Sustainable Building innovators commended through prestigious WorldGBC Chair’s Award

In recognition of their commitment and innovation towards a sustainable built environment, a pioneering embodied carbon calculator and a trailblazing climate leader receive a World Green Building Council (WorldGBC) Chair’s Award.

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.

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 Society, 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.”

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) tool and accepted by the co-creator of the tool, Stacy Smedley — Executive Director of Building Transparency, Director of Sustainability, Skanska USA.

Stacy conceived the idea for the EC3 tool whilst working at Skanska, in collaboration with software developer Phil Northcott of C-Change Labs. Stacy secured initial support from Skanska to get the tool to a proof of concept. To accelerate its development, EC3 was further incubated and developed as a project of the University of Washington Carbon Leadership Forum, with financial support and collaboration from over 50 foundation and industry sponsors, including Pankow and MKA Foundations, and global companies Autodesk, Interface, Microsoft and Skanska. It was launched publicly in November 2019, and the new nonprofit Building Transparency was established to continue to manage and scale the tool.

EC3 is a free, open-access tool and database of over 22,000 materials, searchable by performance requirements, design specifications, project location, and global warming potential—all based on third party verified environmental product declaration (EPD) 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.

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