Thrive In Construction with Darren Evans

Ep. 52 The Truth About Sustainability: What The Industry Won't Tell You - Martin Reveals All

• Darren Evans • Season 1 • Episode 52

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Join us this week on Thrive in Construction as Darren sits down to discuss the future of construction with Martin Hurn, the Event Director of Futurebuild. In this insightful episode, Martin shares his expertise on inspiring the next generation of construction professionals and provides invaluable tips on how to maximise your experience as an exhibitor at Futurebuild.


Martin also discusses the rapidly evolving construction industry and how it’s clear that a rebrand is essential to attract and engage the next generation. He dives deep into the need for action and innovation, highlighting how the industry can adapt to meet the demands of a more tech-savvy, sustainable, and diverse workforce. With an emphasis on modernising perceptions and creating a more inclusive and dynamic sector, this conversation is vital for anyone looking to shape the future of construction.


Whether you're a student eager to enter the industry or a seasoned professional looking to showcase your innovations, this conversation is packed with actionable advice. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from one of the leading voices shaping the future of construction!


Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more insights from industry leaders!


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Martin Hurn:

I think we've come a long way, though I think you know your point around greenwashing is. I think we are a lot more educated in that now. And also on the other side there's green hushing now, which is you know what's worse, what's green hushing? Green hushing is almost like not talking about it, you know, and sort of covering up the facts more than anything. I think, especially in the built environment now and especially in the architectural side of things, they are very um on top of maybe what makes a product sustainable and are asking for those clear definitions and that transparency and, um, you're absolutely right, I don't think there's enough to monitor it. But then we did a bit of work with michael charlie over at the anti-greenwash charter that are starting to to sort of do this level of monitoring and and showcasing what good is, and I and I think that's an important step forward we did a large piece of research last year around greenwashing and I think it showed that if you get it wrong you can lose brand integrity completely.

Martin Hurn:

And that's very hard to get back from. I think changing perceptions is one of the hardest things you can possibly do in marketing.

Darren Evans:

Do you think we'll ever get to a stage where our buildings will be viewed as a toxic asset? So the reason that buildings will be viewed as a toxic asset, so the reason that they will be a toxic asset, will be because their green credentials are either not as they were advertised or that they're completely non-existent, and so the value of that building is just going to be next to nothing.

Martin Hurn:

I think we're already getting there. I think definitely in the office and retail sector. I think offices now and I don't know the exact around this but there's clear guidelines when they need to hit particular EPCs or you won't, as a landlord, be able to rent those to tenants. And I think it's interesting. I had Stam Stacey. I was talking to him last week and he's developed a new company called Sustain CRE that's looking at going in and creating those audits and then those clear pathways to bring in your offices up to those standards. And I think the the gap that he talks about is not the sort of the large office. So over the 10 000 it's probably the four to ten thousand square meters where you've got probably long-term sitting tenants and the landlords have just got away with it.

Martin Hurn:

But you know the flip side of that is the bigger issue is in our housing. So 14 14% of our social housing doesn't meet the housing standards, and that's the biggest thing, and I think that's why retrofit at the moment is so important. We all talk about inequality. We should all have a comfortable, warm, energy-efficient home and I think that's our biggest challenge. Whose responsibility is that? Local government, absolutely, it's. On the social housing side. We have social landlords. You know that needs to be brought up, and that's the problem is it's not happening. So what you're seeing is a lot of community and neighbourhood-led regeneration, and that's basically communities saying enough's enough, we will do this work ourselves. Now the challenge there is that you've got to balance the sort of the DIY skills and whether it's done, it doing being done to the right quality versus you know the professionals.

Martin Hurn:

But then we've got massive skills issues in the construction industry at the moment, so especially on green skills as well.

Darren Evans:

How do you think that that will be addressed, moving forward, that that gap of of skill set?

Martin Hurn:

Well, I think it's interesting what the Labour government are doing at the moment. They've highlighted youth unemployment. I think, as a construction industry, we've almost, you know, we need a rebrand. I think we need to show how much of an exciting place the construction industry can be and how inspiring it is. I think we probably need to look at what we do with the CITB funding and the skills and apprentices. I think there's also a gap, probably on retraining as well. There's a lot of people in their 40s you know early 50s now, that are sort of coming out of employment, maybe can be retrained into plumbers, electricians. You know, as we phase out gas, there's going to be a huge sort of amount of gas engineers that could easily be retrained into, you know, heat pump engineers and renewables. So I think there's sort of you know the, the ability is there.

Darren Evans:

I think it's just a complete system change and rethink the thing that you touched on there about a rebrand around the construction industry. That's one of the reasons that I set the podcast up is to try and help people to peel behind the curtain. Have a look, these are all the different areas that you can go into within the construction industry.

Darren Evans:

It's not just about putting one block on the other, and it's not just for the people that are you know school dropouts, or because I think that at least when I was growing up, that was very much the line is, you know, if you were a bit of a nightmare at school and you couldn't sit still, then that's what you did you went to the construction industry or catering college. Apologies to any chefs but that's not true, though, is it?

Martin Hurn:

no, no, absolutely not, and I think you know so. You know, in my world I'm very heavily involved in the sustainability side of things and I think you know, when we look at the sort of the next generation coming through, they're hyper conscious of those environmental issues and I think that's probably the built environment selling point. That's the bit that we're missing out on. It's almost like getting involved in the you know, whether it's being an architect, an engineer or even in the trades, you know. You know installing heat pumps or those renewables Be installing heat pumps or those renewables. Be a part of the big change, be a part of the future, because, it's well documented, the construction industry accounts for almost 50% of all our CO2 emissions, probably 60% of all of our waste that goes to landfill. So massive problem but actually massive solution, and that's exciting. I think you could really attract a new generation of specifiers or trade, you know, with, just as we said, a sort of a simple rebrand every problem is an opportunity.

Darren Evans:

Yeah, absolutely. What was it that got you into, uh, future build, future build. Just talk a little bit about it. There's a number of people that, um, listen to this podcast that would not have heard of future build. Um, so, if you can just talk to that, and then how you got into future build?

Martin Hurn:

absolutely yeah. So most people will probably know the show is eco build and it actually started in 2005 and I wasn't involved in it, by the way, until probably 2015, so I've been on it about nine or ten years, but back in 2005 it was directly launched because there was not enough talk around sustainability in the built environment and, believe it or not, we're still having the same conversations now, 20 years on. So the show rapidly grew it's. We're extremely passionate about all things sustainability within the built environment, whether that's low carbon materials, whether that's development of renewables. Now we're doing a lot around you know the digital disruption. On the positives around that, I actually was just in ad sales and I was at a company called UBM and they published building magazines still going and the Reba Journal and were selling classified advertising and yeah just became quite good at it and progressed within my career.

Martin Hurn:

and then UBM quite famously bought EcoBuild. It was a 52 million pounds. They paid for it back in 2012-2013 and it was exact at the time when the government started to pull all these green initiatives. So the show actually, unfortunately, went into rapid decline. You know it had a lot of solar exhibitors that went out of business or didn't focus on the UK market. Likewise, a lot of people changed their marketing. So I'm moving away from all of the zero carbon homes initiatives and things like that. So I became the event director in 2015 and actually did a management buyout and owned it in 2017. So we ran it as an independent company until 2019. And then we partnered with EasyFares, who own it now, and I'm still on board as the event director. So my role is sort of coming up every year with the concept and keeping it fresh and keeping it very true to its mission and values, and I think that's something we're really passionate about.

Darren Evans:

What is it you're trying to?

Martin Hurn:

achieve. Very similar to probably your podcast, it's about showcasing how amazing the construction industry is, but we fundamentally believe that we make a positive impact on the built environment and we do that by bringing together the specifiers. So unfortunately, we're not a trade show. We don't have the trade there. We're very, very focused on the specifier community. So that's everyone from architects, contractors, tier one contractors, house builders, the engineers, the QSs that side of things and connecting them with the supply chain. And we're, as we talked before, passionate about sustainability, but also innovation and it's showcasing the amazing innovations that can make a real, tangible difference to the built environment and hitting those net zero goals and targets and the future In the future for FutureBuild. Yeah, it's a really interesting show because it flexes every year and I think it's a great barometer of where the industry is going.

Martin Hurn:

So you know, if we went back four or five years, we would have had a huge amount of offsite manufacturing companies or the supply chain supplied the offsite industry. I think you know it's been well documented what's happened in the off-site industry, so we don't have much of that at the moment, but we're seeing a resurgence actually now in low-carbon materials. So before we came on, we were talking a lot about low-carbon concrete, but also a lot with natural building products, a lot of hemp at the moment and hempcrete and hemp insulation. I think the sort of SIP panels are making a resurgence, I think the sort of sit panels making a resurgence, a lot of the timber side of things, and then we've got a whole part of the show now dedicated to retrofit, because again, that's a massive focus for the industry to get right and so we need to bring people together on that. So every year we sort of change the show and sort of the floor plan and footprint changes as well. There's different focus areas.

Darren Evans:

Often we look for silver bullets to try and solve our problems, and I've had lots of conversations with people that have tried to identify what that silver bullet is. I've had lots of conversations with people that say there is no such thing as a silver bullet for the situation that we have at the moment, which is, how do we reduce the amount of carbon that is in the construction industry? What's your view on the?

Martin Hurn:

silver bullet. I think we need action and unfortunately, the construction industry is many times led by legislation. And so you know, without legislation pushing, then it doesn't happen. And I think you know a great example of that is probably 2015, 2016,. When we had the Zero Carbon Homes Initiative. You know we were all geared up. House builders were given a definitive deadline. They were building and they proved this. You know. You saw it at the bre innovation park. We were building code level six homes. We're all ready to go. Government pulls that and we were tracked back down to industry standards.

Martin Hurn:

So for me, I think there needs to be more legislation. We've seen it recently when we were trying to phase out gas boilers by 2025 in new build. That then got relaxed by the conservative government to 2030, or even you know it's a little bit gray. So you see great times of innovation when people have to because they sell a goal. Now, one thing is for sure is that our net zero targets are written in law and that won't change. So you know that 2030 or 2035 deadlines are are the key here. But at the same time, we've got massive other issues. You know the labour government came out and said, well, we need to be building 300 000 homes a year, 1.5 million. And then I think it was a couple of weeks ago, uh, you know, um matthew pennycock said well, maybe we underestimate the challenge here.

Darren Evans:

Maybe, so, yeah, it took him a while to figure that one.

Martin Hurn:

Yeah but then again, you know, I'll say we need more legislation. We're also, you know, a um, an industry that's wrapped up in red tape a lot of the time. We talk a lot about relaxing red tape. You know, again, labour government are doing that around some of the planning rules. But I think you know we need these legislations to drive real change.

Darren Evans:

It's interesting because every time someone and I wouldn't say it's a red flag to me. Maybe it's a trigger, I don't know, but anytime someone says we need more legislation, legislation is the thing that will help it automatically my mind goes to North Korea us, because we can't save ourselves. Or and then I compare and contrast that with the great innovators of the world, be that the Wright brothers with the developing flight the ability to fly is was a great innovation and other innovations around communication, around the fact that we've got a, a computer, in our pocket and we can share this information. None of those things were legislated or even encouraged to get going by the government. I think the government stoked and encouraged things once they were already in, in place and in fruition. But I'm wondering is it really that we need the government to get things going, or do we need something else?

Darren Evans:

And the something else that comes to mind for me is we need to help the market understand the demand, the need, and come up with something of compelling value, so that the average homeowner or average person that goes to work in an office says this is what I'm after and this is what I'm willing to pay for. I don't want this and so it goes away. So a little bit like the blackberry. Yeah, there was no way that the blackberry were going to go bust. They were like who's this? You know apple thing that's coming up. No one even wants to do that. And I mean, when was the last time you saw a blackberry? And that happened not because of government, it happened because the consumer said this is what we're after.

Martin Hurn:

The problem is is that. Let's take housing as an example of that. If you ask any homeowner, would they want a very well insulated, energy efficient home made with natural building products, or would you like an extra bedroom and nearer to the train station? They're going to choose the extra bedroom and nearer to the train station and probably deal with living in a drafty home. We as a UK also seem to like. You know. We call our drafty Victorian homes sort of quirky or have natural features Character.

Darren Evans:

Exactly.

Martin Hurn:

Rather than you know and you hear all the time, I don't want to live on a Barrett's estate, but you know, they're probably all very well insulated and very high functioning homes, so where?

Darren Evans:

I think we are seeing.

Martin Hurn:

The change, though, is probably in the office sector, because we all value different things when we go to work. So, if we go to work, we want to have those nice community areas, we want to have the breakout spaces, we want to have good air quality, we want to have filtered water, and I think that's the difference If you look at things like the well-building standard, which focuses predominantly on the office sector, and I think that's the difference If you look at things like the well-building standard, which focuses predominantly on the office sector, and you said before, when do these depreciating assets or toxic assets come in? Well, I think people know that to attract talent now, you need well-performing office buildings, and I think that's where the change is, and you're probably right, that's where we probably now need to take that shift into our homes and probably start paying a green premium, but unfortunately, we don't value it in that way.

Darren Evans:

I don't have the answer at the moment, but I'm trying to think about possible solutions to that problem. For me, there's something around storytelling. There's something around the ability to help people to understand look, my life has got so much more value under these conditions than what it does in those conditions, and that needs to be an emotional decision, not a logical one. So I need another bedroom as an emotional decision, not a logical one. Asking someone, do you want a logical decision? Most people will say no, because most purchases are made from an emotional point of view, not from a logical point of view. And so how can the narrative or the story become more emotional? There's a different type of emotion to the story that's being told at the moment, but that one that kind of deeply resonates with people. They're like okay I'm, I want to change my behavior.

Martin Hurn:

Not that someone's forcing me to change my behavior, but I want to change my behavior the challenge is is that we've got deep inequality in the uk and that's the problem is that we've got extreme poverty where just having a roof over your home is a challenge. You know, we've seen. You know, if you live in london, rocketing sky rents, you know, but also it's not profitable being a landlord anymore. So you've got people, you know, trying to shift there. So a lot of homes are exiting the private rental market.

Martin Hurn:

You know, on the social housing side, we're not building enough. We're not building, you know, them to be energy efficient. There's massive road refit programs that need to go through. That's the problem is. Is that you know there's, there's almost, you know, such a wide goal. You know, when we're talking about extra bedrooms, some people haven't even got a bedroom for their kids. You know, and I think that's that's our challenge is that we need to get housing right. Everyone should have a warm, energy efficient home because it will reduce our energy usage. You know, you hear the horror stories. Don't your people not be able to put the heating on for the whole of the winter? That shouldn't be a case, because we have the skills, we have the innovations to be able to, you know, to build those homes what innovations have you seen as a result of future build that you think have the potential to make a significant difference?

Darren Evans:

I'm also interested in just peeling behind the curtain. Just what's it like, as well, to run a big event.

Martin Hurn:

My kids always laugh and say oh, you do all year, you just do one show. And it is a really privileged position because a lot of people with a similar role to me will do a sort of portfolio event. So I'm very lucky that I sort of do one event a year.

Darren Evans:

But it's a huge amount of work that goes into it. So just just to give context, what is the size of the actual show? And I love the event in terms of the duration? How many, yeah, how many days?

Martin Hurn:

so we're a three-day event. We're at the excel every march. We're 250, 300 exhibitors, you know. We're four or five halls of the excel, we are 500 speakers. We do two conferences, four or five seminars, whole fringe program of events. We deal with 80 industry partners, people like the uk gbc and reba and acan and sibsy.

Martin Hurn:

So it is the sort of the annual gathering for for the built environment at our specifier level. So, you know, I would say it's a little bit like herding cats, you know, get, get all these people together, do all this stuff. At the same time we need to fund it through exhibition stands, which is a challenge because you know exhibitions, you know can be expensive. There's a lot of, you know, associated costs that are outside of our control, you know, like hotels and stand builds and even just paying for the electric and the Wi-Fi and everything else. So our job is to give people as much value as possible and so that's bringing the best possible audience together, the people that want to see those innovations that the supply chain bring. So there's a huge amount of marketing that goes into that concepts, the right content, the right speakers. So yeah, I think we were a team of nine of us that literally live and breathe FutureBuild 365 days of the year.

Darren Evans:

So those nine, that includes the people that are out selling the space and managing accounts.

Martin Hurn:

Yeah, so we've got a sales team and then we've got a marketing team, and then on the content side as well, and then, yeah, there's always a drive now to do things 365, you know. So we're sort of doing newsletters, podcasts, lots of other stuff just to try and engage and and um and bring that audience together. What's it like?

Darren Evans:

running it. Then tell me it's stressful. What's it like behind the curtains?

Martin Hurn:

it's a real challenge. Stressful, yeah, I think. I think, because the show has so much everyone knows it. And then everyone knows the history and you know, in 2012, 2013, it was probably 10 times the size. It's 55 000 people coming to it and we're about 18 000 come now. Two and a half thousand exhibitors, the whole of the excel. It really was something quite massive and it was impressive.

Darren Evans:

I remember going to that and you know those years and it was you.

Martin Hurn:

It felt like you couldn't go around there in a day you couldn't, no, I, I agree, I agree, you couldn't no, I agree, I agree, and I suppose that's the nice thing about it. Now you can.

Martin Hurn:

I think, we talk about sustainability, but I think the show had become unsustainable at that size. I think it was destined to decline. I think there was a number of reasons. I think, firstly, we talked about those pulling of the government incentives. It is driven by what's happening in the market, but also it happens to all exhibitions. What happens is exhibitors want to go bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger because they're competing with their competitors and then suddenly their stand builds become six figures. We had someone you know it could be a wusterbosch or a backseat taking four or five, six hundred meters of space and spending half a million pounds on a stand build. And you know, the return on investment then is, you know, is impossible to give them. So actually, you know, did they?

Darren Evans:

then come back to you and say look, we spent all this money and we've looked at our ROI and it's not stacking up. Can you give us more value? It's your fault. That would be part of the conversation. Yeah, but I think that they would realize.

Martin Hurn:

You know why? Why are you going that?

Darren Evans:

Yeah.

Martin Hurn:

So we work quite a lot now on on giving people that value. So the great thing about working with easy fest, which is our parent companies they have this event technology which is our badges have small microchips in them. So as a visitor point, so you can, if you're interested in something but the salesperson's, you know, talking to someone else or you don't want to talk to someone, tap on it and then you know your details, goes to the exhibitor and then they can follow up with it afterwards. They can also scan your badge as well. So this is my bit of a sales pitch. But you know, on average, every single exhibitor our show gets 205 of those touches or inquiries or an aspect of data, and that doesn't matter if you've got 100 meter stand or a 4 meter stand, okay, okay, that's the average. And actually what's really interesting is we use those then to sort of start to plot Where's our visitors' interest levels, so which ones are hitting the 6, 7 or even 1,000 touches. And it's the low carbon materials. Last year a couple of the hemp brands had well over 750 touches. So then we go okay, well, we need more biomaterials at the show because that's what our visitors want to see. So we can start to sort of, you know, develop the show that way. But no, it is, you know.

Martin Hurn:

Going back to your question, is it? You know it's a tough job? Yeah, it is really tough. I think we talked about this a little bit.

Martin Hurn:

You know, on one of our briefing calls that I sometimes feel it's a sort of imposter syndrome that I'm sort of expected to be an expert on the built environment. Yeah, I've been involved for, you know, over 10, 15 years, but I'm not an architect, I'm not a contractor, I'm, you know I'm not, I'm not at the coalface of it, but you know, I have to sort of comment on things. So if you go if you went back probably four or five years, you wouldn't have known I was event director it's very much always about the future build brand. You know, front and center, I was sort of in the background, quite happy over here, and now I think the way things are being marketed, it's changing, I think that's. You know, people want to buy into a person as much as they want to as a brand. So I've sort of been thrusted by my marketing team into the situation where, you know, I have to come on podcasts and and this is my first actually as a guest, so I'm enjoying it well, I'm saying I don't.

Darren Evans:

Yeah, I hope you didn't feel forced to come on here. I didn't feel no, no. So what is it that you enjoy about your role at Future Build and you've mentioned that it's stressful. The other side of the coin is going to be there. Right, you are going to feel joy, excitement, exhilaration and so on, but what's the other side of that coin for you?

Martin Hurn:

I think it's seeing firsthand the impact that events can have. I think you know you talked a little bit. You know you asked me a question I didn't actually answer it which was sort of what some of the innovations that you've seen firsthand and gone into things and you know, over the years, we've just one case at bed z, or z power um, as they're known now, and he would phone me up every year and go I've got this. Do you want me to bring it to the show, and I'll be like bill yeah absolutely let's do that.

Martin Hurn:

And you know, and one of those was the sort of the z pod which you feel from bristol. You've probably seen those in a in a car park there his social housing that goes over car parking spaces.

Martin Hurn:

That was first shown at future build. I remember bringing that bill will always say it's easy, it'll come in on a high ab, it'll be fine, and then suddenly we've got cranes. Every single forklift we can do, we're, you know, sometimes getting very close to breaking every health and safety rule. But then it's there and it becomes a star attraction of the show and you know, and so those are the things that really, you know, give me a quite a buzz, I think sometimes it's sort of you don't know how things are going to look until you get on site. So I go on site on saturday and we don't open until the tuesday, and so you know, you go on site and it's just a big empty hall with chalk marks on the floor, and then suddenly stuff starts coming in and building up and stuff that you've just seen on a floor plan as a sort of a colored square suddenly becomes something quite amazing. Often it's it's some of the stuff that isn't commercially related at all.

Martin Hurn:

We do a lot to support a lot of the industry, industry associations. One of my favorite is ACAM, which is the architects climate action network, who are just a group of the most amazing architects, so passionate, and we give them some space and they come and create something quite special. So they they normally bring amazing some space and they come and create something quite special. So they they normally bring amazing displays of natural building products and then they bring and they do quite provocative sort of seminars and workshops and it's just great to see and it just brings together a sort of you know, in a post sort of lockdown era, you know, these associations that probably built up over team schools, suddenly all together in the same room.

Darren Evans:

Yeah, amazing stuff happens and if you were to speak to your younger self, kind of just finishing school, maybe starting a levels around that age, what skills would you say that you would need to have in order for you to do the type of role or to be involved in the future build? Type of type of event I think it depends where.

Martin Hurn:

I think I'm in a really privileged position that I can do a lot that maybe other people can't in my role. But that's what I'm talking to you about.

Darren Evans:

Yeah, exactly the 17-year-old that wants that right. What 17-year-old doesn't want to be in a privileged position to do a load of stuff that normal people don't do?

Martin Hurn:

Do you know, what I'd say is just carry on not conforming, and I think there's a lot of stuff that I do and just question all the time. You know it's don't just do stuff because someone tells you to do it. And I think you know I am quite probably, you know, entrepreneurial spirit and I think you know that probably comes through. It's sort of I always say, I think in pictures, so I'm not. You know, and this is actually this is probably the biggest learning curve is surround yourself with people that are better than yourself at doing the things you're not very good at.

Martin Hurn:

So for me, you know, I've got an amazing marketeer well, two actually, Hetal and Christine. But Christine has been with me for 10 years and she's got this amazing knack of just taking what's in my head and actually getting it onto paper and formulating it into the messaging and then building the plan from that, because I come up with a million ideas. She's also got the great knack of ignoring all the ideas. She has a rule that if I say it once, she ignores it. I've said it twice. This might be one we need to do, and if I said it the third time then, yeah, we probably need to do that and take that forward.

Martin Hurn:

That's a great filter absolutely good yeah good, because I have 100 ideas and yeah, I'd say 99 or maybe 97 of them are terrible, um, but some of them come off so are you dyslexic?

Darren Evans:

no, you're not. No, that's. That's interesting, because usually I've got a um, an overload of ideas. My mind's going off and I've got this, that and the other. Here's a, here's a picture of what could be, but I need someone to put some glue here, here and here so it all holds together. So I know you're not Richard Branson, but I'm kind of thinking of the Richard Branson types of characters.

Martin Hurn:

I might be more lazy, maybe More lazy. I don't want to actually write it down.

Darren Evans:

No, because I think it's a skill, isn't it? It's a different skill set. Yeah, and there's a book and I've forgotten who the author is now, but it's called Rocket Fuel, and the book talks about this principle of you need, in order for a successful business or organization, you need to have someone that's a visionary, and then you need to have someone who is the implementer, and a visionary seldom is an implementer as well as a visionary. So you have Henry Ford, and behind Henry Ford was an implementer I've forgotten the guy's name now Steve Jobs. Obviously he was a visionary, but behind Steve Jobs there was a Wozniak. You've got Disney. Yeah, Walt Disney. He was the visionary. Behind Walt Disney there was a. There was an implementer. And so it's interesting how you there's this blend that goes on between two different types of people that get fulfillment and excitement and joy from from doing very different things yeah, yeah, it's weird, you know, when you said you know, I think I'm probably from the generation where we've never really questioned.

Martin Hurn:

It's just sort of what we are. I think we're particularly bad at sort of self-analyzing and it's quite interesting. So, you know, easy pairs have brought in a performance coach which has actually moved probably more into a sort of a psychiatrist, but sort of more of a sort of, you know, a personal mentor and coach. And it's interesting. You know, sort of I use her lady called um charlotte. I use her quite a lot and you know, because I would say, well, this is my process, this is it doesn't feel right. She's like, well, no, that is, that's just how you work, you know.

Martin Hurn:

So I'm sort of I've got a weird morning routine where I just religiously read the news and I have to go from everything from the Daily Mail to the Independent to the Guardian to the BBC and I just stay on current affairs. But that's my sort of 10-15 minutes in the morning while drinking two or three coffees, because that's my process and that's what I do, and then I can settle in and do work and go through that and I'm the sort of person that I don't work. You know I'm not particularly a nine to five. I'm sort of you know I work quite early in the morning but then I also switch on late at night. I'm sort of you know I don't I very much struggle to switch off as well. So yeah, it's sort of understanding. You know yourself and the processes you go through and how to get the best out of it I'm interested to know areas, uh, in your past where you've not conformed.

Darren Evans:

And you look back at that now you're like you know, I'm really glad that I didn't conform, because there's lots of children and young people out there and I do it myself for my own children. You want them to conform because I don't know why you just want them to conform and you're less concerned about actually, if I give you permission not to conform, I wonder what great things you're going to come up with. I'm just trying to see if there's anything that comes to mind really, of anything that you've not conformed with or at. Then you look back and you're like so glad I didn't come I think it's.

Martin Hurn:

It's, you know, at an event level, it's, you know a lot of events would shy away from activists and actually we embrace activists. You know we've, we've actively sorted out to get members of extinction rebellion at the show. You know, if you said that to a corporate, they'd be like, well, they're going to glue themselves to or what you know, orange stuff's going to come out absolutely.

Martin Hurn:

But you know, for us, I think there's there's positive activism and I think that's something I'm really passionate about. You know, a lot of our speakers will have you know in their biogs that they are an activist and I think we should be embracing that and I think so there's little things like that that I think. You know, if I was in a, in a normal corporate environment, that would scare people if I'd have to report every single detail, um, that maybe we wouldn't be doing that. You know, I think, yeah, sort of a personal life. I just sort of always look for a different angle on things.

Martin Hurn:

You know I'm very solution orientated but it can be hard sometimes because you know, when I was running you know future builders my own company, you know I'd gone from being in a large corporate, ubm for 14 years to suddenly running a company there was nine of us in a small office in London Bridge and everyone would just turn around and look at me and go, have you got the answer? And I was like no, I haven't. And that's quite hard sometimes when everyone expects you to have the solution to things. That was a real challenge. So when we were just going back to that sort of not conforming, we arm and arm over the rebrand of EcoBuild. Ecobuild had come so synonymous with this huge event and we were in a very different space.

Martin Hurn:

The event is very different to what it was back then. So we sort of said, well, let's rebrand it and let's just change it to a future. And if I was in a corporate environment, you'd go through steering groups, you would do focus groups. There is, we flipped a coin and it was that the decision was made on the coin, yeah, and it was tails, and we went okay, so let's change. And what was heads?

Martin Hurn:

it was stick with eco build or um or go to future build. And we um, we went to future build, went and bought the url and moved on. You are absolutely wow and I think you know that. That's you know, that's the sort of stuff you can get away with when you haven't got anyone to report to looking back now on that, do you class that as genius or reckless?

Martin Hurn:

we could have wasted a lot of money with a branding agency, couldn't? We and uh spent a lot of money on new logo designs and everything else, so I think it was probably genius. It's an event brand. No one's that gonna die, are they? I don't think it can be reckless. I don't think. Think anyone's going to. I love that.

Darren Evans:

The other thing and did you decide to do the podcast on a coin toss?

Martin Hurn:

as well. No, unfortunately, that was in a PR presentation. Our PR company said this would be a great idea. And is that reckless or genius? If they probably peaked? We're not as professional as you or your studio and editing, but if they peaked behind the scenes, probably scenes, probably reckless. No, it's good.

Martin Hurn:

I, you know, um, you know we talked about in our briefing call why do we do it, and I think we're just interested in people and I think there are some amazing stories out there to be told, um, and you just got to find the people and give them the platform. And actually that's another great thing I love about future build is that we give over our stages to, you know, the people that just aren't, that don't have a voice. You know we exist to amplify those voices and I think that's great. You know, just giving a platform to people, and that's what you know your podcast does as well. It just shines a light on people that maybe you know aren't always on stage. Yeah, that people really come to you know, come and shine what uh have you learned about yourself from doing a podcast?

Martin Hurn:

people say I'm, you know people I think looking you know in, will go oh, you're really confident and you're great on camera.

Martin Hurn:

And you know I hate it absolutely really though, yeah absolutely, I, I sort of um, I always say it's sort of. We had some media coaching actually recently at easy fairs and we talked about this and it's sort of. For me, it's almost there's two sides to me. There's, there's me at home, around my friends and my family, and then there's something that switches on. It's like right, I need to switch on now I'm on stage and that's, that's another, that's a different person. So, yeah, it's sort of.

Darren Evans:

Yeah, this isn't the real me so this is more drawing from a persona that you're trying to put across when you're on the podcast or maybe even doing this. That is taking energy from you. As opposed to this is you and your, your happy state and you're feeling energized.

Martin Hurn:

Yeah, I'd say that I'll come off here and I'll be absolutely drained, and I think I am drained. You know, I'll do a podcast and I and I come off and I'm like you hit a low and we eat some chocolate and then have another coffee and you're fine again so is um.

Darren Evans:

That's that's interesting, that's fascinating. So you're engaged in something that you firmly believe in, but that doesn't energize you, but you give lots of energy to it yeah, I'd say that's right.

Martin Hurn:

I think it's um, I think being on it's hard because so much planning goes into. You know, just three days, and so you know they always say this in the events industry you sort of have the sort of post-show blues. Okay, so we combat that by actually I'm already planning 26. Okay, so I have a joke with my marketing team where it's like, oh, I'm over 25 already, the show's three months away, I'm over it, I'm already on to 26. So that's, I think, how I combat that.

Martin Hurn:

I think I sort of and again, I think that's that need to always be innovating, always be doing something, something different. So it drives, you know. So you know, when I say we're not a trade show, we're very unlike other shows, so we constantly rebrand, we constantly move forward. And maybe that's me, you know, because I want to constantly do something different. Where other events will very much, you know they'll run one edition marketing team will change the logo from 2024 to 2025. Go again, you know, and the event is, you know, it's the same, where I think we always try and change it and I think that's probably me living myself through that brand just going back now to the trade show itself, or sticking with the trade show itself.

Darren Evans:

How happy are you for students to turn up to that trade show en masse?

Martin Hurn:

I'm perfectly happy yeah, I think it's a real balance and I think so in good times. Exhibitors will say, well, they're the specifiers of the future. Brilliant, you know, that's great. Other times, you know, um, they'll be like they just came and nicked all my pens, my mugs and, you know, threw away my literature, and I think we need to do it in the right way. So reach out to local colleges. We we arrange proper times and to come in. In an ideal situation, I would have almost a day dedicated to that and we put on bespoke content. We haven't done that recently and it's probably something we do need to to start doing.

Darren Evans:

Is that a plan of yours, or have you just literally just thought, just think about it, you will do, we'll probably, we'll probably. Okay, how many times I mentioned it to my marketing team?

Martin Hurn:

so no, we we do need to do it in a more choreographed way, I think. What frustrates me is is that no matter. So I think last year we had something like 400 students come to the show. Now some of those students are also part one and part two architectural students. You have to be over 16 to come to our show anyway, so I would said we probably had two or three hundred. You know college students and you know you do all your post-show research and you know in your post-show exhibitor research you'll say too many students at the show. Now that would predominantly come from the brands that put a racing car on their stand or a sweet shop.

Martin Hurn:

You know, and they wonder why they're not getting the serious conversations with tier one contractors or architects where they've got a golf simulator and I think it's that sort of. I think we need to, you know, look at how we exhibit and how we attract that talent, because for me, you know, we shouldn't be inspiring the next generation of architects or house builders by having a half ten open ten of roses and a golf simulator and a golf simulator. I think, you know, we should be inspiring them in the right way yeah, I agree with that.

Darren Evans:

I'm just, as you're speaking there, remembering a time when I went to eco build and I absolutely loved it because I waited right until the end and I was willing to invest the time because there was this piece of apparatus and these lights came up and you touched the light and the light the light that you, uh, was on you touched it, the light went off and another light came on automatically in another area yeah and so the aim of the game is how many lights can you turn off within a set period of time?

Darren Evans:

now I'm super competitive, especially at things like that, and I'm like, right, I am going to be number one. And so I spent I kid you not at least an hour on that stand just learning to come top. And I came top and the prize was, um, a nintendo 64, and I gave it to my son and he was super happy. I was not interested. I could not tell you what they were trying to sell, but I just saw that activity, as this is something that's going to make me feel real good. When I get to the top, I win the prize, and that's all I've remembered it for. So I've that's. That's what has just come to my mind from what you're saying there.

Martin Hurn:

I think we're seeing the step change now though. So, for example, we're working with our registration partner is Hardenberg Materials, and you know that sort of used to be Hanson, so the concrete brand cement, and they're very keen to engage with students, but we do it in the right way. So they've sponsored our student registration. So when a student, you know, registers, then we will send them some messaging and they're going to be the bespoke content at the event for them, because they want to find the engineers of tomorrow. You know, and I think that that's the way to do it is actually to say to them look, we're crying out for engineers, you know, so we want to go back to them with career progressions. You know routes into this. That's the way we should be doing it.

Darren Evans:

Absolutely right, and there is a huge market, from what I've seen out there, of young people wanting to know what's available, and there are so many different ways for them to find out what's available. But definitely, whoever's listening to this, don't put that apparatus up, because all they'll care about is winning the prize. Well, martin, I think that we're in a good position. Martin, we're back now and we're in the demolition zone, and you have created what appears to be two structures with some connecting parts to it.

Martin Hurn:

It's a bit apocalyptic, to be completely honest.

Darren Evans:

Okay, what does?

Martin Hurn:

it represent. This represents all the climate change myths that are out there, all those climate change deniers saying that, oh, you know it can't be happening because look how cold it is, or you know the polar bears there's too many, too many polar bears, yeah. Or it's all China. So this is the many myths that are unfortunately too often in mainstream media about climate change, and so this is a building with a huge tidal wave hurtling towards it.

Darren Evans:

So, yeah, a bit apocalyptic, but so this is the blue. So the second structure is a crashing wave is a blue crashing wave heading towards the the building and I think you know it's.

Martin Hurn:

You know we always think, oh it's. You know, it's not. You know climate change it's, it's not affecting us. And I think you know. I've recently moved back to Isle of Wight, where I grew up, and you can see the climate change firsthand. We've had huge landslides, which are caused from higher than normal rainfalls, drier summers. We're seeing unprecedented coastal erosion. You're seeing a change in the wildlife. If you drive around country lanes like I do, you don't get as many bugs hitting the windscreen anymore. You know we're in a in not just a climate emergency. You know biodiversity emergency as well, and it's, you're seeing it firsthand. And you know, recently we've seen the mass floods in. You know italy and spain. We've seen, you know, hitting well over 40 degrees in mainland europe. So you know this isn't somewhere else anymore. This is, this is on our doorstep. So what I wanted to sort of put into the demolition zone was yeah, all those climate myths.

Darren Evans:

I think that you can just go ahead now and destroy this myth.

Martin Hurn:

Okay. Well, it's going to be the massive wave coming through.

Darren Evans:

Love it. Love it With a swipe of the right hand. That wave hit everything. That is all gone. But I think the point that you raised there is really important. It's really easy to either deny something which is a shift and is a change and needs to be addressed, and I think the other thing is it's easy or it's possible to ignore something. If I ignore it, it will go away, or if I ignore it, it's not real. So yeah, I love that point that you made.

Martin Hurn:

I think that you know that netflix movie I think it's like don't look up. It was a prime example of that where you know there was a, there's an asteroid hurtling to earth and I was sort of just ignoring it. You know, anyway, it won't happen and, um, I think we've been, we've all been guilty of that, you know, for too long, and I think that's not the case anymore. I think, yeah, just look around. Really. I think it was interesting in in lockdown as well, where you know sort of nature almost rejuvenated itself for a period.

Darren Evans:

It was beautiful, wasn't it? Yeah?

Martin Hurn:

probably helped. It was really nice at easter as well.

Darren Evans:

Yeah, I mean the weather was great but but I think that the noise levels of traffic went down. I saw animals close to my home that I've not seen close to my home since my you know adult children were really young, but yeah, there was a, there was a definite shift yeah.

Darren Evans:

Martin, I am interested in a couple of things just to to close off our time together. First thing is if someone is interested in exhibiting at Future Build, what would you say would be the top one or two things that they would need to do in order for them to get the best value out of exhibiting with yourselves?

Martin Hurn:

I think they've got to be clear on their objectives and I think don't treat exhibitions in isolation. I think they're a really important part of your marketing mix. I always say when they're best used is when they're part of a campaign, and I think exhibitions give an amazing touch point in that, you know, the whole ethos of an exhibition is to touch, feel, experience and connect with people. So use that. I think you know some of the best I've seen is when you know you've got a, you know a current marketing campaign and then bring it to life at the show, and I think that that's an important part of it. I also think if you're gearing up for a launch or you're bringing something new, then that's a prime example. You know 74% of our visitors state they come to see new innovations or new suppliers or new products. So sort of, don't underestimate that, you know, put that front and center.

Martin Hurn:

I also think that we, you know, by nature have got a very environmentally conscious audience and so bring that message in. And it's also a tendency, I think as well, to you know, just put short of you know uninformed or sort of you know higher. If you're a very small company, sometimes they hire, you know show staff to man the stand. Don't do that. Put your experts on there. What we hear a lot is that the future build audience are very inquisitive and ask the hard questions as well. So you know, sort know, sort of you know, do your homework, you know, and bring the right people, because that's who they want to talk to as well.

Darren Evans:

You're a leader of a team. I know you said that there's nine people in the organization, but there's a team. The show that you put on is really significant. It all points to a few days. What would you say are the top three attributes that an effective leader needs to have?

Martin Hurn:

I think. I think a big one for me is probably integrity, being honest and open, you know, and I think you've got to live your own values, you know. You've got. You've got to sort of you know it sounds a bit cliche, but lead from the front and I firmly believe that there's nothing that I would ask one of my team to do that I wouldn't do myself. So you know you'll see me at the show. I'm moving chairs, you know, making sure things are right. I think you've got to have you know again, full transparency, be really open. Weirdly, as a sort of a leader, I don't do formal one-to-ones in my team, but I almost catch up daily with them, you know not in a micromanagement way, but just in a sort of a.

Martin Hurn:

I'm always approaching all I want to know, always happy to help on any issue. And then I just think the last one is probably, yeah, just being really genuine. I think a lot of people can hide behind, you know, whether it's company procedures or HR handbooks. I just think if you just have to talk to people you know in a genuine way and care about them, they always say, don't they, that people usually leave organizations for a bad boss over a bad company or a bad job, and I think that's what you've got to do.

Darren Evans:

I love that is there anything else that you wanted to mention before we wrap up? I've enjoyed our time together. I'm just wondering is there anything that's on your mind that you think I want to share this with the audience?

Martin Hurn:

I think I would just you know it would be a call to collaborate.

Martin Hurn:

Really, I think we talked about this you know, that this podcast exists to, of bring people together, to shine a light on those people and to connect people. That's exactly what FutureBuild exists to. You know, if you're sitting there watching this going, you know I'd love to do that. Or why doesn't he do that? Come talk to me. You can find me on LinkedIn. You know. Message me. I respond to everything. I probably don't. We don't get it enough. We don't get enough people coming to us with an idea. I drive my team mental because I hate to say no. So you know, normally if someone comes to me with an idea, we make it happen. So I'd suggest yeah, get in touch, give us some ideas.

Darren Evans:

I love that Good and I think as well just to add, if I can, just to add just for those younger people, those students that are coming in I think that the suggestion that you made of having a day just for students, I think that that would be great.

Darren Evans:

It reminds me of something that used to go on at the Birmingham NEC. I don't think it does anymore, but there used to be lots of different organizations there for students and they were school children to come along and say this is the type of job that you would do if you were, and they had had the BBC there, they had NHS there, they had nuclear this, that, and yet there's so many different and I think that you could probably do something similar this is my idea to you, right? Something similar at FutureBuild is to have time just dedicated to those younger people that are potentially looking at the construction industry. Maybe they're not even doing a part one or a part two of architecture, maybe they've not even decided that yet. I don't know what that would look like, but I just think that if there's a physical space for someone to have conversations, to, like you're saying, see, touch and feel what it would be like, I think that that could really help to get continuous bright minds within the industry that are coming through.

Martin Hurn:

Yeah, I 100% agree with you. I think we definitely need to do more to inspire.

Darren Evans:

Martin, it's been an absolute pleasure having you here. Thanks for agreeing, thanks for coming along, and I've got a picture of you in my mind now, of you just sat just exhausted in the corner somewhere with a cup of coffee, saying oh Darren's worn me out, but it's been great having you on the podcast.

Martin Hurn:

Amazing. Thank you no thanks.

Darren Evans:

Thanks for watching to the end. Please remember to like to share and to subscribe Also. I think you'll really like this one.