GreenBuilding and GreenLight EU Awards Announced

The GreenBuilding and GreenLight EU awards encourage the reduction of usage of energy by private and public organisations. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission manages the GreenBuilding and GreenLight programmes. GreenBuilding promotes enhanced energy efficiency in building facilities by means of measures including efficient cooling and heating, PV panels, intelligent control systems and thermal insulation. GreenLight promotes partners to set up energy-efficient lighting.

Latvia’s Dagda town council is one of the award winners of the GreenLight programme in 2010. Ever since joining the programme in 2007, the facility has decreased its light energy consumption by 85%. The GreenBuilding category saw a German-secondary school and an Austrian-office building achieve energy savings of more than 80%. More than 700 participants all across Europe have taken part in these programmes and help save around 545 GWh per year.

The awards for the two programmes were given out at the ‘Improving Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings’ Conference (IEECB'10) in Frankfurt. Twenty four participants of the programmes received awards for their innovative projects in the 2010 edition of the conference.