PAST EVENTS

We launched FOOTPRINT because the property world needed a forum to meet each other and swap ideas and experience to learn how to reduce the 42% of the UK’s Carbon emissions from its sector.

The first event was in June 2022, and it was located in a huge marquee on the seafront in Brighton overlooking the Rampion offshore wind-farm. The strap line we used that year was ‘Goodbye Oil, hello Sun’, and we filled the marquee with 1,500 sunflowers. The ‘how to' was really quite embryonic at the first event, and there seemed to be a lot of head-scratching going on. Key sessions that were absolutely packed included the opening keynote presentation from the then Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance (DESNZ), Lord Callanan and fascinating detailed explorations of the Whole Life Carbon Assessment processes. There was a huge thirst for knowledge from the broad range of delegates who attended, and it’s worth looking at the videos below which Fred Burns produced; you can hear the attendees’ surprise and immense enthusiasm and excitement about both the talks and the opportunities we presented for them. It was the first time all the different disciplines could meet one another and gain an understanding of different sectors’ exploration of quite different but related directions and techniques. It was a very exciting melting-pot of ideas.

On the second event, we added an extra theatre dedicated to the Circular Economy, and it was heartening to hear how much progress had been made both in terms of theory and practical on-the-ground experience since the last show. Unusually, competing companies 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. We even managed to put on the world’s first zero carbon formation airshow over the sea off the beach. The pilots were senior British Airways training captains, and the inter-cockpit conversations that were broadcast were captivating. To add to the drama, there was a certain amount of range-anxiety caused by a strong southwesterly blowing directly out of Shoreham Airport. At the event that year, we used wild flowers, planted in just 150mm of soil displayed in rubble sacks by Hortus Loci. Contractors often scrape off and sell 150mm of topsoil which contains all the seeds from sites before starting work. This loses all the indigenous life, and new legislation is outlawing this; for the next show, we were asked to launch the Nature Stage. The show had grown by about 25 % this year, and FOOTPRINT was already an established fixture on the property calendar.

For 2024, we decided to move FOOTPRINT to Old Billingsgate in the centre of the City of London. This was for a number of reasons, but primarily because the decarbonisation process in the property sector is being driven by Finance, and we needed them to be at the centre of it. Consequently the percentage of funder delegates went up hugely as you can see by downloading the Opportunities Document below and reading the show report inside. In addition to this, we had secured the nicest venue in London, with a fantastic, dramatic river terrace. Lastly, Old Billingsgate was the first low-carbon, largely naturally lit and ventilated re-fit of a commercial building in London, undertaken by Marco Goldschmied of RSHP with ARUP 1983-88. They did then what the rest of the City is doing now. As usual, the talks were mobbed out with people avidly devouring what was coming from the stages, and the buzz was stronger than ever. This year we decided to approach the fact that so much office furniture is simply landfilled during re-fits, and we brought in rescued furniture from Clear Environment under the headline ‘Re-use is the New Black.’ Again the show had grown, but this time by over 30% to fill the venue, and curated sponsor-led talks and presentations ran parallel to the 7 central stages and were similarly massively popular.