Swedish finalist in green competition for €500,000

Six ideas to move the world toward a sustainable future

The Green Challenge preliminary jury has chosen the following finalists:

- Sweden's Svante Bengtsson, 40, whose Rehact cooling, warming and ventilation system for buildings cuts energy use by 85 per cent by transferring air between inside and outside;

- Dutchman Peter van Dommele, 49, whose 4-D Kameleon system of rotating cartridges can be installed on building surfaces to absorb solar energy, collect rainwater, reduce CO2and display messages;

- Eden Full, 19, of Canada, whose SunSaluter, a $10 bamboo and metal rotator, boosts solar panels’ effectiveness by 40 per cent by tilting them toward the sun;

- Andreas Zachariah, 40, of the United Kingdom, whose smartphone app Carbon Diem detects the user’s mode of transport, calculates CO2emissions and suggests alternatives, raising travellers’ awareness so they can alter their behaviour;

- Dutchwoman Marjolein Helder, 28, whose natural electricity-generating system Plant-e uses electrodes to harvest continuous power from live plants grown in a bed of activated carbon and water; and

- Nick Christy, 39, of Australia, whose Water Recycling Shower cuts water and energy use and costs by 70 per cent without sacrificing enjoyment or hygiene by heating water as needed and sterilising it before reuse.

The Final Round
On 14 September 2011, the finalists will present their ideas before an international jury and the public during the Deciding Round. On the basis of these presentations and subsequent private interviews, the jury will choose a winner and announce his or her name at the Award Ceremony on 15 September. The Postcode Lottery Green Challenge Deciding Round and Award Ceremony will take place at the PICNIC Festival 2011, an event devoted to creativity and innovation, at the NDSM-werf in Amsterdam. The Deciding Round and Award Ceremony will be streamed live at www.greenchallenge.info.

The Jury
William McDonough will serve as this year's honorary Postcode Lottery Green Challenge jury chairman. The sustainable building and production guru was named a Hero for the Planet in 1999 by the US magazine Time and has received numerous other prestigious awards. With the German chemist Michael Braungart, he cowrote the visionary 2002 book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

The other jurors are Liesbeth van Tongeren (Dutch MP, GroenLinks party), Marty Pickett (executive director, Rocky Mountain Institute), Marieke van Schaik (managing director, Dutch Postcode Lottery), Kofi Nketsia-Tabiri (founding director of Patient Capital Partners Ltd), Jim Walker (co-founder and chief operating officer, the Climate Group) and Steve Howard (chief sustainability officer, IKEA).

For more information:
To receive more information about the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge please contact the Dutch Postcode Lottery or the Swedish Postcode Lottery:

Dutch Postcode Lottery
Selma Hetharia
T: +31 (0)20 573 7465
E: selma.hetharia@postcodeloterij.nl

Swedish Postcode Lottery
Emma Knutsson

T: +46 (0)76 109 37 03 
E: emma.knutsson@postkodlotteriet.se

About the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge
The Dutch Postcode Lottery has held the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge every year since 2007 as part of its efforts to help make the world a greener place. The Green Challenge is one of the world's largest competitions for sustainable innovation. It is aimed at creative, innovative thinkers. Environmentally friendly products and services that reduce CO2 emissions and score highly on design, user-friendliness and quality are eligible to compete for the €500,000 prize. Each entrant must supply a detailed business plan so that an expert preliminary jury can determine whether his or her idea is viable. Previous winners have gone on to achieve success with their innovative inventions, thanks in part to the publicity and network around the Green Challenge.

Last year, the American Scot Frank won for his portable, affordable multipurpose solar collector SolSource. 
The 2009 winner was the Englishman Dean Gregory for The Power Collective, a company that makes nearly invisible rooftop wind turbines. 
In 2008, Eben Bayer of the United States took the prize for his natural insulation material Greensulate. 
And our first winner, in 2007, was the Dutchman Igor Kluin, for the Qbox, a device that enables decentralised electricity generation.

For more information, see www.greenchallenge.info.