25 January, 2025
Built by Nature Wins World Economic Forum Inaugural GAEA Award for Impactful Innovation
AMSTERDAM, January 23. Built by Nature (BbN) is thrilled to announce it has won the inaugural World Economic Forum’s Giving To Amplify Earth Action Awards (GAEA) in the category for Impactful Innovation Accelerator, presented at the WEF Annual Meeting 2025 gala event in Davos, Switzerland.
In its first year, the GAEA Awards celebrate groundbreaking partnerships tackling global climate and nature challenges with innovative, scalable solutions. From over 120 initial nominations, an expert independent jury selected five transformative initiatives driving systemic change worldwide.
The Impactful Innovation Accelerator Award category recognises solutions helping to create enabling ecosystems for climate and nature innovation. It acknowledges BbN’s promotion of sustainable timber and biobased construction materials to reduce embodied carbon while supporting responsible forestry stewardship.
Key elements of Built by Nature’s successful submission included the significant pan-European network growth in the past three years; deep engagement of key frontrunner industry leaders; global outreach through the Built by Nature Prize, and grant funding of €5.75 million to date toward scaling solutions to significantly mitigate construction emissions.
Leslie Johnston, Built by Nature Vice Chair, collected the Award and said:
“We are honoured to have received this important recognition. On behalf of the entire Built by Nature team, we thank the World Economic Forum and GAEA for highlighting how increasing the use of timber and biobased materials in our built environment can positively impact climate and nature.”
She added:
“Recognition by such diverse and leading global business leaders at the World Economic Forum validates our mission to drive transformative change in the built environment.”
“This exciting award is validation that our collaborative model for driving innovation is how we must tackle the critical challenge of decarbonising our built environment,”
said Built by Nature CEO, Paul King.
“Partnerships across sectors are key to our success – and our hope is that the profile that this GAEA Award provides will enable Built by Nature to attract more industry leaders, systems change pioneers and supporters to our mission. We look forward to working with others to deliver our transformative agenda and realise our vision of a built environment in harmony with nature.”
Along with the Impactful Innovation Accelerator, the other GAEA categories include awards for Breakthrough Scientific Contribution; Moving Force in Business; Catalytic Philanthropic-Public-Private Partnership, and the Intergenerational Climate and Nature Champion Award. The five awarded collaborations will receive tailored support throughout 2025 to advance and scale impact and drive systems-wide change.
For more on the GAEA Awards, including a complete description of the category winners, and a list of the judging panel, visit https://initiatives.weforum.org/giving-to-amplify-earth-action/gaea-awards-winners.