In a continuing industry-wide effort to promote sustainable construction around the world, Swiss construction materials giant Holcim Ltd. has created a competition open to anyone who pursues such projects, including architects, planners, engineer or project owners. Launched in November 2004, the Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction was created by The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, which was formed in December 2003.

Entries for the competition are open, and sustainable construction projects can be submitted for the awards via the internet (at www.holcimawards.org) until March 31, 2005. Three regional awards and additional recognition and encouragement prizes will be awarded in each of five geographic regions: Europe, North America (Holcim is the parent company of Holcim (US) Inc. and St. Lawrence Cement), Latin America, Africa/Middle East, and Asia Pacific. The regional winners automatically qualify for the global competition to be held in 2006. Prize money for the five regional competitions and the global awards totals $2 million.

Holcim reports that as of the end of 2004, nearly 200 application have been submitted in the competition. The Holcim Foundation is working closely with five technical universities: the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.; Tongji University, Shanghai, China; the University of São Paulo, Brazil; and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. These institutions will lead the independent juries in their regions and have also assisted in defining the five target issues of sustainable construction that will be used to evaluate the submitted projects: change and transferability, ethical standards and social equity, ecological quality and energy conservation, economic performance and compatibility, and contextual response and aesthetic impact.

The Holcim Awards is a permanent and progressive program, with new competition cycles to be held regularly. In addition to prize money, the foundation will provide $1 million of funding in each cycle to support the execution of one or more sustainable construction projects and to enable otherwise under-funded project to be carried out.