Companies and entrepreneurs involved in sustainable design and architecture, redevelopment of brownfields, alternative energy and other “green” business opportunities are expected to flock to the Rhode Island Convention Center on Feb. 28 to attend the Green Technology: Science, Innovation & Enterprise conference.
The one-day conference will include presentations and exhibits by industry leaders and numerous local companies, and will showcase some of the leading “green-business” trends, initiatives and technologies in Rhode Island and surrounding states, said Leigh Kendall, coordinator of the Brown Forum for Enterprise (BFE), which is organizing the event.
BFE, a statewide entrepreneurship organization affiliated with Brown University, hopes the conference will demonstrate new opportunities and network entrepreneurs, professionals, researchers and students pursuing technologies and business plans aimed at reducing emissions linked to global warming and in other ways protecting the environment, Kendall said.
The field of “green” technology innovation could well become the largest economic opportunity of the coming century, and presents opportunities for several sectors, including building, architecture and design, “green” chemistry and manufacturing, and land reclamation, she said.
“We believe green technology is poised to be a major economic opportunity in the coming years,” Kendall said.
Up to 400 architects, business executives, engineers, entrepreneurs, retailers, venture capitalists, lawmakers and government administrators are expected to attend the conference, which will be held in a ballroom and two adjacent meeting rooms at the convention center, she said.
The 10-hour conference will include three keynote presentations from industry experts, a series of presentations and panel discussions and an extended networking session. Gov. Donald L. Carcieri will kick off the event with opening remarks.
Joel Makower, chairman and chief executive editor of Greener World Media, and a strategist on corporate environmental practice and green marketing, will give the opening keynote address, “Business, the Environment and the Bottom Line.”
The other keynote addresses will be made by Adam Werbach, founder & CEO of Act Now and considered one of the world’s experts on sustainability; and J. Patrick Adcock, senior vice president of environmental markets for World Energy, which operates leading online exchanges for energy and “green” commodities.
Steve Hamburg, director of Global Environment Program at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, will present a summary of the conference.
A panel discussion of local energy ventures will include Robert Chew, founder and president of SolarWrights, a Bristol-based wind- and solar-energy contractor; David Marcus, chief executive officer of General Compression, an Attleboro-based company developing a new technology to store energy produced by wind turbines; Robert Cerio, energy resource manager for Providence-based Hudson Companies; and representatives from Cape Wind and Citizens Energy Corp.
Another panel discussion on energy initiatives will include Victor Avelar, senior research analyst for APC-MGE, and John Harper, a vice president at Ze-Gen.
A discussion on opportunities for investing in “green” technologies and businesses will include Rob Berridge, program manager for investor programs from Ceres; John Ewen of Ardour Capital Investments; Eric Emmons, of the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund; and Jackson Robinson, president and chief investment officer for Winslow Management Co.
Trends and opportunities in the field of sustainable design and architecture will be discussed by Joel Towers, director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center at the New School; Kathy Loftus, who directs sustainable engineering, maintenance and energy management initiatives for Whole Foods Market; and Mark Saccoccio, principal of Saccoccio & Associates, the firm that designed the Meeting Street School’s new campus in Providence on top of seven acres of brownfield; among others.
Brownfield redevelopment will be discussed by a panel that will include Terry Gray, assistant director for air, waste and compliance at the R.I. Dept. of Environmental Management; Seth Handy, development director for Baltimore-based developer Struever Brothers Eccles & Rouse; and Aidan Petrie, co-founder & chief innovation officer for Item Group. •
