbye Oil, Hello Sun’, we filled the marquee with 1,500 sunflowers. Looking back the concepts were quite embryonic at the first event, with specialists talking about what would be possible without the track record of having delivered on real life schemes.

The opening keynote presentation was by the then Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance (DESNZ), Lord Callanan. Industry firsts included fascinating and detailed explorations of the Whole Life Carbon Assessment processes. There was a huge thirst for knowledge from the broad range of delegates who attended. It was the first time all the different disciplines could meet one another and gain an understanding of the different disciplines exploration of how to reduce carbon intensity.

Marie-Louise Schembri Hilson Moran

FOOTPRINT+ 2022 Day 1 Highlights

FOOTPRINT+ 2022 Day 2 Highlights

FOOTPRINT+ 2022 Highlights

2023

With an additional theatre dedicated to the Circular Economy, it was heartening to hear how much progress had been made both in terms of theory and practical on-the-ground experience. Competitors were happy to share information freely, and comfortable to openly describe dead-ends as well as successes. There was a solid sense of shared endeavour in the room.

FOOTPRINT+ held the world’s first zero carbon formation airshow over the sea. We heard from senior British Airways training pilots with their captivating inter-cockpit conversations. To add to the drama, there was a certain amount of range-anxiety caused by a strong southwesterly blowing directly out of Shoreham Airport. We highlighted the fact that when developers scrape off and sell 150mm of topsoil containing all the seeds from sites which loses all the indigenous life. For the next show, we were asked to launch the Nature Stage. Having grown by about 25%, FOOTPRINT+ was already an established fixture on the property calendar.

FOOTPRINT+ 2023 Wind Farm

FOOTPRINT+ 2023 Day 1 Highlights

FOOTPRINT+ 2023 Day 2 Highlights

FOOTPRINT+ 2023 Highlights

2024

In 2024 FOOTPRINT+ moves to Old Billingsgate in the centre of the City of London. Decarbonisation in the property sector is being driven by Finance, and we needed that part of the industry to be at the centre of it. Old Billingsgate is amongst the nicest venues in London, with a fantastic, dramatic river terrace. A naturally lit retrofit from the mod 80s undertaken by RSHP with ARUP 1983-88, it is a striking early example of commercial adaptive reuse.

As usual people avidly devoured the content on the stages, and the buzz was stronger than ever. A key theme focussed on the fact that so much office furniture is simply sent to landfill during re-fits, so we used rescued furniture from Clear Environment under the headline ‘Re-use is the New Black.’ The 2024 event grew by over 30% filling the venue, with curated sponsor-led talks and presentations running on our 6 central stages.