4. Sustainable Dance Club chosen as finalist for the Picnic Green Challenge

The Sustainable Dance Club was recently chosen from over 400 entries from 50 different countries as one of the five finalists in the PICNIC Green Challenge. The PICNIC Green Challenge is an initiative of PICNIC and the National Postcode Lottery. The competition was set up to encourage creative and innovative spirits to give a concrete contribution to reversing climate change. Sustainable entrepreneurs from all over the world entered their ideas for products or services that they believe can help to reduce the greenhouse effect in a consumer friendly way and contribute to a sustainable lifestyle.

Sir Richard Branson and Michel Smit- Sustainable Dance Club

Along with the Sustainable Dance Club the other four nominees were:

·         The Solar Lampion: a portable lampion made of solar cells.

The Green Thing: an online community which is to serve as a not-for-profit social movement to mobilize the masses to act against climate change.

City Cargo: a project for zero-emission cargo distribution in cities using existing tram infrastructure.

Qurrent: an idea for local energy networks that helps consumers to make and manage their own energy

On 28 September, at the PICNIC ’07 conference, Sustainable Dance Club and the other four finalists presented  their  ideas  to  a jury headed by none other than Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group. Other jury members included Avery Baker, from Tommy Hilfiger and Liesbeth van Tongeren, director of Greenpeace Netherlands.

You can see the presentation given by Michel Smit of the Sustainable Dance Club.

On Saturday 29 September the jury deemed Qurrent - Igor Kluin's idea for local energy networks that share alternative energy sources and optimises power usage- the greenest of the 439 entries and presented him with the inaugural €500,000 PICNIC Green Challenge award.

It is very exciting and encouraging for the Sustainable Dance Club to have been nominated for such a prestigious award. We hope that although we did not win the award this time that the experience may open up even more opportunities for the Sustainable Dance Club in the future.

See a short movie impression of the Green Challenge by Enviu-er Oriol Pascual.

For more Information about the Sustainable Dance Club please see: www.sustainabledanceclub.com