Sustainable Building innovators commended through prestigious WorldGBC Chair’s Awards
Each year, WorldGBC presents two major awards recognising the contributions of individuals and organisations to the global green building movement: the WorldGBC Chair’s Award and the Chair’s Award on Global Green Building Entrepreneurship.
WorldGBC Chair’s Award 2019-2020
The Chair’s Award is given to those who have added outstanding value to the development of sustainability in the built environment. This year WorldGBC’s Chair, Lisa Bate, presented the Chair’s Award to Elizabeth Wangeci Chege in honour of her impressive achievements
spanning nearly two decades.
Elizabeth receives the award in recognition of her many years of service and dedication to the sustainable built environment. Her accomplishments include co-founding WEB Limited, her position as Chairperson of the Kenya Green Building Council, and for the past 19 years making it her mission to be part of the solution to the climate crisis, living by the motto,
“What we build today will form the Africa of tomorrow.”
WorldGBC Chair’s Award on Global Green Building Entrepreneurship 2019-2020
The Chair’s Award on Global Green Building Entrepreneurship is given to individuals or entities whose contribution to global sustainable buildings has proven to be unique, innovative and entrepreneurial. This year the WorldGBC Chair’s Award on Global Green Building Entrepreneurship was awarded to the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) and accepted by the inventor of the tool, Stacy Smedly—Executive Director of
Building Transparency, Director of Sustainability, Skanska USA.
Stacy created the idea for EC3 whilst working at Skanska. She applied for an internal innovation grant to fund getting EC3 to proof of concept, Skanska then continued to support her innovation and ideas into something tangible. EC3 is an open-source database of over 16,000 materials, searchable by performance requirements, design specifications, project
location, and global warming potential—all based on environmental product declaration data.
Tools such as EC3 are vital in tackling embodied carbon emissions, allowing users to calculate and identify key areas where they can focus mitigation efforts to have the most impact at no user cost.
The award presentation was held virtually as part of the online MENA Green Building Congress 2020.
Lisa Bate, Chair of WorldGBC said: “This year’s winners have played truly outstanding roles in championing green buildings around the world. Elizabeth Wangeci Chege has shown years of tireless commitment to the cause through her technical leadership, sustainable consultancy work and striving for Kenya and Africa as a whole to build resilience to climate change in sustainable development.
The EC3 tool has demonstrated pioneering leadership in sustainable advocacy, allowing architects, engineers and policy makers to easily compare potential building materials and choose the lower carbon option.
I congratulate both winners and wish them every success for the future as they continue on our collective journey to deliver green buildings for everyone, everywhere”.
