GVA participated at the ULI Sustainability Council and YL Forum in Paris Feb 05, 2015

Green Value Associates (GVA) attended the Annual ULI European Sustainable Development Council on Tuesday 3rd February 2015. The Council meeting was kindly hosted by Deloitte in their Neuilly sur Seine office. The meeting was attended by more than 30 senior sustainability professionals and decision makers that represented a broad cross-section of disciplines, including real estate developers and owners, fund managers, financiers and senior public officials. GVA was represented by Ioannis Orfanos, its Director and Head of Business Development.

Speakers at the annual council meeting included:

- Jon Lovel, Deloitte (UK), who presented about the effectiveness of policy instruments" targeting energy and carbon performance in the UK commercial buildings sector. 
- Henk Ovink, Principal ‘Rebuild by Design’, Senior Advisor to Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force. Henk shared his reflections on climate resilience and rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy in New York.
- Professor Juergen Bruns Berentelg, CEO, HafenCity, Hamburg, who presented about the sustainable urban transformation using the case of HafenCity, one of Europe’s largest development districts.
- Dr. Liu, Chairman, Centre for Liveable Cities, Singapore on attitudes to and uptake of urban sustainability in Asia

Nick Kountouriotis, Associate Partner in Green Value Associates and Head of its Athens office, also participated at the ULI Europe YL Forum. The YL Forum took place also on Tuesday 3 February at the Westin Hotel in Paris. The first part was dedicated to sustainability with presentations from sustainability experts, like Otto von Troschke from SUSI Partners and Michael Molitor from Climate Bonds Intiative. A panel discussion with a Q&A session was followed on the relevance of sustainability today as a new standard or still a controversially discussed topic.

Nick also attended the Annual ULI Europe Conference on Wednesday 4th February in Paris. The conference attracted over 500 industry leaders from approximately 25 different countries. The conference is viewed by many industry leaders as the must-attend real estate gathering in Europe and helps set the real estate agenda for the year ahead. Conference sessions included presentations from leading experts in the fields of economy, urbanism, sustainability and demographics.