The building sector represents a major platform for social and economic activities to create and improve our living environment. Meanwhile, it has a considerable impact on our natural and built environment, as well as on human beings, consuming a significant proportion of limited resources on the earth including energy, raw material, water and land. Sustainability of a built environment and related activities is therefore a key issue to be coped with by all of us to create a sustainable future.

Given this, in 1994, the first international green building conference was held by CIB in the UK. This was followed by an even larger event in Paris in 1997. A somewhat different formulation was later developed for conferences related to the Green Building Challenge (GBC) process.
These have been called the Sustainable Building Conferences, and were co-sponsored by countries participating in the GBC process and CIB. The first event in this new series was held in Vancouver in 1998, and followed by conferences in Maastricht in 2000 and in Oslo in 2002.
This series of international conferences is now seen as the premier international event in the field of Sustainable Buildings. This can be evidenced by an attendance of 600 people in Vancouver, some 800 in Maastricht, and over 1,000 in Oslo, comprising a variety of stakeholders such as researchers, designers, engineers, governmental officials, contractors, manufacturers and even students.

At the last conference in Oslo in 2002, Tokyo was selected as the next venue of this event in 2005, carrying the new title of "the 2005 World Sustainable Building Conference".
Prior to this, "the Regional Sustainable Building Conferences" (cf. www.sb04.org) will be held in five places around the world in 2004; in South Africa, Brazil, Poland, Malaysia, and China.

Date: 27-29 September, 2005
Venue:
International Convention Center PAMIR, New Takanawa Prince Hotel, Tokyo, Japan
Host: Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT)
Co-hosts:
International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB: www.cibworld.nl)
International Initiative for Sustainable Built Environment (iiSBE: www.iisbe.org)
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP: www.unep.org)

Language: The official language is English.