Logo courtesy of Diamond website.

Third round brings total disbursements to $828,000; final grant proposal deadline announced

Green Building Alliance (GBA) awarded a total of $240,000 in Product Innovation Grants for five Pennsylvania projects, which are expected to develop and introduce new and enhanced green building products. The GBA has now made three of these awards since giving them began in 2006. To this point, a total of fifteen Pennsylvania recipients have benefited. Previous grants were awarded in December 2007 and June 2008. GBA’s fourth and final round of Product Innovation Grants will be disbursed in June 2009.

Awarded through a competitive selection process, GBA’s Product Innovation Grants expedite the commercialization of new and revised building products within the fast-growing green building market. “Despite a down economy, the green building market represents a significant economic opportunity for Pennsylvania,” said Jeaneen Zappa, director of green business development at GBA.

“With the eighth-largest number of LEED(R) certified buildings in the U.S., Pittsburgh continues to be a green building thought and practice leader. For the past two years, our Product Innovation Grant projects have included collaborations between private sector companies and university teams all over Pennsylvania.”

In this third round of GBA Product Innovation Grants, five out of thirteen proposals were selected to receive grants, including:

*** $100,000 for commercialization of plastic composites that use renewable and recycled raw materials and achieve greater thermal insulation and lower embodied energy – a project of Bedford Reinforced Plastics, Inc. and the University of Pittsburgh;

*** $80,000 to develop an energy-efficient air conditioning system that will employ a natural refrigerant with no global warming or ozone depletion impacts, thus consuming substantially less electricity than
conventional systems – a project of Thar Technologies, Inc. and Carnegie Mellon University;

*** Three $20,000 Proof of Concept grants: Development of a web portal resource for architects and engineers that will feature sustainability and performance measures for building facade materials and assemblies that optimize natural resource flows – a project of Carnegie Mellon University;

*** Use of residual silt from water treatment as a growing medium for landscapes and green roofs – a project of GTECH Strategies; and

*** A wearable bio-sensing comfort controller that will measure a person’s comfort level and then maximize it by adjusting their immediate thermal environment – a project of Carnegie Mellon University.

“We solicited Product Innovation Grant proposals in early July from established Pennsylvania companies investigating the development of innovative sustainable building products or greening of existing product lines; start-up Pennsylvania companies seeking to enter the green building product marketplace; and Pennsylvania university researchers and teams developing innovative green building products along with the processes necessary to produce them,” explained Dr. Aurora Sharrard, GBA’s Research Manager and program manager of the Product Innovation Grant program.

“We’re very pleased with the sustained interest in our green building product grant program and look forward to this next round of submissions, which we anticipate will be our last opportunity to offer this program with State funding.”

A Request for Proposals for the fourth and final round of Product Innovation Grants was also released, with a deadline of April 3, 2009. Awards will be announced in June 2009.

For submission information, please visit: http://www.pa-greenbuildingproducts.org/product_innovation_grants.aspx

Proposals are assessed based on the criteria of green building leadership, technical merit, commercialization plan viability, partnership resources, and potential market impact. Grant award decisions are made at the discretion of GBA on the recommendations of the Product Innovation Grant Review Committee, which is comprised of individuals with a variety of relevant experience, expertise, and backgrounds, including consultants, manufacturers, investors, economic development stakeholders, and academic researchers. Participation on the Review Committee is kept confidential.

About Green Building Alliance

Green Building Alliance is a 16-year-old nonprofit organization that advances economic prosperity and human wellbeing in Western Pennsylvania by driving market demand and facilitating green building
practices and products that have minimal impact on the natural environment. The Product Innovation Grants are a component of GBA’s Green Building Products Initiative economic development program, which serves all of Pennsylvania. Funding for the Initiative is provided through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority; The Heinz Endowments; and the Richard King Mellon Foundation.

For Individual project sheets, please download them at:
http://www.pa-greenbuildingproducts.org/product_innovation_grants.aspx

Source: Green Building Alliance

Website: http://www.pa-greenbuildingproducts.org/

Related posts:

1. University Students Learn How Green Building Can Reduce Largest Global Warming Culprit (U.S.A.) Trane’s commercial business leader for Chicago and West Michigan, Chris...
2. UK Provides New Support to Homeowners for Green Grants A new system to help homebuyers get green grants worth...
3. Department of Labor Announces Grant to Assist in Louisiana Storm and Flood Recovery U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao has announced a...
4. Study Confirms Corporate America’s Trend Toward Sustainability and Green Building McGraw-Hill Construction (MHC), part of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE:MHP) ,...
5. First ‘Green’ Building on Capitol Hill to be Celebrated by U.S. Congressional Members Today, a broad bi-partisan coalition from both chambers of the...