Shining a Light on Energy Efficiency: A Competition for Young Photographers

Energy efficiency is often called the "first fuel" – a powerful, invisible force that helps lower energy bills, boost energy security, and create healthier, more comfortable living environments. But its impact goes far beyond saving energy. It sparks innovation, creates jobs, improves air quality, and raises living standards worldwide.

From heat pumps, air conditioners and LED lighting to smart thermostats, insulation, and double or triple glazed windows, energy-efficient technologies quietly shape our homes, schools, workplaces, and cities. Additionally, energy efficiency is one of the simplest and most effective ways to tackle climate change.

But here’s the challenge: how do we see what’s invisible?

That’s where you come in! We’re inviting young people around the world to capture the meaning of energy efficiency in their lives through photography. It could be the glow of a study lamp with an LED bulb, a well-insulated home staying warm in winter, an efficient form of transport, some state-of-the-art machinery at a factory, or a community coming together to prevent energy being wasted. Possibly someone learning new skills for a job that can help improve efficiency or enjoying savings on heating or cooling bills. Maybe it’s a hands-on moment – installing a smart thermostat, sealing a drafty window, or adjusting the blinds to let in natural light. However you see energy efficiency, we want to see it through your eyes.

This contest is your chance to express your creativity, raise awareness, and make energy efficiency visible to the world. Show us what energy efficiency means to you!

• How to enter: Select your best shot and submit it via our online form before 20 April 2025. We welcome close-up pictures, bird’s-eye views or eye-level shots. Please carefully read our Competition rules and Terms and Conditions before applying, especially the new rules on photo manipulation.
• Prize: The winners will be invited to present their work at the 10th IEA Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, which will take place in Brussels this June. They will have a unique opportunity to join Ministers, CEOs and senior leaders from across the world who are working to foster energy efficiency and deliver the benefits it brings for energy security and clean energy transitions. Transport and lodging will be provided by the IEA. 
  

Participant Eligibility 

• Age: 18-25, at the time of entering the contest

Photo Eligibility

• High resolution images (at least 4000x3000 at 300 dpi) depicting energy efficiency. The use of AI is not permitted. All images will be uploaded online.
• Each photo needs to have short title and a description of maximum 100 words in English.
• Have full copyright and intellectual property rights and any necessary permissions to provide the submitted material, including the full copyright of the original photo taken should the submission consist of additional visual work or elements. By submitting an entry, you agree to accept the Competition rules and the Terms and Conditions.
• Competition submissions must not include any endorsements of products or services, or any obscene, violent, racist or defamatory content. Incomplete entries or entries that do not comply with the formal specifications will be automatically disqualified.
• Photos should comply with the manipulation rules set out in the Terms and Conditions (article 13).
• Should the photo include any identifiable individual, such individual must provide their consent in writing to be included in the submission. Submissions may also not be accepted into the contest if the image in the entry features an identifiable individual who has not given their consent to appear or if the image features advertising or trademarks.

How to enter

• Take an original photo and submit your entry through the online submission form.
• Entry is free of charge. Submission of an entry will be taken to mean acceptance of the Competition rules and the Terms and Conditions.

Selection criteria

The selection committee will look for a creative, engaging and inspiring submission. Your entry will be judged on:

• Adherence to theme of the contest/ relevance 
• Impact and message/story telling quality
• Originality of the subject matter
• Creativity of execution

The organisers and judges reserve the right to remove any entries from the competition that they feel may breach any of the Competition rules, the Terms and Conditions or may bring the competition into disrepute. Such entries will be disqualified.

Only winners will be informed after the selection process.

Copyrights

The copyright of the materials submitted for this competition remains with the respective participants. However, each entrant grants the IEA the right to use the submitted materials for purposes of this contest. Any winning entries shall provide the IEA appropriate permission to be able to distribute their work to the public.

Protection of personal data

The OECD is committed to protecting the personal data it processes, in accordance with its Personal Data Protection Rules.

The International Energy Agency is using this survey to collect personal data, including name, age, email address, country of nationality and gender. The data will be used to contact the winners of the competitions and to ensure diversity.

The personal data we collect will be stored in the cloud under SurveyMonkey and retained until 15 June 2025. Only select IEA staff and designated external judges will have access to your data.

Under the Rules, you have rights to access and rectify your personal data, as well as to object to its processing, and request erasure in certain circumstances. To exercise these rights in connection with the photo competition, please contact us at energy.efficiency@iea.org.

If you have further queries or complaints related to the processing of your personal data, please contact the Data Protection Officer. If you need further assistance in resolving claims related to personal data protection you can contact the Data Protection Commissioner.

The rules listed below form the Terms and Conditions of the IEA photo competition. Please note that by submitting an entry electronically, you are deemed to have agreed to and accepted these rules.

This competition is administered by the International Energy Agency (IEA), an autonomous agency within the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

1.  Entrants may only enter the competition online and by submitting their entry in accordance with the instructions set out on the “website”. There are no monetary costs to enter the competition.

2. The closing date for entries is the one indicated in the relevant competition call.

3. All entrants must be over 18 and under 25 years of age.

4. Proof of age will be required from all winners.

5. The text and title accompanying the entry must be submitted in English. Entries submitted in other languages will be disregarded.

6. IEA employees and all members of their immediate family are not eligible to enter the competition.

7. Each entry must include the title, name, country of nationality, confirmation of eligible age, email address, a photograph meeting the specifications outlined in the competition rules, title of the photograph and accompanying description.

8. Entries must be submitted through the completion of the designated online form.

9. Any entry submitted must be the work of the individual. It is the responsibility of each entrant to ensure that the submitted photograph has been taken with the permission of the subject(s) and/or venue/location and does not infringe the copyright or intellectual property rights of any third party. The entrant warrants that they own the copyright and intellectual property rights for the photographs, that they have permission to submit such photographs in this competition and that their entry complies with all applicable law and does not infringe on the intellectual property or privacy rights, copyright or any other rights of any person or entity.

10. All visual elements embodied in each entry must be fully cleared by the entrant for the IEA’s use as part of the competition. Entrants must ensure that such use of their entry or elements of their entry as part of the competition and any use by the IEA shall not infringe the rights of any third parties or any applicable law, regulation, code, order, direction or by‐law and entrants shall indemnify and keep the IEA fully indemnified from and against any claim, damage, loss (whether foreseeable or not), liability or cost including reasonable legal fees in respect thereof.

11. The entrant warrants that they have obtained the permission of those pictured in the photograph for the usage rights required by the competition and will indemnify the IEA against any claims made by any third parties in respect of such infringement. To be eligible, photos may only include persons of 18 years or older. 

12. Entrants retain the copyright to the materials they submit for this competition. However, as a condition of participation, each entrant grants the IEA a licence to use the materials for evaluation. If selected, the materials would be displayed publicly and entrants shall provide the IEA permission to distribute their work to the public.

13. Manipulation rules: Photographs submitted to the IEA photo competition must adhere to our rules on manipulation: 

• Only single-frame photograph will be accepted.
• The content of a photograph remains unaltered, with no additions, rearrangements, reversals, distortions or removals of people and/or objects within the frame.
• Light cropping, colour adjustments and grayscale conversion that do not alter content are permissible. However, processed colours should not deviate significantly from the original colours, and changes in density, contrast or saturation levels must not obscure or eliminate essential information in the photograph.
• All submitted photographs must be captured using camera, artificially generated images are not allowed, nor is the use of artificially generative fill. The IEA reserves the rights to verify compliance, request original and unedited files, and disqualify entries that do not respect the above conditions.
• Applicants must be prepared to submit the original and unedited photographs (including RAW file, original unedited JPEG images, and EXIF values associated with the photograph) upon request from the IEA. Failure to comply within the specified timeframe will result in automatic disqualification of entries.

14. By entering the competition, entrants agree that if an entry does not comply with the technical, artistic or legal specifications set out herein or if the IEA in its sole discretion requires, the IEA shall be within their rights to disqualify any such entries.

15. By entering the competition, entrants agree that the IEA shall be under no obligation to exploit, distribute and/or exhibit any submission and the entrants shall have no claim against the IEA in this regard.

16. The IEA shall select up to three winners. Winners would be offered an opportunity to travel to the IEA Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency in Brussels in June. The IEA reserves the right to select several finalists, whose work may be displayed at the Conference after receiving appropriate permission to distribute their work to the public.

17. The winners will have provided an entry in accordance with the Terms and Conditions. Winners will be the entrants who submit the best entry, as determined by the IEA in accordance with the criteria outlined in the competition rules.

18. The winners of the photo competition will be selected following the close of the competition submission stage and will be announced publicly. The winners will be notified by email of their selection.

19. The IEA will actively endeavour to contact the winners with arrangements for their travel to Brussels from anywhere in the world to attend the IEA Global Conference for a period of 2 (two) weeks following the selection of winners. In the event that the IEA is unable to contact the winner in this notification period, the IEA reserves the right to reallocate the prize.

20. The IEA’s decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into.

21. The IEA reserves the right to select an alternative winner in the event that the IEA has reasonable grounds for believing that a selected winner has contravened any of these Terms and Conditions of entry.

22. The IEA can accept no responsibility for entries lost, delayed, misdirected, damaged or undelivered.

23. Incomplete and/or illegible entries will be disqualified. The IEA shall not be responsible for technical errors in telecommunications networks, Internet access or otherwise, preventing entry to the competition.

24. The IEA shall not be liable to the winners for any loss or damage howsoever caused (whether in contract, tort or statutory duty or otherwise) arising out of or in connection with the competition and the entry submitted by such winners.

25. The IEA shall not be liable for any delay in performing or partial or total failure to perform any of its obligations to the winners and/or their guests under these competition Terms and Conditions if such delay or failure is caused by circumstances beyond its reasonable control including without limitation delays, changes, disruptions, cancellations, diversions or substitutions howsoever caused, including without limitation, as a result of war, terrorist action or threatened terrorist action, strikes, hostilities, civil commotions, accidents, fire, flood or natural catastrophes or arising, without limitation, out of or in connection with the activities of third party event organisers.

26. Any personal information, including without limitation, the entrant's age range, nationality, and email address will be used solely in connection with this competition and as set out in these Terms and Conditions and will not be disclosed to any third party, except for the purpose of sharing the list of finalists with external judges and arranging travel for the winners where applicable and providing a list of the names of the winners. Any personal information held by the IEA in respect of any competition will be held on record for a short period for the purpose of ensuring the fulfilment of the competition and then destroyed.

27. All entrants agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions, which may be amended or varied at any time by the IEA without notice.

These Terms and Conditions shall govern the rules of the competition. Any dispute, controversy or claim arising out of or relating to these Terms and Conditions, or the breach, termination or invalidity thereof, shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the PCA Arbitration Rules 2012. The number of arbitrators shall be one. The language to be used in the arbitral proceedings shall be English. The place of arbitration shall be Paris (France). The Parties expressly renounce their right to seek the annulment or setting-aside of any award rendered by the arbitral tribunal, or if this renunciation is not legally possible, the Parties expressly agree that if an award rendered by the arbitral tribunal is annulled, the jurisdiction ruling on the annulment proceedings cannot rule on the merits of the case. The dispute will therefore be settled by new arbitral proceedings in accordance with this section. Nothing in or in relation to these Terms and Conditions shall be construed as a waiver, express or implied, of the OECD/IEA’s immunities and privileges as an international organisation.