Desai started his journey after he finished his studies at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. One of his first projects was co-founding an award-winning environmental organisation, the BioRegional Development Group in 1994. Since then he has been involved in eco-housing projects such as the Beddington Zero (fossil) Energy Development, which is the UK’s largest eco-villages development. Other work includes projects within the sustainable farming, forestry and recycling sectors.
He has been a sustainability consultant for the central government of the United Kingdom, as well as consulting to local authorities and developers, both in the UK and overseas. The international initiative building sustainable communities term “One Planet” was coined by Desai, for on of the largest eco-homes projects. With Desai’s leadership, the BioRegional team has lead the “One Planet” initiative to propose a 5,000 home, zero carbon and zero waste development in Portugal and the Masdar EcoCity for 50,000 people in Abu Dhabi.
Currently, Desai is the founding director of the specialist sustainable property development company BioRegional Quintain Ltd. The company now has over 1000 zero carbon homes in the pipeline in Brighton, Middlesbrough, London and Rochester (UK). With his invaluable experience in the field of developing eco-homes, Desai will be speaking on “Designing a new way of living – a developer’s perspective on sustainable communities” at this years Green Building Conference. Desai is one of the high-level speakers that will be speaking this year.
Some of the other topics included in the Green Building Conference will focus on Green Building Design, Green Building Materials and Green Building Technologies.
Also in the spot light - Regulation and Compliance, and parallel workshops that examine green building within different types of buildings: ranging from shopping centres to hospitals and resorts. This year promises to explore the various angles of green building, in a practical, informative manor enabling delegates to apply in practice the lessons gleaned at the conference.
For more information, contact Tanitha Jolly at tanitha@greenbuilding.co.za or 021 674 5725
Contact Information:Green Building4th FloorSunclare BuildingDreyer StreetClaremontCape Town 7800(021) 674 5709celeste@greenbuilding.co.zawww.greenbuilding.co.za
