The Southface Institute, a nonprofit leader in green building technology based in Atlanta, is hosting its 2026 Visionary Awards fundraiser on October 15 at the Georgia Aquarium.
This year, Southface is honoring Kim Bednarek for leading efforts to secure UNESCO World Heritage Site status for the Okefenokee Swamp, a designation that took 40 years to receive. With the designation, the Okefenokee Swamp became the first World Heritage Site in Georgia and the twenty-seventh in the United States, sharing a list with the Statue of Liberty and Yosemite National Park.
Bednarek joins a long list of honorees, including last year’s recipient, former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, in receiving the Argon Award of Excellence.
The Argon Award of Excellence was originally named after argon gas windows that slow the transfer of heat through glass, making a building more energy-efficient. The 25-year-old award is presented in recognition of the impact that an individual or organization has had on community sustainability.
Southface’s recognition of Bednarek and her team’s work is also the first time Southface has presented the award to someone outside of the Atlanta sustainability network.
“We’re going to try to feature some broader Georgia stories throughout the programming beyond just the impact in Atlanta,” said Nathan Bessette, Executive Director of Southface Institute. “We care as much about what happens in Atlanta as we do in rural communities.”
Southface’s work does not stop at recognizing and awarding people and organizations with a huge impact on regional sustainability efforts, though. For instance, Southface recently launched its three-year Building Improvement Toolkits (BIT) for Resilient HBCUs program. BIT for Resilient HBCUs partners with two Atlanta-based HBCUs, Spelman and Clark Atlanta, as well as Xavier, Texas Southern, and Morgan State.
As Bessette said, the program focuses “on working with students at HBCU campuses, teaching them about different facets of sustainability, and then enabling them to have experiences both on their campuses and adjacent to their campuses to bring sustainability to their communities.”
Another program Southface recently launched was its GoodUse program, which helps nonprofits improve efficiency of their facilities so they can redirect cost savings. Specifically, Southface, via the GoodUse program, regrants or provides funding to nonprofits to upgrade lighting, HVAC, building automation and thermostat systems.
“We give away between, you know, $40,000 to $120,000 per project, so it’s a substantial investment in each of these projects,” Bessette said. However, without investments in Southface through their Visionary Awards event, programs like BIT and GoodUse are hard to launch and grow.
With a Super El Niño affecting this year’s weather across the globe and a forecast that has next year set to be the hottest year on record, there has never been a better time to get involved in environmental sustainability.
As Bessette said, “The fundamentals of sustainability are more relevant than ever. The fundamentals of building science are more relevant than ever.”
