Hendricks and Krautzberger honour winners of Federal Ecodesign Award 2014

The Federal Ecodesign Award was launched in 2012 by the Federal Environment Ministry and Agency.
Logo Bundespreis Ecodesign
Quelle: Bundespreis Ecodesign

Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks und President of the Federal Environment Agency Maria Krautzberger presented the awards to the winners of the Federal Ecodesign Award 2014 in Berlin today. In total, 13 projects were selected in the award categories Product, Concept, Service and Newcomer. They include energy saving electronic devices that can be repaired, innovative urban transport systems, a sustainable fashion label, environmentally friendly manufacturing processes in the leather, spectacle lenses and textile industry as well as an online game on CO2 reduction in everyday life.

Federal Environment Minister Hendricks said: "Future-oriented products are essential to environmentally friendly consumption. For this we need people with a lot of new ideas, imagination and entrepreneurial courage. The Federal Ecodesign Award acknowledges and supports this kind of commitment. The projects presented have shown once more that ecologically ambitious products can also be of extraordinary design."

The jury, comprising both environment and design experts, among them Parliamentary State Secretary Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter, selected the nominees and award winners from over 200 submissions. For jury chairman Günter Horntrich the high-quality contributions to the competition show without doubt that ecological design is gaining more and more ground and that sustainable design has long since said good-bye to its former eco-look image.

Federal Environment Agency President Krautzberger stressed the positive developments; however, she also stated: "We must continue our efforts to make ecological criteria part and parcel of product development. Legal provisions in the Ecodesign Directive as well as design education and training are key to this, because a sustainable future worth living must also be designed and therefore we need committed product designers."

The projects selected will be presented in a travelling exhibition at various locations all over Germany in the coming year. At the beginning of February 2015 the Federal Ecodesign Award competition will be launched for the fourth time. Since 2012 the Federal Ecodesign Award has been awarded jointly by the Federal Environment Ministry, the Federal Environment Agency and the Internationales Design Zentrum Berlin e. V. A Project advisory board supports the project.

Jury

Werner Aisslinger (designer focussing on product design and architecture)
Dr. Kirsten Brodde (Greenpeace campaigner, author)
Dr. Thomas Holzmann (Vice-President of the Federal Environment Agency)
Prof. em. Günter Horntrich (retired professor of design and ecology at KISD)
Theresa Keilhacker (architect focussing on sustainable planning and building)
Dr. Dietlinde Quack (head of the group consumption in the area of products and material flows and the consumer information campaign EcoTopTen.de at Öko-Institut)
Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter (Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety)
Prof. Dr. h.c. Erik Spiekermann (communication designer, font designer and author)

Project Advisory Board

Victoria Ringleb, Allianz deutscher Designer (AGD)
Anne Farken, BMW Group Designworks USA
Prof. Matthias Held and Sabine Lenk, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Designtheorie und -forschung (DGTF)
Lutz Dietzold, Rat für Formgebung
Prof. Susanne Schwarz-Raacke (product design), Prof. Heike Selmer (fashion design)
and Prof. Dr. Zane Berzina (textile and surface design), Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee (KHB)
Karin-Simone Fuhs and Dorothea Hess, ecosign/Akademie für Gestaltung
Dr. Stephan Kabasci and Hendrik Roch, Fraunhofer-Institut UMSICHT
Stephan Rabl, Handelsverband Deutschland (HDE)
Dr. Dominik Klepper, Markenverband
Johanna Kardel, Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (vzbv)