Community Forklift was thrilled to take part in the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, the largest annual event for green building professionals, last week at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC.
Salvaged Innovation
We co-hosted a booth titled “The Story of Reuse” in partnership with Build Reuse, a national membership organization encouraging the recovery and reuse of building materials. Our Director of Marketing and Communications, Scott, designed the booth to resemble a large open book, and our Facilities Manager, Keith, fabricated the design almost entirely out of salvaged materials, including doors, hardware, and paint. When the expo portion of the conference closed on Thursday, we won Greenbuild’s 2023 Green Exhibitor Award for the “Most Innovative” booth!
A Hub for Sustainability
Community Forklift also took part in Greenbuild’s Sustainability Hub, where conference attendees could take part in hands-on activities created to better the DMV area. For six hours on Thursday, Community Forklift staff led a workship where people assembled wall mounted coat racks made from salvaged wood flooring and door knobs. These coat racks will be provided free to the community organizations and families in need that we serve, and will also be sold in store to support our reuse mission.
Our staff and reuse nonprofit took part in the conference in a number of other ways outside of the Sustainability Hub and Expo:
- Events DC selected us as the choice reuse organization for Greenbuild.
- Katy, our Development Manager, served on Greenbuild’s Host Committee, helping to organize over 200 volunteers from around the world to support the conference’s sustainability efforts.
- Our Assistant Director of Donations, Martina, received a scholarship to attend Greenbuild and connected with a large number of green building industry leaders.
- Community Forklift supplied Rheaply, an innovative “re-commerce” company supporting a circular economy, with salvage vintage board games for their booth.
Thank you to USGBC National Capital Region for their support and for working so hard to make Greenbuild in Washington, DC, a success. Thank you also to Build Reuse for working with Community Forklift to share how construction and demolition waste can be turned into resources for local communities.
Every time you donate or shop at Community Forklift, you’re helping us lift up local communities through reuse. We turn the construction waste stream into a resource stream for communities in the DC region – by keeping perfectly good items out of the landfill, preserving historical materials, providing low-cost building supplies, and creating local green jobs.
We won Greenbuild’s 2023 Green Exhibitor Award for the “Most Innovative” booth!
Community Forklift led a workship where conference attendees assembled wall mounted coat racks made from salvaged wood flooring and door knobs
