19th Annual Illinois Emerald Awards for Green Building Announced

“This year’s honorees have not only taken bold action to deliver high-performance projects in Illinois, but have served as advocates to encourage their peers to take action as well,” said Brian Imus, Executive Director of Illinois Green. “This recognition is well deserved because they exemplify the two most important qualities necessary to deliver on the vision of making every building a net zero building by 2050—a commitment to collaboration and passion for community impact.” 

Chris Dillion, President, Campbell Coyle; President & CEO, Vermilion Campbell

This year’s Path to Zero Hero honoree for individual leadership, Chris Dillion, has earned a well-deserved reputation as the go-to expert in the real estate community for building teams capable of delivering ambitious sustainability projects and advancing high-performance buildings. A true collaborator, he brings together nonprofits, city planners, community builders, and the private sector to catalyze meaningful change. His most recent project, the 124,000 sq. ft. Campus Instructional Facility at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, became the first LEED Zero Energy certified project in Illinois.

Chris’s collaborative approach has established him as a leading voice in the green building movement. He uses his project experience to educate others in the industry and is generous with his time, advocating for the changes necessary to scale the adoption of innovative technologies and financing solutions to reduce our dependency on carbon. Notably, he founded the Illinois Green Chicago Sustainable Developers Roundtable in 2017, has served as an advisor to the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG), and was a member of the State of Illinois LEED Task Force. He is also an Advisory Board member of the Building Energy Resource Hub. 

Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH)

POAH will be honored this year as the recipient of the Organizational Emerald Award. POAH is a national nonprofit developer, owner, and operator of affordable rental apartments with a commitment and track record of demonstrating the value and benefit in prioritizing carbon reduction strategies and technologies in affordable housing projects. Since 2008, POAH has built and renovated more than 3,000 mixed-income housing units in the Chicago area as they deliver on their mission to preserve and steward sustainable affordable rental housing for low-to-moderate income individuals and families.

POAH’s most recent project, The Fifth City Commons, exemplifies this commitment. The innovative new affordable housing center, made possible by significant investment from the City of Chicago, features 43 all-electric apartments built in accordance with Passive House, a leading standard in energy-efficient construction. They have worked to showcase the project as a way to educate others in the building industry, within the affordable housing community, and with local elected officials to help encourage others to build on the lessons they have learned. 

The project is a reflection of POAH’s decades-long commitment to providing green and affordable housing, always working to build on past experience to go to the next level in sustainability. POAH’s Design + Building Performance Department, led by nationally recognized Vice President Julie Klump, is focused on health, durability, and resiliency for all POAH buildings and integrating energy and water efficiency into new projects and their owned portfolio, working closely with property management staff to maintain each building’s green upgrades and monitor the effectiveness of their conservation initiatives. For example, they were successfully able to achieve recognition from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Building Challenge program for reducing the portfolio-wide energy and water consumption use intensity of their buildings by 20% by 2020 compared to a 2010 baseline—achieving this three years ahead of their commitment deadline. 

POAH is also partnering with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) through the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program to invest millions into electrification and energy savings in over 1,500 units of HUD-supported housing across 17 properties  In addition, POAH has worked hard to expands its use of renewables throughout the state of Illinois, with planned developments to increase their solar generation capacity to a combined 734 kW DC across Illinois properties from an existing generation capacity of 45 kW DC. POAH has also expanded the benefits of third party-owned community solar by facilitating on site resident signups through offers from Illinois Solar For All developers.  This effort supports access to electric cost savings from community solar farms for dozens of residents at five properties while supporting renewable power generation in Illinois. 

"Healthy, high-performance buildings positively impact the communities in which they are built and operated,” said Annalise Dum, Illinois Green’s Board Chair. “This year’s Emerald Award honorees have demonstrated that developing these projects across any asset type is not only possible, but also critical to advancing broader decarbonization goals and positively impacting communities across the state of Illinois. This is in direct support of Illinois Green’s vision of making net zero feasible, affordable, and commonplace.”