[deadline: 1/09/2009]
The competition intends to advance the state-of-the-art in retrofitting buildings. It is known how to retrofit a single building, but there are no existing solutions for retrofitting an entire city. Buildings alone are responsible for nearly 40% of North America’s greenhouse gases: 79% in New York, and 63% in Toronto. The Zerofootprint Building Re-Skinning Competition aims to reduce these emissions by producing a method that can be scaled to buildings in cities worldwide. Zerofootprint is an organization dedicated to a mass reduction in global environmental impact. They provide software and services to individuals, governments, universities and corporations that measures and manages carbon footprint and engages employees and citizens worldwide in combating climate change. Zerofootprint has launched the first International Building Re-Skinning Competition at the Meeting of the Minds 2009 leadership summit in New York City | The Competition_ “This competition will help us re-imagine our cities. Skinning can not only make them more beautiful and “smart”, but more efficient as well.” According to Dr. Ron Dembo, Zerofootprint’s CEO and founder, the competition will result in “reproducible, cost-effective, energy efficient solution; scalable to a large number of buildings and deployed globally.” The Z-Prize, the largest architectural prize in the world, will be awarded to one of the five finalists. The building that has most reduced the energy, averaged over three years of monitoring, will be the winner. The competition had an initial successful launch at the Discovery ‘09 Conference in Toronto earlier in May. One more event announcing the launch will take place in London. Info: e-mail: skinning@zerofootprint.net - www.zerofootprint.net