Ecology Building Society celebrated in style here at CAT
Even the sun decided to join the celebrations for the EBS’s 30th anniversary on 4 and 5 June! As the light streamed into the rammed earth lecture theatre at WISE, over 160 people enjoyed two days of workshops, speeches and debates around building a greener society.
We were delighted to welcome Jean Lambert, Green Party MEP and former Chair of Ecology, as well as Directors, Board members and Chief Executives past and present, to the wonderful new facilities at the Centre for Alternative Technology. While the children escaped to explore the woodland and hills around Machynlleth, the adults were no less entertained by a range of engaging speakers.
Paul Allen, External Relations Director at CAT, began proceedings with a history of CAT and a powerful vision for zerocarbonbritain2030 – an ‘energy progressive’ society, free from fossil fuels. In the afternoon, Chris Herring, Chair of UK Passivhaus and Director of Green Build Store, made the case for Passivhaus low energy building, including a screening of Future Passiv, a short documentary featuring the Denby Dale Passivhaus project. Our keynote speech was delivered by Charlie Luxton, sustainable architectural designer and broadcaster, who outlined the urgent need to improve the energy efficiency of the nation’s housing stock, and took us on a tour of projects showing the practical ways to achieve this.
After a choice of member presentations and tours around the WISE and CAT sites, delegates enjoyed a celebration dinner, music and dancing with local celtic band Hi Jinx.
On Sunday morning members returned to majestic Sheppard Theatre to hear Pat Borer, WISE architect, explain the design principles behind this very special (and award-winning) venue. The final session took us back to the bigger picture, with a talk from carbon footprinting expert Mike Berners-Lee, asking How Bad Are Bananas? (The answer: not too bad, but air-freighted Peruvian asparagus is a carbon nightmare.)
In between sessions, delegates browsed our Green Market, with thirteen stalls ranging from renewables to woodwork and local crafts. We left CAT informed, inspired and energised for the next 30 years of building a greener society… here’s to our conference in 2041!
