The Greenovate Awards, an initiative by Growthpoint Properties in partnership with the Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA), is celebrating its 10^th anniversary with the launch of the 2025 competition – a platform for honours and final year students to test their sustainable and innovative ideas against real industry challenges.

Since its inception in 2015, more than R1 million in prize money has been awarded to students from nine universities across South Africa in the property, engineering, and PropTech fields.

The winning ideas have gone on to influence the market with Growthpoint piloting projects such as a smart energy management system developed by Julian Banks and alumni, including Wardah Peters, having returned to the programme as mentors.

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Greenovate has added two new awards, each worth R10 000 sponsored by Growthpoint; the Sustainability in Action Award will go to the engineering project with the best potential to be implemented within the REIT’s portfolio or systems – with the judges looking for relevance to Growthpoint’s sustainability objectives, ease of implementation, and measurable impact on resource efficiency, emissions reduction or operational cost savings while the Transformative Impact Award will recognise the property, quantity surveying, or construction project that demonstrates the strongest alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and overall ESG performance. Criteria include clear links to SDG targets, contribution to ESG indicators, and measurable impact on global sustainability priorities.

These new prizes add to a significant prize pool. The top three projects in both property and engineering will receive R40 000, R20 500, and R14 000 respectively. The competition also offers the coveted IFC prize linked to EDGE Expert Accreditation, with the top students to benefit from GBCSA Accreditation Professional candidate courses.

Finalists will present their projects to an expert panel of judges with the winners announced at the Greenovate Awards gala dinner. Top teams are also invited to participate at the Innovation Stage at the annual GCBSA Convention – a career-defining opportunity to showcase their work to business leaders and influencers.

Entries for the 2025 Greenovate Awards close on the 10^th of November 2025. The competition’s mentoring day is the 26^th of November 2025 with the judging and gala dinner taking place on the 27^th of November 2025. The competition is open to honours and final year students in property studies, construction, quantity surveying, and engineering.