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WNC Regional Leadership Awards

This award program honors individuals and organizations whose exemplary work has been influential in the expansion of sustainable, higher-performing buildings and projects throughout USGBC's West North Central (WNC) Region's local communities that includes: Central Plains, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri Gateway, Nebraska Flatwater, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

The USGBC WNC Leadership Awards recognize the triple bottom-line benefits of green buildings: people, planet and profit. Sustainable buildings are not only good for the environment – they also save money while providing a healthy living and working space for building occupants. We’re excited to honor the leaders who are working to ensure this goal is met, and who are transforming communities across the region.

While many projects have already been recognized due to their use of LEED as a tool to transform the region's built environment, this award program looks beyond achievement of third party certification to celebrate the leadership of the project teams and the greater story behind each nomination.

Award Categories

Applications are now open for USGBC’s West North Central Region 2020 Community Leadership Awards.

This award program honors individuals and organizations whose exemplary work has been influential in the expansion of sustainable, higher-performing buildings throughout the region's local communities that includes: Central Plains, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri Gateway, Nebraska Flatwater, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

DEADLINE EXTENDED! Nomination forms are due by February 24, 2020 at 11:59pm CST.

Questions and inquiries can be sent to Korinne Haeffel at khaeffel@usgbc.org or call at 202-705-6662.

Project Award Categories

Building & Project Categories

Nominate

Innovative Design, New Construction

This award is for a LEED BD+C certified project that demonstrates use of new technologies and strategies to push the envelope of green design and meet project challenges in an innovative way.

Sample Form

Nominate

Innovative Project, Residential

For a residential or LEED Homes project that demonstrates use of new technologies and strategies to push the envelope of green design and operations, meeting project challenges in innovative ways.

Sample Form

Nominate

Innovative Project, Interiors

For an ID+C certified project that demonstrates use of new technologies and strategies to push the envelope of green design and meet project challenges in an innovative way.

Sample Form

Nominate

Innovative Project, Existing Building Performance

For a LEED O+M certified project that demonstrates a significant increase in building performance through the implementation of sustainable design solutions.

Sample Form

Nominate

Outdoor Environments

For a project that demonstrates innovative use of integrating landscape design into their space and utilizes environmentally responsible landscaping techniques.

Sample Form

Nominate

Responsible Built Environments

Projects eligible in this category either have achieved an Arc Performance Certificate or are certified under any of the following GBCI third party green building rating systems: TRUE Zero Waste or Parksmart.

Sample Form

Nominate

Innovative Project, Health and Wellness in the Built Environment

For a WELL Certified project that demonstrates a significant positive impact on human health and wellness through use of industry best practices and proven strategies.

Sample Form

People Award Categories

Individual, Team & Organizational Categories

Nominate

Green Dealmakers

 For a real estate company or related organization that has demonstrated leadership in promoting green building in the commercial real estate industry through its work. 

Sample Form

Nominate

Most Successful Community Engagement

For a project team who has demonstrated creative and innovative strategies for connecting either with their internal or external community through a building project.

More Detail

Nominate

Raising the Standard

This award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding commitments through their personal time and energy to expand the conversation around sustainability and green buildings outside the green building professional community to reach a broader population.

More Detail

Nominate

Sustainable Business Practices

This category recognizes businesses in our region which have demonstrated an unusually high, innovative, or influential level of commitment to sustainability throughout their business practice.

Sample Form

Eligibility

Ownership of Materials

Judging Criteria

Eligibility

Applicants project impact or certification needs to have occurred between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019.

The awards are open to those whose work impacted, or project is located or developed in USGBC’s West North Central Region region's local communities that includes: Central Plains, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri Gateway, Nebraska Flatwater, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Members of the jury, employees of jury members’ firms, and juror family members are not eligible.

Each project, individual or organization may only be submitted once for an award category. Be sure to coordinate with team members to avoid multiple submittals.

Projects awarded in previous years cannot apply for the same category. However, those winning projects are eligible to apply for a different category if they meet the category criteria. For example, Project ABC was awarded under the Innovative Design, New Construction in 2019. In 2020, they would not be eligible to nominate under the New Construction category. However, if they meet the award criteria, they could be eligible for another category such as, Most Successful Community Engagement or Innovative Project: Existing Building Performance.

Ownership of Materials

All submitted entry materials will be retained for exhibition, education, publication, and promotional purposes. The submission of an entry shall constitute a general agreement by the entrant that the sponsors reserve the right to use individual photographs, drawings, parts of drawings, etc. for reproduction, publication, exhibition, and advertising purposes. No monetary compensation will be awarded for the use of the entry materials for such purposes.

Judging Criteria & Scoring

Qualified applications will be reviewed by a panel of USGBC Market Leadership Advisory Board members and green building experts from the West North Central USGBC region. Each nomination will be carefully reviewed and awarded points for leadership approach, strategies that push the envelope of green design, resolving challenges with innovative solutions and high performance. All entries will be judged and scored on their own merit. Level of recognition will be based on total points each nomination accumulates.

SAMPLE JURY SCORE SHEET

Decisions by the jurors are final and award strategies are not pre-determined. USGBC and the evaluation committee reserve the right to eliminate any nomination that does not fulfill the criteria. Awards are commensurate to evaluation of the nomination. USGBC reserves the right to not award a category and to make changes to scoring methodology.

Award Levels:

Certificate of Leadership - This designation acknowledges the leadership of our nominees who have demonstrated activities and accomplishments that go above the status quo.
Award of Merit - This designation is reserved for nominations that earn 80% or more of available points during jury review.
Award of Excellence - This designation is reserved for nominations that earn 90% or more of available points during jury review.

Important Dates

VOLUNTEER AS AN AWARD JUROR

Important Dates

12.13.19

Call for Nominations Opens across USGBC's West North Central Region

02.24.20

Call for Nominations Closes at 11:45pm CST

Jury Review Begins

05.06.20

Nominees are showcased at WNC's Regional Conference - IMPACT

06.11.20

Formal announcements and celebrations of award recipients begins. Each USGBC Community will acknowledge on their own timelines between June and November.