Kaarin Taipale was on the jury for the first SEED Awards in 2005; celebrating 10 Years of SEED Awards, she joined the SEED International Jury again in 2015. She is a local politician in Helsinki, Finland. In recent years as a freelance columnist, lecturer and urban researcher, she has focused on sustainability and urban development, as well as local and global energy policies. She has discussed the cross-cutting nature of in particular energy, and broader sustainability perspectives in regional and urban policies, as well as metropolitan governance. Her research has analyzed the privatization of the urban public realm, basic services, in particular, urban culture, and the role of financing in sustainable construction.

From 2000 to 2003, she chaired the worldwide association of cities, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability. On behalf of the Ministry of the Environment of Finland, she chaired in 2006 - 2010 the global Marrakech Task Force on Sustainable Buildings and Construction, which focused on energy issues and sustainability policies in the built environment. She has been an expert adviser of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction. Previously she has worked also as a practising architect, as Editor of the Finnish Architectural Review, and as CEO of the Building Control Department of the City of Helsinki.

Kaarin received her PhD (Urban Studies) in Helsinki, after having studied architecture at the ETH in Zurich and historic preservation at Columbia University in New York. For more, see www.kaarintaipale.net.