The World Green Building Council has awarded Energiesprong the prestigious David Gottfried Global Green Building Entrepreneurship Award for their unique and innovative contribution to the global green building movement.
Jasper van den Munckhof, Founding Director of Energiesprong received the award from Lisa Bate, Vice-Chair of WorldGBC at the Awards Gala reception in Toronto, as part of the ‘Building Lasting Change 2018 with WorldGBC Congress Canada’.
The WorldGBC’s David Gottfried Award recognises individuals whose contributions have been particularly pioneering, displaying an entrepreneurism that has helped to transform or advance the green building mission. David Gottfried was an entrepreneur who originally helped form the World Green Building Council and the US Green Building Council. Energiesprong is chosen as this year’s winner. WorldGBC is inspired by the leadership that is demonstrated in driving the global transformation towards a net zero building stock by setting a new industry standard for super energy efficient home refurbishments.
Tai Lee Siang, Chairman of WorldGBC, said: “I am truly inspired by Energiesprong’s role in advancing the global green building movement. We believe that Energiesprong’s model addresses so many previous challenges which have blocked widespread retrofit, and we believe that innovative models such as this could help us meet our goals of decarbonising the building stock by 2050. I’d like to congratulate Energiesprong on this achievement, and I wish them every success for the future as we continue on our collective journey to deliver green buildings for everyone, everywhere.”
Jasper van den Munckhof, Founding Director of Energiesprong, said at the CaGBC Awards Gala reception in Toronto: “4 million homes per year have to be retrofitted in Europe alone because of maintenance and modernisation needs. Worldwide, every home in the western world needs a retrofit before 2050 regardless of our climate challenges. Energiesprong has the solution for a large portion of the housing stock: upgrade these regular retrofits into quick, affordable high quality net zero energy retrofits. The extra investment to achieve net zero energy is covered by the energy saving. The extra comfort, durability and aesthetics one gets for free.
The use of prefabricated elements for the retrofits and IT solutions that are well established in other sectors enables the building sector to industrialise, resulting in a more efficient labour force, higher quality products, faster project delivery and lower costs. This brings a new perspective on reaching our climate goals in the built environment while transforming our homes into more pleasant places to live in.”
Today, over 4000 net zero energy houses are already in use in the Netherlands. The first prototype projects of 10 performance guaranteed highly energy efficient energy retrofits were completed in both the UK and France. In New York State and Germany, first pilots are in preparation. Italy, Ontario and British Colombia are next areas where Energiesprong market development teams are being set up.
Nottingham City Homes has led the way in the UK, using the Energiesprong approach to upgrade ten homes in Sneinton. Construction partner Melius Homes has provided 30 year guarantees for performance for both indoor comfort and energy use. The intention is to roll out further whole house retrofits in the coming months and years in Nottingham to ensure warm and affordable homes for tenants, for life. A second UK pilot is currently in development. Moat housing association will bring ten hard to heat homes towards the net zero energy standard in Maldon, Essex.
Councillor Sally Longford, Nottingham City Council's Portfolio Holder for Energy and Environment, said: "We're very excited that Nottingham is at the forefront of this revolutionary approach, which can help tackle both fuel poverty and climate change. Many of our residents live in fuel poverty so creating more energy efficient homes to reduce people's energy bills is a high priority for us. This pilot is part of a cluster of smart city solutions being delivered in Nottingham over a three year period under the European-funded REMOURBAN project the results of which will inform the next steps for our programme to tack hard-to-heat housing. It's great recognition for Energiesprong to have won this prestigious award and well deserved, our ten pilot homes look fantastic and the residents are really happy with them and report lower bills."
By winning this award, Energiesprong joins an illustrious list of previous David Gottfried Award winners following William McDonough and Professor Dr. Michael Braungart, co-creators of the Cradle to Cradle® Design Framework winning it last year. Pierre-André de Chalendar, CEO of Saint Gobain (2016) and Nils Kok, Founder and CEO of GRESB have previously also won the award.
In Europe, currently the Energiesprong market development scale-up has been largely funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Interreg North-West Europeprogramme. Energiesprong is also funded and supported by Greenflex, Climate Works, NYSERDA, NEF, European Climate Foundation, OAK Foundation, dena, German Ministry for Energy (BMWi), Neobuild and Stroomversnelling.
