DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN - Borough Hall was host to the third annual Green Brooklyn Conference on Friday, which provided a chance for green entrepreneurs, non-profits and city planners to gather and show off how the borough is keeping up with the latest green initiatives.Growing each year since its inception, the conference was an assembly given even more purpose since Mayor Bloomberg announced PlaNYC last April."A lot of us had been working on these issues, but now the mayor has come along and really articulated what needs to be done and what we can all work for," said Dr. Sandi Franklin, executive director of the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment, which organized the conference."We're begging everyone to take a look at your own life to see how you can enter the green movement without radically changing your life," said Franklin.The conference, which ran from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., included eight different panel discussions on topics such as navigating New York on alternative transportation, trimming back on your energy diet, an in-depth look into NYC's recycling and a hands-on worm composting demonstration.With 30 vendors this year, displays spilled outside to the plaza in front of Borough Hall. Among them were Solar Energy Systems, a builder of photovoltaic systems based out of Greenpoint; Propeller Group, a developer promoting sustainable real estate development; IceStone, a manufacturer based in the Navy Yard that makes table surfaces from recycled glass; and Green Depot, a construction depot specializing in sustainable materials and practices founded in Williamsburg and which now has 14 locations around the northeast.The benefit of buying from green manufacturers is doubled when they are local, since it reduces truck travel and therefore gas emissions, explained Emily Doubilet of IceStone to the group of third graders attending the conference.Environmental issues are incredibly interrelated, explained Ariella Maron, senior policy analyst for PlaNYC during the opening remarks of the conference. This is why when the mayor initially commissioned a plan regarding sustainable land use in the city, it soon became something much larger - PlaNYC incorporates energy consumption, water and air quality, transportation and housing into an ambitious blueprint for "a model for cities in the 21st century."In Brooklyn, there are signs that New Yorkers are embracing a more sustainable lifestyle. "The myth that city living is not green is fading," says Sarah Beatty, a founder of Green Depot and a speaker at the conference.Beatty pointed to such projects as 93 Nevins St., the first building in New York City to be certified a "health house" by the American Lung Association. The shell of the 1920s Boerum Hill brick building is being preserved, while the interior is being converted into two townhouses built out of alternative construction materials that don't emit toxic volatile organic compounds. More than 100 green innovations are being used on the building, said Beatty.That eternal champion of all things Brooklyn, Borough President Marty Markowitz, also spoke at the conference, touting Brooklyn's green achievements.Highlights of a sustainable Brooklyn include:

• Brooklyn will soon have one of the largest Green Roofs in New York City, atop the Linda Die and Tool Corporation building in Red Hook. It will be used as a living laboratory to monitor energy use, bio-diversity and insulation.
• Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment recently launched a Sustainable Business Alliance.
• According to Transportation Alternatives, there are so many Williamsburg residents commuting on bikes to work that the city has converted car-parking spaces to bike parking spaces.
• The arts space Galapagos is moving to a building in DUMBO that will boast a geothermal radiant heating and cooling system and a green rooftop.