I am often asked, “how can I expand my green building business?” My answer is simple and the same response I have offered for years, attend the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.

This year Greenbuild is in Los Angeles from October 5 – 7.

I do not claim any particular business marketing prowess, but Greenbuild has been the number one source of new clients for my sustainability and green building law practice!

I have been attending Greenbuild on and off over 13 years. Last year, Greenbuild 2015 was in Washington DC, just down the road from the first U.S. Green Building Council “Green Building Conference” (yes, pre Greenbuild) held in conjunction with the National Institute of Standards in Gaithersburg, Maryland in 1994 which had only 450 people in attendance. While attendance is off a bit from the huge Greenbuild in Boston in 2008 with 27,995 attendees, last year dwarfed the first Greenbuild in 2002 when 4,189 people gathered in Austin.

There were 19,058 attendees last year with 96 countries represented. 23% of those attending were from architecture or engineering firms, 13% were contractors and builders, 10% were utilities and 5% were manufacturers, not to mention the very large numbers of professionals offering services and consulting, including, yes, a large assemblage of real estate attorneys.

And Greenbuild is sustainable. USGBC reported in 2015, it upheld its commitment to offsetting 100% of our emissions (including attendee travel) through the purchase of Green-e certified offsets in partnership with TerraPass.

Last year there were 548 exhibitors on the 144,300 square feet Expo Floor. It is all but impossible not to encounter new vendors and innovative suppliers. Educational activities abound and there is a lot to learn, I most enjoyed attending the session, EPDs: State of the Art and Advancement by Industry, where one of the presenters was Heather Dylla, Director of Sustainable Engineering for the National Asphalt Pavement Association.

The 2015 demographics are the most recent proof that Greenbuild is the largest green building gathering each year and the best opportunity for networking among “green people.”

Greenbuild 2016 in LA will be “the” target rich environment for green people this year. It is your chance to meet incoming USGBC CEO Mahesh Ramanujam, the man to know in the post Fedrezzi era. And it all promises to be lots of fun. So register today.

It is only 50 days until this once a year opportunity to expand your green building business.

For those who will complain that this blog post is shameless promotion of USGBC, that may be true, but it is also correct that Greenbuild has been the number one source of new clients for my law practice for more than a decade!

Having fun is part of the Greenbuild experience. As a reader of this blog, if you email me before Greenbuild, I will buy you a drink or a cup of coffee at an LA watering hole. (I made a similar offer last year and had a great time meeting a lot of very fun people drinks in DC.) I hope to see you in LA on October 5.