PA Environment Digest

The Green Building Alliance this week announced the final four recipients of its Green Product Innovation Grants who will share a total of $150,000. These winning Pennsylvania projects, selected through a competitive process, all seek to develop and introduce new and enhanced building products to the fast-growing green marketplace.

Four of 22 proposals were selected to receive grants, including:

-- $100,000 for product and market development of thermo-treated hardwood, a joint project of Babcock Lumber Company and Pennsylvania State University. The project will seek to develop technical and market acceptance for outdoor decking and railing products made from Pennsylvania hardwood untreated by chemicals.

-- $20,000 to develop an active air heater without a boiler, a project of Technical Analysis & Services International, Inc. The goal of this effort is to produce and test an active air heater prototype that uses a local manufacturing byproduct.

-- $20,000 to identify, design and develop sustainable solutions for non-residential modular designs. This project team includes Carnegie Mellon University'sCenter for Building Performance and Diagnosticsa nd Terradime, LLC.

-- $10,000 to verify the potential of polarized glazing to manage light and solar gain loads for building retrofits and new building construction. This project will be completed by the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University.

This is the fourth round of Product Innovation Grants awarded since GBA began its Green Building Products Initiative in 2006. Overall, 19 Pennsylvania projects have received more than $978,000. Previous grants were awarded in December 2007, June 2008, and December 2008.

"In times of economic uncertainty, everyone is searching for greener products to help reduce operating costs, improve employee productivity and satisfaction, and optimize economic and environmental life cycle performance," said Holly Childs, GBA's executive director. "For the past two years, our Product Innovation Grant program has encouraged collaborations between private-sector companies and university teams throughout Pennsylvania that support the marketplace for greening new and existing buildings. As Pittsburgh claims the seventh-largest number of LEED-certified buildings in the U.S. and a strong, innovative local green building product market, the city continues to be a green building thought and practice leader."

"We solicited Product Innovation Grant proposals in January from Pennsylvania companies and researchers," explained Dr. Aurora Sharrard, GBA's research manager and manager of the grant program. "Each one was either investigating the development of innovative, sustainable building products or the greening of existing product lines, or was a start-up seeking to enter the green building product marketplace. We're very pleased with the sustained interest in these grants from green building product manufacturers and, in the future, look forward to offering similar financial assistance through our new affiliation with Innovation Works' Innovation Adoption Grant Fund."

The 22 submitted proposals this round were assessed on the criteria of green building leadership, technical merit, commercialization plan viability, partnership resources and potential market impact. Grant award decisions were made at the discretion of GBA on the recommendations of the Product Innovation Grant Review Committee, which is comprised of a variety of individuals, including consultants, manufacturers, investors, economic development stakeholders and academic researchers. Participation on the review committee is confidential.

For more information, visit the Green Building Products Initiative website.

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