Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction

The recently established Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction have been created to promote sustainable construction worldwide. Entries in the Awards are now open. Sustainable construction projects can be submitted for the Awards online until March 31, 2005 at www.holcimawards.org. The prize money for the five regional competitions and the global awards totals US$2m. 

The Holcim Awards are an initiative of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction based in Switzerland. The independent Foundation is supported by Holcim Ltd, one of the world’s leading suppliers of cement, aggregrates, concrete and construction-related services with Group Companies and affiliates in more than 70 countries.  

To carry out the competition, the Holcim Foundation is working closely together with five renowned technical universities: the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich, Switzerland); the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, USA); Tongji University (Shanghai, China); the University of Sao Paulo (Sao Paulo, Brazil); and the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa). These universities will lead the independent juries in their regions. The universities have also assisted in defining the five "target issues for sustainable construction" which will be used to evaluate the submitted projects. Descriptions of these criteria are available at   www.holcimawards.org  , along will full information on the competition. Entries can be only submitted via the website. 

The submitted design must demonstrate proof of sustainability according to the five target issues which have been defined by the Holcim Foundation and its partner universities. Three regional awards and additional recognition and encouragement prizes will be awarded in each of the five geographic regions: Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, Middle East, and Asia Pacific. The regional award winners will automatically qualify for the global competition to be held in 2006. At the awards ceremony, an independent jury will announce the three worldwide best projects, exemplary works that are genuine milestones in the advancement of sustainable construction.