Seratech in Conversation with Martin Hurn, Event Director of Futurebuild

As Seratech gears up for Futurebuild, the built environment’s leading event for innovation, we caught up with Martin Hurn, event director, to discuss some of the highlights at this year’s event, touted to have ‘the most transformative line-up yet’.

In its usual fashion, Futurebuild brings together more than 15,000 building industry influencers and decision-makers with the power to make a difference and form part of a major transformation of the sustainable built environment.

“It’s a place for innovators, specifiers, architects and collaborators to come together and tackle the industry’s problems head on with the aim to ‘collaborate for a just transition’. It stems from the industry-wide need for a clear delivery programme with non-negotiable dates to build confidence amongst clients and investors,” explains Martin.

The event continues to maintain a stellar reputation among built environment professionals and is in its 18th year of running. Martin candidly points out, however, that it hasn’t always been an easy ride: “We’ve really had to build the show back up over the last few years after green policies were pulled by the Tory government in 2015 and especially as the treasury gave up on zero carbon homes - the original plan from 2016. Since then, we’ve managed to achieve 20% growth year on year which we’re immensely proud of”. 

Martin himself, an advocate for low carbon design and emerging technologies, says it’s interesting to see the evolving trends and different approaches to carbon neutrality, as showcased at Futurebuild, using tools such as the circular economy and retrofit with offsetting becoming less favourable.

“It’s interesting to see which technologies are picking up. Cement and concrete certainly appear to be going strong with plenty of cutting-edge innovation in that field. I’d like to see more around biomaterials and timber which are experiencing something of a low point as legislation remains increasingly tricky to navigate. As seen in the media, the offsite market is down and has faced a number of bankruptcies in recent times”.

The FutureX Innovation section, where Seratech will be exhibiting is an exciting zone that showcases start-ups and SME’s innovative ideas and technologies that will make net zero possible. It contains The Big Innovation Pitch, a visitor highlight, which sees the people and companies with the newest and brightest ideas for decarbonising the industry take part in an exciting Dragon’s Den style presentation battle.

The FutureX stage is being sponsored by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Innovate UK and Carbon Trust while the Digital stage, sponsored by Cemex, will examine the process, outcomes and benefits that digital construction provides and visitors will have the chance to meet those behind those technologies.

By cultivating this type of cross-sector collaboration, Futurebuild is helping to inspire the innovation that is needed to propel the construction industry towards the UK government’s ambitious net-zero target. Such an outcome is essential to creating a cleaner, healthier environment for future generations to enjoy.

Seratech will be exhibiting at Futurebuild in the Future X Innovation Section at Stand J66.

To book some time with Sam Draper, Seratech's CEO, please use this link: https://calendly.com/sam-draper