Growing show backs TTJ Awards

Organisers of the rapidly expanding sustainable construction exhibition Ecobuild & Futurebuild in London have underlined the significance they attach to the role of the timber industry in their plans by backing the TTJ Awards.

International Business Events Ltd (IBE), which started Ecobuild principally as a conference with a small exhbition in 2005, has agreed to sponsor the TTJ Small Business of the Year Award.

IBE said it was “delighted” to announce its involvement with the event.

“As the UK’s leading show-cases of the most innovative and sustainable timber products, it’s right that Ecobuild and Futurebuild celebrate the achievements of the sector by sponsoring the TTJ Awards,” said IBE event director Moira Edwards.

Ecobuild is now billed as the world’s biggest show dedicated to sustainable design, construction and the built environment and, despite market conditions, says it is attracting “enormous support” both from previous and new exhibitors for next year’s event.

“If we stopped selling the show now we would still have an event that was already bigger than it was this year,” said Ms Edwards.

In fact, she added, IBE expects the exhibition to be close to double the size of the 2008 event, which attracted more than 500 exhibitors and 26,000 visitors, and anticipates filling the ground floors of Earls Court One and Two.

“We are positioning the event very much as the sharp end of what’s new [in construction],” said Ms Edwards.