Fox Blocks ICF exhibited at the USGBC GreenBuild Show in Toronto a few weeks back. This was the first time the GreenBuild Show has been held in a city outside of the USA. Toronto was an excellent location for such an event, as it is located just across Lake Ontario from Rochester, NY. Held in the heart of the city, the Toronto Convention Centre is surrounded by hotels and restaurants. Further, it is beside the Air Canada Centre, the sports arena which is home to the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors, as well as the GreenBuild Opening Keynote Celebration and Maroon 5 concert.

More relevant is that Toronto’s financial district has embraced sustainable design and construction. Over the past few years developers have observed that LEED registered buildings lease more quickly and with rent premiums of up to 30%. Coupled with this is the fact that Toronto has a district cooling system utilizing the cool water from Lake Ontario, and BOMA has implemented energy conservation retrofit programs with the electrical and gas utilities. With so many of these GREEN activities ongoing in the city Toronto was a natural host for the Green build Show.

The GreenBuild show was a success. The EXPO was larger, up by 30% to over 900 exhibitors. Unfortunately attendance was down by 15% at a little over 23,000 attendees. This decline was likely due to two factors, the economy and also that the location was outside of the USA. However the show was attended by architects, engineers, developers, contractors, building material suppliers of which Fox Blocks was one, and green entrepreneurs. It was a truly international EXPO with participants coming from a total of 108 countries. The interest level of the attendees was upbeat and everyone was networking. We at Fox Blocks found the show very worth while, we learned a great deal, met old friends and made many new contacts.

All in all it was an excellent show.