The Greenovate Awards – an exciting initiative launched by Growthpoint Properties and the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) – aims to inspire and encourage students of the built environment to discover, explore and invent ways to live more sustainably.
It’s a competition where everyone wins.
Werner van Antwerpen, head of utilities and sustainability at Growthpoint Properties says: “With the Greenovate Awards, we want to recognise excellence and innovation in students’ understanding of green principles for the built environment, across all aspects and disciplines.
The Greenovate Awards will link environmental challenges to innovative thinking.”
GBCSA’s CEO Brian Wilkinson says the the programme aims to educate property, construction and quantity surveying third-year and honours students in green building principles and South Africa’s Green Star SA rating system.
The awards programme will be set up and piloted at the Universities of Cape Town, the Witwatersrand and Pretoria, and the competition will test the interest of students and faculty.
If the pilot is successful, it will be rolled out to all universities in the country with appropriate built environment faculties.
For its inaugural programme, students are challenged to come up with ideas in any aspect of building that would lead to a research project that promotes a more sustainable built environment.
Workshops with industry professionals will run from March through to September and the top six projects will be selected by mid-November.
The top six groups will then present their projects to a panel of industry experts selected by the GBCSA and Growthpoint.
Overall winners will be announced on November 26.
The winning group will receive R30,000 in cash and will present their research at the annual GBCSA Green Building Convention.
Students will also be exposed to The Green Star SA Accredited Professional Programme (GSSA AP) at a discounted rate.
“This includes a supported online course and a face-to-face workshop. On completion of the GSSA AP Programme, students can complete the online exam and become a GSSA AP,” Wilkinson says.
