Southface Institute, an Atlanta-based sustainable building nonprofit, honored Georgia Tech professor Dr. Marilyn Brown with the Argon Award of Excellence at the organization’s annual Visionary Awards event on October 3, 2024 at the Georgia Aquarium. The award is presented annually in recognition of excellence in advancing sustainability for all.

But it wasn’t just another awards lunch. The event at the Georgia Aquarium on Oct. 3 was designed to help raise $250,000 to defray more than 2,600 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

How It Worked: The Visionary Awards, Southface’s keystone fundraising event, invites sustainability leaders, innovators, and community members to join in celebration and purpose. 

Through the awards luncheon and other events, Southface is now on track to meet their 2024 fundraising goal and reduce 2,671 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions. That means Southface will keep that amount of greenhouse gas emissions out of the environment through its programs (energy efficiency retrofits, sustainable building education, environmental advocacy) with the money raised.

Dr. Brown, the 2024 Argon Award winner, is a Regents’ Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems at Georgia Tech. Her work is focused on policies that accelerate the transition to a sustainable energy future, including smart appliances, meters, dynamic pricing, solar power and nuclear energy, and grid-integrated electric vehicles.

The Argon Award for Excellence is named for argon, a non-toxic, non-reactive, clear and odorless gas that fills the space between glass panes in high-performance windows. Past Argon Award winners include Dawn Brown of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Ryan Gravel of the Atlanta BeltLine, and Liz Ogbu of Studio O.