TORONTO, April 12- Zerofootprint announced the launch of its International Building Re-Skinning Competition, today at the Discovery 09 Conference in Toronto. "The building re-skinning design competition's goal," according to Dr. Ron Dembo, Zerofootprint's founder, "is to develop a smart, reproducible, beautiful, cost effective, energy efficient solution for the re-skinning of buildings."
Judging the competition are some of the world's most respected architects and environmentalists, including William McDonough, Edward Mazria, Andrew Bowerbank, Thomas Auer, Judith DiMaio, Stefan Benisch, and George Baird.

The competition committee includes Canadian eco-celebrities such as Margaret Atwood and Edward Burtynsky.

The Problem
We know how to build new buildings with a low carbon footprint, but little attention has been paid to the thousands of existing structures worldwide that are extremely inefficient and, collectively, have a massive carbon impact. These buildings are responsible for nearly 40 percent of North America's greenhouse gases; in New York it's 79%, Hong Kong 72% and Toronto 63%., To put these numbers into perspective, SUVs count for just 3% of emissions in North America.

The Competition:
The goal of the Zerofootprint competition is to advance the state-of-the-art in retrofitting older, energy-inefficient buildings through better design and improved materials technology. The resulting retrofitting systems will be scalable to a large number of buildings and deployed globally. The competition welcomes teams from all over the world.

The competition will be judged on the aesthetics, energy efficiency, smart technology, return on investment and potential as a solution for a large number of buildings. The deadline for the submission of designs is September 1, 2009.

The Z-Prize:
The winning five entries will be monitored for a period of three years after the completion of the retrofit to determine how they perform. The Z-Prize will be awarded to the building that has most reduced energy per square foot averaged over the three years of monitoring.

Planned Building Submissions include: Annabelle Towers, Parkdale United Church/Green Phoenix; OCAD main building; John H. Daniels School of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto; and others.

In his presidential campaign, Barak Obama set out a goal of making all US buildings carbon neutral or zero emissions by 2030. Holistic re-skinning programs like this could provide one way of achieving that important goal.

About Zerofootprint:
Zerofootprint is an organization dedicated to a mass reduction in global environmental impact., We provide software and services to individuals, governments, universities and corporations that measures and manages carbon footprint and engages employees and citizens worldwide in combating climate change.

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