Wanted: Bold, innovative and game changing ideas to tackle Delhi’s rising air pollution levels and energy crisis.
Design platform What Design Can Do (WDCD) and IKEA Foundation have launched the global Clean Energy Challenge crafted with locally specific briefings to tackle energy issues in New Delhi. Other than Delhi, this campaign will also be launched in four different cities in the word- Nairobi, São Paulo, Mexico City, and Amsterdam. In Delhi, WDCD has teamed up with local partners Unbox and Help Delhi Breathe, to challenge creatives to share alternative approaches to tackle environmental issues in the national capital. The challenge is open now for applications from students, creative professionals and start-ups till November 15.
The need to build fast to serve rapidly swelling populations in Delhi has resulted in haphazard urban planning, without much consideration for sustainability. Commercial and residential buildings account for most of Delhi’s energy consumption, through heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, hot water heating, interior and exterior lighting, electrical power and appliances.
Dependence on air conditioning in Delhi summers also makes this city a real energy guzzler. On a hot day, cooling Delhi’s existing buildings already account for 60% of the city’s total energy consumption. Only radical new ways of constructing buildings will contain the rising energy demands. The intent is to look for solutions that are rooted in the locality; bottom-up strategies that combine innovation with traditional knowledge and local networks.
“In general, we aim to activate and empower the creative community around the world to use their skills for social renewal. By concentrating on these five cities we have a great opportunity to empower the local design communities,” says Richard van der Laken, Founder, What Design Can Do.
“India is at the cusp of a fascinating transition towards more inclusive growth – and energy use and dignity is an issue that directly underpins the sustainability of this transition. An example right in our backyard is the millennium city, the real estate glut it powered, and the lost opportunity to plan and optimise its energy footprint. The design community must recognise the critical role it must play in leading this transition before it’s too late,” says Ayush Chauhan, Co-Founder, UnBox Cultural Futures Society.
The winners, selected and assessed by an international jury, will share an award package that includes a production budget and a tailor-made acceleration programme aimed at making the winning ideas, prototypes or start-ups market and investment ready.
The Clean Energy Challenge is the successor to last year’s WDCD Climate Action Challenge. The thirteen award-winning concepts from 2017 have now been realised – the results include Power Plant the world’s first self-supporting Green House and the Vertical University Project, an 8,000-meter Vertical University in Nepal to help rural farmers adapt to variable impacts of climate change.
Apply to the What Design Can Do Clean Energy Challenge for Delhi here!