Gold Sponsor
Silver Sponsor
Bronze Sponsors
Healthy Buildings Conference & Expo 2024
Thursday 29th February 2024 | 10:00-17:00 | Building Centre, London
The ASBP Healthy Buildings Conference and Expo returned as an in-person event for the first time since 2020.
- Join us for talks on biophilic schools, the latest research findings on healthy indoor environments, and the issue of toxic chemicals in our environment.
- We will discuss how the construction industry is responding to the biodiversity crisis, and if we need to embed biodiversity into the construction and procurement process to regenerate our environment.
- Hear from the ASBP Awards 2024 finalists and cast your vote for your favourite entry in the Project, Product and Initiative categories.
- Network with 150+ attendees and 10+ exhibitors throughout the day, plus networking drinks and ASBP Awards winners announcements in the evening.
- Confirmed speakers from Department for Education, Defra, UK Health Security Agency, Environment Agency, Wienerberger, Built by Nature, PEFC, Evolving Forests, and more.
Key details
Date: Thursday 29th February 2024
Time: 10:00 – 17:00
– Registration and exhibition from 9:00
– ASBP Awards 2024 awards ceremony and drinks reception from 17:15 until 19:00
Venue: The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, London WC1E 7BT
Confirmed Exhibitors
Speakers and Programme
9:00 Registration, refreshments and exhibition
Session 1: Health and wellbeing
10:00 Welcome to Healthy Buildings 2024
Chair, The Alliance for Sustainable Building Products
Crawford Wright RIBA – Head of Architecture and Design: Schools and Colleges, The Department for Education
10:10 Keynote speakers: Biophilic Schools: maximising nature connectedness and measuring outcomes
The Department for Education (DfE) is committed to delivering a better environment for future generations: enhancing biodiversity and increasing access to, and connection with, nature in and around education and care settings, as set out in our Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy.
St. Mary’s in Derby – the UK’s first biophilic primary school – is an example of a pilot project that promotes the engagement between the interior and its natural setting. St Mary’s school grounds work to existing topography to create an accessible landscape where planting is brought close to the buildings and the entire external setting encourages nature connectedness working to a structured biophilic brief.
School and college grounds offer the opportunity for helping deliver the Environmental Improvement Plan commitment for every person to be within 15 minutes of a green space. The potential of schools and colleges in helping achieve this is significant, when considering that the education estate is twice the size of Birmingham and 18% of children living in the most deprived areas never visit nature at all (Defra Landscape Review).
To continue to promote access to green spaces in schools the DfE has delivered several pilot programmes looking at best practice and evaluation to promote children’s connection to the outdoors.
Meaghan Kombol – Lead Sustainability Design Advisor for Green Infrastructure at The Department for Education
Sani Dimitroulopoulou
Principal Environmental Public Health Scientist – Indoor Environments, UK Health Security Agency and Chair of UK Indoor Environments Group (UKIEG)
10:35 Latest research into VOCs and indoor air quality
- Presentation on concentrations and emissions from indoor sources for VOCs measured in European and UK residences.
- 65 individual VOCs were identified though a literature review.
- Health end points from inhalation exposure to these VOCs will be discussed.
Graham Winter
Senior Advisor (Waste Strategy & Circular Economy), Environment & Business, Environment Agency
10:50 The POPs problem: Persistent organic pollutants
- Understanding waste
- Your Responsibilities (Duty of Care)
- Why it’s important to properly describe waste
- What assessment is required
- Hazardous Waste and Persistent Organic Chemicals (POPs)
- What are POPs?
- Why are POPs a concern for the development sector?
- Why are POPs increasing and what are we doing about it?
- How to manage waste (Haz/POPs)
- Legal position (producers)
- The challenge for the Circular Economy
- Intro to CE concept
- How to manage waste (segregation) / avoid pops
- CE approach to C&D (inc procurement & product design
Bella Murfin
Deputy Director for Trees, Woodlands & Forestry, Defra
11:05 Keynote speaker: Timber in Construction Roadmap
- Celebrate the importance of cross-sector partnership.
- Explore the opportunities and innovation set out in the Timber in Construction Roadmap.
- Build on the momentum surrounding the Timber in Construction Roadmap and action so far.
11:30 Quick refreshment break
Session 2: ASBP Awards 2024
11:50 Finalist presentations and audience voting
- Hear short presentations from the ASBP Awards 2024 finalists and cast your vote for your favourite entry in the Project, Product and Initiative categories. Winners announced in the drinks and networking session from 17:00
Finalist #1 – East Ham Old Fire Station
Tonia Tkachenko, DRMM Architects
Finalist #2 – Goldfinch Create & Play
Mark Finney, Seb + Fin Architects
Finalist #3 – Houlton Secondary School
Josh McCosh, van Heyningen and Haward Architects
Finalist #1 – Washbox
Andrew Crimston, Washbox
Finalist #2 – EMR Reusable Steel
Tom Howarth, EMR
Finalist #3 – ADEPT modular construction system
Chloe Donovan, Natural Building Systems
Finalist #1 – Qflow
Brittany Harris, Qflow
Finalist #2 – Preoptima
Sarah Saxton, Preoptima
Finalist #3 – Grosvenor Supplier Mentorship Programme
Eve Bellers, Grosvenor
13:15 Lunch, networking and exhibition
Session 3: The biodiversity crisis
Joe Giddings – UK Network Lead, Built by Nature
14:15 An introduction to Built by Nature and update on funded projects and upcoming calls
- Introducing Built by Nature and our mission
- A provocation: Can we re-establish the harmony between the built environment and nature?
- A brief intro to our challenge, aiming to increase visibility of forestry throughout the value chain.
- An update on the Built by Nature Prize – an initiative to spotlight game-changing biobased materials from around the world
Maisie McKenzie
Biodiversity Manager at Wienerberger UK & Ireland
14:30 Let’s build with nature in mind
- How can specifiers promote biodiversity through the construction supply chain?
- Maisie will describe how Wienerberger is embedding biodiversity promotion into multiple aspects of the company.
- From product design and raw material sourcing, to land asset management, to curating impactful partnerships and encouraging others to take action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
Dainis Dauksta
Managing Director, Wood Science Ltd and Specialist Advisor, Woodknowledge Wales
14:45 Forestry and biodiversity
- A brief history of ideas flowing into modern perceptions of sustainable forestry management.
- Principal drivers and indicators of biodiversity loss. Symbiosis, trade-offs and opportunities for timber production alongside promotion of biodiversity.
- Freestyle forestry management and adaptive construction design.
15:00 Q&A
15:15 Refreshments, networking and exhibition
15:45 Biodiversity and supply chain transparency from forests to buildings
An introduction to the IMPACTT project
Dr. Asselia Katenbayeva – Research Associate, ASBP
Forestry, biodiversity and sourcing cross laminated timber (CLT)
Mila Duncheva – Business Development Manager UK & Ireland, Stora Enso
Mass timber case studies from the IMPACTT project
Adedayo Shittu-Balogun – Director of Projects, Eurban
Jez Ralph
Director, Evolving Forests
16:05 Biodiversity and product procurement
- New approaches to silviculture put complexity and soil-health as priorities to ensure a richer, more biodiverse and more resilient forest.
- The effect of this will be a more complex group of available raw materials. Different species in different sizes with different ages.
- Designers, developers, engineers, sawmills and foresters need to work together to evolve the palette of construction products to cope with this diversity
Emre Turhan
Onshore Sales team, NatureMetrics
16:20 Measuring and monitoring biodiversity
- The need for a future-proof solution to understand site level risks & opportunities, translate this into broader ecosystem health and report effectively against the upcoming regulations.
- Challenges in measuring biodiversity, why conventional monitoring methods are no longer fit for purpose and how companies are held back by the complexities of nature.
- How NatureMetrics generate ground-truth data at scale, convert this into meaningful and actionable insights and allow easy reporting on ESG across entire portfolios within Forestry, Urban development and Infrastructure sectors.
Partner, Cullinan Studio
16:35 Case studies
- Beormund SEMH School in Southwark
- The Catkin Centre and Sunflower House, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital
- Maggie’s Newcastle Annexe
16:45 Q&A
17:00 Conference ends followed by drinks, networking and ASBP Awards winners announcement
Past Conferences
Healthy Buildings 2023
Healthy Buildings 2023 took place online on 9th February 2023.
Our keynote speaker was biophilic design expert and author, Oliver Heath. We also had talks on material toxicity and fire, post occupancy evaluation and insurance of mass timber buildings, flame retardants and building products, and ‘wood for health’.
Healthy Buildings 2022
Healthy Buildings 2022 took place online on 24th February 2022.
We were joined by a number of speakers at the forefront of their professions, with talks on indoor air quality and healthy product research, important new health & wellbeing standards, and cutting-edge case studies.
Healthy Buildings 2021
Healthy Buildings 2021 took place online on 24th February 2021.
Our expert speakers discussed how to create spaces that are healthy and productive for users, and explored the complex relationship between external and internal air quality and transmission. With talks from Prof. Cath Noakes OBE, Geraint Davies MP and Rosamund Kissi-Debrah.
Healthy Buildings 2020
Healthy Buildings 2020 took place on Thursday 27th February 2020 at the Human Rights Action Centre in London.
Our keynote speakers were Sam Conniff Allende (Award winning social entrepreneur and author of ‘Be More Pirate’) and Mary Creagh (Labour MP for Wakefield from 2005-2019 and former Chair of the Environmental Audit Select Committee).
Healthy Buildings 2019
Healthy Buildings 2019 took place on 28th February 2019 at London South Bank University.
The theme was ‘Plastics in Construction: Issues, Impacts and Alternatives’ with keynote speakers Emily Penn and Professor Sean Smith (Edinburgh Napier).
Healthy Buildings 2018
Healthy Buildings 2018 took place on 14th February 2018 at University College London.
Our keynote speakers were Professor Stephen Holgate (RCPCH) and Professor Anna Stec (UCLan).
Healthy Buildings 2017
Our inaugural Healthy Buildings Conference and Expo took place on 15th February 2017 at University College London.
We had a whole host of speakers including Dr Jannik Giesekam, Jerker Ligthart (Chemsec) and Dr. Caroline Thurner (IBO).