Rosario Marin

 A Cabinet member of the State Government of California – and formerly the 41st Treasurer of the United States from 2001 to 2003 under President G.W. Bush – Rosario Marin now chairs Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Green Action Team which is implementing a policy and action agenda aimed at ‘greening’ the State.

 Ms Marin’s leadership of the green team reflects the importance of a sustainable built environment in achieving the State’s green agenda.  As Secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency, she is responsible for the procurement and management of the State’s property portfolio.  Ms Marin will share California’s experience as a leader of green building and outline the challenges for the future.

Prof. Bill Rees

Best known as the originator of the ‘ecological footprint analysis’ concept, Prof Rees is a professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and former director of UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP).

A popular and dynamic speaker and widely published author and scholar, UBC awarded him a Senior Killam Research Prize in acknowledgment of his research achievements and in 2000 The Vancouver Sun recognized him as one of British Columbia’s top ‘public intellectuals’. In 2006, he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada. And in 2007, he was awarded the Trudeau Fellowship Prize ‘...in recognition of outstanding achievement, innovative approaches to issues of public policy and commitment to public engagement’. Drawing parts of his answer from various disciplines, his current book project asks: Is Humanity Inherently Unsustainable?

Douglas Durst

Douglas Durst runs The Durst Organization, which is building the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park – the most environmentally advanced office tower in the world.  Mr Durst is one of New York City's most respected real estate owners and developers, and one of the pioneers of the Green Building Movement.

Under the leadership of Douglas, The Durst Organization became the catalyst for large-scale office development of the "New Times Square" with the completion of 4 Times Square which was the first speculative office building that incorporated environmentally responsible design and building practices. 

Nils Larsson

Nils Larsson is synonymous with the SB conference series and is again playing a leading role in SB08. Nils is Executive Director of the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment (iiSBE), an international non-profit organization. An architect who focuses on R&D in buildings, he developed and managed a demonstration program for high-performance buildings in Canada.  He is the main developer of the SBTool assessment method and is also the main organizer of the Green Building Challenge (GBC), a unique feature of the SB-series of world conferences. Nils is now based in Paris.

Prof. Thomas Luetzkendorf

Thomas is Professorial Chair in Sustainable Management of Housing and Real Estate at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. With backgrounds in civil engineering, business engineering, energy and building ecology, he deals with principles and implementation of sustainable development in the construction, housing and real estate sector, including . life cycle assessment, energy certificates and design and assessment tools. He coordinates the German mirror committee of the national standardization organisation DIN on sustainable construction and building, and is an expert member of ISO TC 59 SC 17 and CEN TC 350. Thomas is a founding member of the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment (iiSBE).

As co-founder of Fox & Fowle Architects and now as Senior Partner at FXFOWLE Architects, Bruce has been instrumental in the construction of numerous sustainable structures, including the Condé Nast Building at 4 Times Square – the first green skyscraper in the U.S.  FXFOWLE are the architects behind the new Bank of America LEED platinum skyscraper.  Along with his firm, which is based in Manhattan, Bruce also developed the first green guidelines for residential high-rises (standards that covered such issues as improving indoor air quality, maximizing energy efficiency, and reducing environmental impact throughout all phases of site planning, construction, and maintenance).

Joe Van Bellegham 

Joe is a pioneer of, and is a continuing inspiration for, the green building movement.  He is co-developer of Dockside Green in Victoria BC, a 15-acre waterfront urban redevelopment project that envisages having 26 LEED Platinum buildings.  The early stages of the development are delivering excellent commercial returns, showing that green can be profitable. Dockside Green, which will host a community of 2,500, will also include hotel, retail, office and light industrial facilities.  The $C350 million project will be built over seven to ten years.

Rick Fedrizi 

Rick Fedrizi is the President, CEO and founding Chairman of the US Green Building Council.  Rick is a giant of the green building movement and will inject into SB08 his broad perspective on developments in industry and Government policy in the United States as well as internationally.  His attendance marks an important step in bringing together the research community with the leaders of sustainable building industry and public policy.  Rick will also be attending the World Green Building Congress, which for the first time is being held in conjunction with an SB Conference.