Testimonials

Andrew Minturn SSD 2025 Runner up

Participating in the Smart Sustainable Development 2025 Conference was both an honour and a genuinely rewarding experience. I was privileged to be selected to present the development journey of the CLEVA POD® system alongside an impressive range of sustainable innovations and highly respected academics who are all contributing meaningfully to a more sustainable future. The conference organisers created an outstanding platform that brought together passionate professionals, researchers, and innovators committed to advancing sustainable development.

The calibre of presentations, the collaborative atmosphere, and the quality of discussion throughout the event made SSD 2025 an exceptionally valuable experience. It was particularly exciting to present the decade-long innovation journey behind the CLEVA POD® system — a journey driven by the clear need to develop a more sustainable alternative to traditional polystyrene void-forming pods, while maintaining the structural integrity and performance requirements demanded by the construction sector. One of the highlights of the conference was the opportunity to engage in insightful and thought-provoking conversations with professionals who share a genuine commitment to designing and delivering a more sustainable future.

The openness to innovation and willingness to challenge conventional thinking was both inspiring and encouraging. I was also genuinely surprised and humbled to learn that the presentations were being formally judged. To then be announced as the runner-up in the Project Section, and to receive the accompanying $1,000 prize, was incredibly rewarding — particularly given the outstanding calibre of the projects and presentations presented throughout the conference. I would sincerely like to thank the organisers of SSD 2025 for their vision, professionalism, and dedication in delivering such an engaging and inspiring event. It was a privilege to participate, and I look forward to supporting and engaging with future SSD conferences.

GrEAtGrey Energy Atlas Prof Mähl, Florian and team SSD 2025 Third Place (Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences)

Participation in the "Smart Sustainable Development 2025 Conference" was a great opportunity to present our internationally compatible teaching and research project GrEAt! - Grey Energy Atlas. I was very impressed by the international field of participants in the SSD Conference, as well as the diversity of project and research work in the sense of a sustainable world. I would especially like to thank the initiators of the amazing event for making my online participation as pleasant as possible. Even though I gave my lecture 18.000 kilometers away around midnight from Frankfurt, I almost had the feeling of being personally at the conference... At the end our project team was particularly pleased to receive the third prize in the "SDG Projects" category, which was amounted to $500.

Thank you very much for the trust and honour, we were able to push the project once again with this award and are now pleased to present a first project report (see below). The Grey Energy Atlas is a research project for the systematic recording and evaluation of the material-ecological quality of existing buildings. So far, the focus has been on modernist buildings in Frankfurt/Rhein-Main (Germany) and, since the end of 2025, extended to Ghent (Belgium), which are analysed with regard to their embodied energy and the associated greenhouse gas emissions.

The aim of the project is to develop comparable evaluation standards that can be used both for the planning of renovations and for strategic decisions in dealing with existing buildings. The project thus makes an important contribution to resource-saving urban redevelopment by strengthening the preservation and further development of existing buildings as a central strategy for dealing with the climate and energy crisis. GrEAt! ist an innovative teaching and research format that introduces students to the challenges of sustainable architecture in a practical way. Thanks to its location-independent connectivity, it enables collaboration with teachers and students from partner universities worldwide. I wish SSD 2026 every success and hope to be able to contribute to the conference again soon!

To read more about the project click here

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