AN INTERNATIONAL expert on green technology is among the speakers of the two-day1st Mindanao Real Estate and Housing Conference which opens on October 5 at the Grand Regal Hotel in Davao City.
Dr. Michael E. Nunez, now the vice president for green technology and sustainable development of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Association (Creba), will talk on new approaches to green technology and sustainability in real estate.
Nunez is an internationally-known expert on environmental hazard management and engineering, having been a consultant to international companies on the subject.
Trained and certified as environmental health and safety and health risk assessment professional from the Harvard School of Public Health in the US, Nunez is also a member of the Harvard Business School Publishers-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cooperative and the International Institute of Technology.
He is also an alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley and earned a post graduate diploma on management in Oxford, England.
Nunez is an expert on environmental safety and health auditing and environmental impact assessment preparation, having worked for various multinational companies that were either into real estate, mining, and even maritime.
Because of his work, the US Secretary of State even awarded him with the Highest Honor Kentucky Colonel Award in 2007.
Another expert who will also grace the event is B. Brillo L. Reynes, a native of Cateel, Davao Oriental who is now the senior vice president and head of program development of the Development Bank of the Philippines.
Reynes, who will speak on green financing for housing developers and local government units, has vast experience on green technology financing as he has attended several international seminars on the topic.
Among the most recent training that he attended was the Clean Energy Investor Forum in Beijing, China last year.
On other hand, Dr. Roberto P. Alabado III, acting city planning and development coordinator, will talk about planning of sustainable residential communities.
Alabado was also trained on regional development and management at the Universitat Dortmund, Germany.
Alabado, until his appointment to the city government, was also the senior lecturer of the University of the Philippines-Mindanao School of Management aside from being the consultant and director of the University of Mindanao Community Extension Center.
Carlos A. Vargas, president of the local chapter of Creba, the organization that is hosting the event, said the top-caliber speakers will enlighten the participants of the event on the importance of green technology.
“It is our privilege that these people have agreed to lecture us on the subject. This is a rare chance for us to get inputs on the issue of sustainable development,” Vargas said.
The event is being held in coordination with the Department of Interior and Local Government, the Environmental Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board. AD
