Energy and Environment Program

2008 Energy and Environment Awards

The 2008 honorees were the first ever recipients of the awards.  For the inaugural year there were 5 awards presented in the following  categories: corporate energy generation, corporate energy conservation, non-governmental organizations, governments, and individual thought leadership.

Corporate Energy Generation - SolarCity: For disruptive solutions in the generation and distribution of renewable energy.
SolarCity, ranked by the California Energy Commission as the fastest growing solar installation company in California, has developed innovative business models and industry practices to reduce the cost and risk of neighborhood installation of solar photovoltaic panels.

Corporate Energy Conservation - Serious Materials: For building materials that reduce energy and environmental impact.
Serious Materials develops and supplies advanced eco-friendly materials for sustainable development. Drywall accounts for a substantial fraction of the energy “embodied” in homes. The company’s EcoRock® product has the industry’s lowest energy input and carbon footprint, currently by an order of magnitude.

Individual Thought Leadership - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute: For scalable and disruptive thought leadership in energy conservation and transportation. 
For over 30 years, Amory Lovins has been the planet’s key creator and advocate of scalable energy conservation solutions. He has recently led the technical redesign of $30 billion worth of facilities in 29 sectors to achieve very large energy savings at typically lower capital cost. His 1991 invention of the highly integrated ultralight-hybrid Hypercar® concept, has led to many of the higher efficiency cars that we see on the road today, and will see in the future.

Non-governmental Organization - The California Cars Initiative: For increasing energy efficiency and decreasing the environmental impact of automobiles.
The California Cars Initiative (CalCars.org) is a nonprofit startup of entrepreneurs, engineers, environmentalists and consumers promoting 100+MPG plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). This organization focuses both on public policy and technology development. It has been harnessing buyer demand to help commercialize PHEVs. 

Government - State of California Energy Office’s Million Solar Roofs Initiative: For developing significant new policies that benefit energy and environmental objectives.
As part of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Million Solar Roofs Plan, California has set a goal to create 3,000 megawatts of new, solar-produced electricity by 2017 - moving the state toward a cleaner energy future and helping lower the cost of solar systems for consumers.  The California Solar Initiative, which implements the plan, is being coordinated with the state's energy efficiency, "smart" metering, and building standards programs.