DURHAM, NC – Audubon North Carolina has named NC Sustainable Energy Association Executive Director Ivan Urlaub the winner of the inaugural Clean Energy Champion Award. Urlaub is being recognized for his leadership over nearly two decades to help transition the state’s energy economy toward a cleaner future, making North Carolina a better place for people and birds.

Urlaub accepted the award March 26, as Audubon members from across the state gathered in Raleigh for the organization’s third annual Lobby Day. “Over the past 18 years under Ivan’s leadership, NCSEA has firmly placed our state on a clean energy path that benefits birds and people across North Carolina,” Audubon North Carolina Director of Strategy and Government Relations Greg Andeck told a room full of Audubon members as Urlaub accepted the award.

The Clean Energy Champion Award is given each year to an individual who has had a transformative impact on accelerating the growth of clean energy in North Carolina to help slow and mitigate the effects of climate change on birds. As the head of NCSEA, Urlaub has built the association into an influential market research, policy and public opinion organization that helps shape the state’s most significant energy decisions, including the passage of North Carolina’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard in 2007. The legislation cleared the way for a solar revolution in North Carolina, helping to cut down on carbon pollution that endangers birds and wildlife habitat across the state.

Climate change threatens nearly 170 bird species that nest, migrate or spend the winter in North Carolina. To safeguard birds, North Carolina must continue to build on the foundation that Urlaub has helped set by growing the state’s solar and wind energy capacities.

The National Audubon Society protects birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow, throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education and on-the-ground conservation. Audubon’s state programs, nature centers, chapters and partners have an unparalleled wingspan that reaches millions of people each year to inform, inspire and unite diverse communities in conservation action. Since 1905, Audubon’s vision has been a world in which people and wildlife thrive. Audubon is a nonprofit conservation organization. Learn more at www.audubon.org and @audubonsociety. Audubon North Carolina, a state program of the National Audubon Society, has offices in Durham, Boone, Corolla, and Wilmington. Learn more at www.nc.audubon.org and on Twitter at @audubonnc.