Every Everest needs a Climathon

NewsroomPlus.com

In contrast to the less-than-inspiring ‘them to us’ experience of the Government’s Climate Change Contribution Consultation – as covered at NewsRoom_Journal in a two-part write up last month – Wellington citizens who took part in a globally organised Climathon on Friday 19 & Saturday 20 June could leave the room with a real sense of achievement. 

Hugely experienced Motu Policy Fellow Catherine Leining counts herself among those disappointed at the limitations attached to official consultation about climate change, and shared some insights at the beginning of the Climathon in Wellington on Friday night.

Speaking from her experience of being at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as the Copenhagen Summit, Leining identified what was a personally deep turning point at that event.

It was a point at which gestures towards incremental thinking about climate change could no longer suffice. A point at which it became apparent only transformational thinking and change will really suffice if we are going adapt to, and for, a future that in a quote from the stock of Yogi Berra just “ain’t what it used to be”.

Leining’s brief contribution in kicking off the Climathon, was about inspiring people to bring breakthrough ideas into play – invoking D. Elton Trueblood’s quote about one of the roots of discovery of the meaning of human life being to plant trees under which we know “full well” we will never sit, and Eric Hoffer’s words: “In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists”.

A popular quote Leining added to the mix, with the most recent currency and resonance, was attributable to Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, from two years ago:

“If climate change is our generation’s Everest I would applaud New Zealand leading the race to the top. This is up to you.” 

That well reported quote certainly serves as a call to action, and chimed in well as a double meaning for the word Climathon.

So what was this Climathon thing all about?

When I went looking for a succinct description for this global event, one of the best was this grab from one of the sites promoting a simultaneous Climathon event in Brazil. As a marvellous bonus the Portugese phrasing “maratona de trabalhos” just sounds so apropos – with the word trabalhos also capturing meanings like craftmanship, hardship, painstaking and service.

And Climate-KIC? It is one of three Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) created in 2010 by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT). It describes itself as “Europe’s largest public-private innovation partnership focused on climate change, consisting of dynamic companies, the best academic institutions and the public sector”.

The split across the three sectors is approximately 50% business, 30% academic and 20% public and not for profit.  Its 13 European centres are organised through national centres each managed by a director, and regional centres, collectively managed by a director and co-ordinated via a steering group. Its central office is based in London.

It’s 30 core partners are: Amsterdam Airport Schiphol; Arcadis; ASTER; Bayer Technology Services; Birmingham City Council; Chalmers University of Technology; Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives; Deltares; DTU – Technical University of Denmark; ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; Forschungszentrum Julich; GDF Suez; German Research Centre for Geosciences; Grundfos A/S; Imperial College London; INRA – L’Institute national de la recherche agronomique; Institute of Sustainability; IVACE – Valencian Institute of Business Competitiveness; KLM; PIK – Potsdam Institue for Climate Impact Research; South Pole Group; Technische Universitat Berlin; Technische Universiteit Delft; TNO – Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research; Universite de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines; University of Copenhagen; UPMC – Universite Pierre et Marie Curie; Utrecht University; VELUX A/S; and the Wageningen University & Research Centre. (See more details below).

Getting Wellington on to the slate of city venues for the Climathon – which included Addis Ababa, Beijing, Birmingham, Boston, Copenhagen,  Frankfurt, Gothenburg,Helsinki, London, New Delhi, Perth, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Wałbrzych, Washington DC, Winterhur – was itself a great result.

Aside from the support of co-hosts Victoria University of Wellington and Wellington City Council, and local supporting partners the New Zealand Centre for Sustainable Cities, The Deep South National Science Challenge, Viclink and VUWSA, thanks for this would have to go to the standout efforts of local go-getters Enspiral, with leads Anthony Cabraal and Silvia Zuur, and supporting team

Having picked up the baton at a relatively late stage, this experienced crew (think Open Source // Open Society) attracted a turnout of around 60 people to what Climate-KIC billed as a “hackathon-style climate change event”.

As far as the Wellington event went, it could have been easy, as with climate change, to be overwhelmed.

That’s where the facilitation of Silvia Zuur in particular kept things on track with a very clear emphasis on a stage-by-stage approach to action, learning through experiment and diving into collaboration. After all, as Zuur pointed out, “what can’t 24 hours do?”

It was certainly true – as corroborated by Charlotte Hayes’ excellent event reportage for the KiwiConnect blog – that no time was wasted in the opening team group brainstorming on the themes of Business & Policy, Culture, Energy & Water, Food, Transport & Aviation, and a session I sat in on, Urban Cities.

Before getting stuck into the hard work of doing what we could, where we were, with what we had – really not much more than our feet and our mobile devices – this first session allowed for broad level framing of problems and fast paced ‘what if?’ discussions. It also immediately highlighted – just in the Urban Cities group alone – what a diverse set of people who had never met had been drawn to Climathon: two engineers, a designer, policy analysts, a community activist, an architect, a land use planner, a postgrad student and even a journalist, and not all just from Wellington.

Sitting as a background driver to the full event, was the carrot that up to three projects would be in the running to be supported for five months to further develop whatever project they might have begun to hatch with mentorship, workshops and learning opportunities, space to work (at Ensprial) and connections. Another, not to be sneezed at carrot being that Climate-KIC would be choosing the best ideas from the crop initiated by these city Climathons to be selected to travel to present in Paris during the United Nations COP21 climate change conference in December.

… and at the end of the day

By 6pm on Saturday 20 June, six teams emerged with whistlestop presentations to make to a panel made up of: Chelsea Robinson (a co-founder of Generation Zero and Lifehack co-lead); Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman aided by Associate Professor Ralph Chapman; Geoff Todd, the MD at Viclink; and Dan Zwartz, a research fellow at the Antarctic Research Centre.

Here’s a summary of all ten emergent propositions,  boiled down to some indicative ‘what if?’ questions.

• Carbon Productivity Crusaders – what if substitutes for the biggest users of energy like Tiwai Point in Southland were put through rigorous analysis to plan for substitute uses, and if all big users were put “in the cross hairs?”
• Communicating Change – what if our workplaces – where most spend the majority of our waking and working days – could be open to more structured internal communications opportunities around the issues of climate change, and open to making changes ‘from within’ by encouraging climate change intrapreneurs?
• Conscious Commuters – what if we could lessen the barriers and strengthen the links between cycling and public transport with better facilities like a bike-on-trains connector?
• Creative Climate Capital – what if Wellington rebranded itself as an exemplar of preparedness for climate change with a constant and changing set of installations and exhibits?

• Culture Clash – what if, before racing to develop ‘band aid’ apps for instance, there was a project that did everything it could to pull apart, flip, re-interrogate and synthesise all of the assumptions that get in the way of people understanding how to respond to climate change challenges – be that attitudes or behaviours?
• Inspiring Events – what if we could create and run climate change awareness events that captivated the hearts and minds of people? Example: Wellington On A Plate with a climate change theme around food.
• Map My Meal – what if there was a way, an app, for people to factor in everything about the food products they might purchase to become informed about low environmental impact and high impact – country of origin, fair trade, free trade, organic or not, packaging?
• Our Space – what if we started to navigate our way through new planning and legal pathways to maximise the idle but abundant land available in suburban backyards to open it up to uses like modular prefabs that could be rented, or for shared gardens?
• Po0ol – what if small-to-medium businesses like retailers could access a tool to monitor and measure every aspect of their consumption of resources aligned to ISO standards, not just their electricity usage, to lead on to certifications like the Enviromark?
• Tax Haven – what if you walked into a pop-up shop and when you went to buy the products on sale, say an apple for instance, and salesperson let you know that the marked price had a ‘tax’ to be added to it to cover the added ‘climate change cost’?

(Note: The Tax Haven idea presented by team-mates (and flatmates) Seth Hickling & Pete Jacobson rounded out the presentations with a humorous skit based on a mock pop-up shop. Way to sell the pitch guys!)

And the panels three “favourites”, after intense supplementary questions (and some well-earnt pizza), were …. Conscious Commuters, Our Space and Po0ol.

Climathon didn’t knock off Everest, but it did magically bring climate change down to a human scale – a scale that allowed this switched on group of people to channel their energies towards actions that might help realise the hope that we can still re-purpose life on Planet Earth, as we know it.

Or as Ants Cabraal says: “Saving the world, one hackathon at a time..”

Around the world with Climathon 2015

_________________

Advance publicity and releases:

• 17 June – ‘Climathon’ Seeks Climate Solutions From All Across the Globe
• 17 June – Wellington leads the way with Climathon
• 17 June – Pope Francis to speak out on climate change during 24-hour global Climathon
• 15 June – Climathon: Major cities across 6 continents unite for 24-hours to find climate change solutions

More about Climate-KIC

Together with its partners, Climate-KIC identifies markets for climate mitigation and adaption innovations through pathfinder projects, and invest in innovation projects to create products and services and take them to market through existing businesses, new joint ventures and spin-off companies.

Projects are classified by type (Pathfinder, Innovation, Flagship) and eight themes: Greenhouse gas monitoring; Adaptation services; Making transitions happen; Sustainable city systems; The built environment; Land and water; Industrial symbiosis; and Developing a bio-economy.

For an overview here’s the A to Z list of 62 of Climate-KIC’s projects sorted by NewsRoom_Plus – link to the Climate-KIC page here:

• Accompany cities in energy strategy.
  Providing tools to support the energy transition of European Cities
• Adaptation Tool for Local Authorities.
  Enhancing the capabilities of local authorities to implement
• Azofast.
  Producing Azolla biomass for a large scale production of proteins and raw materials for food and non-food purposes
• Behavioural Change for Sustainable Urban Mobility.
  Developing business models to engage the private sector in sustainable urban mobility
• Benchmarking the most promising CO2 Reuse technologies.
  Exploring the possibilities of using CO2 as an industrial feedstock
• Biogas, Energising the Countryside.
  Creating a more efficient solution to agricultural greenhouse has emissions
• Biogas2Market.
  Business opportunities for sustainable biogas production
• Blue Green Dream.
  Using water and vegetation together to make our cities more liveable
• Building Technologies Accelerator.
  Measurable carbon reduction in the building technology market
• CarboCount: Carbon accounting of Europe’s regions.
  Answering the demand for independent, reliable and verifiable information on greenhouse gas emissions at a regional level
• Carbon Emissions from Cities.
  Providing transparency in urban greenhouse emissions data
• Carbon-neutral, Low Emission Gas Turbine using Steam Injection.
  Developing the new paradigm in gas turbine technology
• Catalysing Green Infrastructures.
  Increasing green space in flood prone areas
• Climate Data Factory.
  Distributing user-friendly climate projections data to facilitate adaptation strategies
• Climate Impact Expert System.
  Generating climate relevant information for multiple impacted sectors and present them in an online tool
• Closed Loop Communities.
  Encouraging resource efficiency at a local level
• Community of Practice for Integrated Food Clusters.
  Providing a platform to develop resource efficiencies in food production and supply
• Cool Farm Tool Space.
  Developing tailored remote sensing solutions for farmers to monitor report and verify their greenhouse gas emissions
• CO₂ Base Products – From Dream to Reality.
  Shaping a Sustainable Future for Synthetic Polymer Production
• Delivering sustainable energy solutions for ports.
  Bringing innovation to container terminals in European ports to reduce carbon emissions
• Demand supply mapping for adaptation of local actors.
  Providing a demand-driven and self-sustaining service that addresses Climate Change Adaptation in European municipalities
• Diffusion of E-Bikes.
  Converting E-Bikes into scalable public transportation
• Employer led CO₂ and Energy Reductions by Employees.
  Encouraging a greener lifestyle at home and at work
• Eurbanlab: Accelerating urban innovations.
  Systemic innovations in a good process make cities sustainable
• Europe-wide Use of Sustainable Energy from Aquifers.
  Using thermal storage systems to reduce carbon emissions
• European Energy Performance of Properties Analysis.
  Supporting the development of an overarching European Energy Performance Certificate
• Extreme Events for Energy Providers.
  Climate adaptation strategies in the energy sector as a response to extreme weather events
• Flexibilization of industries enables sustainable energy systems.
  Exploring opportunities for flexible operation of major energy consuming industries in reaction to increasingly volatile energy systems
• Fuel Supply Chain Development and Flight Operations.
  Reducing Carbon Emissions in the Aviation Sector
• Fugitive Methane Emissions from hard-to tackle sites and sources.
  Fugitive Methane Emissions from hard-to tackle sites and sources
• Fully Optimised and Reliable Emissions Tool.
  Tackling the climatic impact of deforestation and degradation efficiently
• Global facility for calculating investments needed to bridge the climate induced water gap.
  Assessing the demand and availability of water resources to develop adaptation strategies
• Greenhouse Gas Data for Investment Decisions.
  Quantifying the climatic impacts and risks of investments
• Horizon scanning the European Bioeconomy.
  Scoping the horizon of opportunity for the bioeconomy sector
• Implementation & Adoption of Carbon footprint in Tourism travel packages.
  Defining carbon footprints of tourism packages
• Interface Applications and Serious Games.
  Raising the awareness of climate mitigation potential throughout society
• iPort at Amsterdam Airport.
  Reducing carbon emission and costs in the aviation industry through innovative airport design and handling processes
• KIC Transitions.
  Mitigating climate change as a result of urbanisation
• Know Carbon.
  Guiding consumer behavior to reduce GHG emissions
• Metropolitan Food Clusters for climate-proof agriculture by an increased resources use efficiency.
  Optimising food production chains to increase productivity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions
• MicroAlgae Biorefinery.
  Developing microalgae into a commercial activity for bulk products
• MIRIADE.
  Developing the market for the latest technology in greenhouse gas monitoring
• Monitoring, Reporting and Verification Sector.
  Improving Monitoring, Reporting and Verification of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Mun-E-P (Municipal E-Bus Planner).
  Driving the transition from diesel to electrified buses in local public transport
• Neighbourhood Demonstrators.
  New approaches to delivering sustainable places
• One Tonne Society.
  A field test of CO2 footprint reduction in private households with regard to the areas mobility, private consumption and housing energy
• Open Access Catastrophe Model.
  Insuring the risk of catastrophes
• Pioneer Cities.
  Identifying and sharing solutions for tackling climate change in urban areas across Europe
• Prediction of the Impact of Climate Change and Urban Sprawl on ECOsystem Services.
  An Integrated Approach for Preserving Natural Resources
• Realising carbon footprint reduction in food and non-food chain by new production systems based on LED lighting.
  Reducing the carbon footprint of greenhouse horticulture
• Reduced Footprints of Monumental Structures, Landscapes and Buildings.
  Building a market for reducing energy emissions in heritage buildings
• Smart Urban Adapt.
  A cloud-based, user friendly hub that integrates all city planning applications and services
• Smart Urban Water.
  A step change in urban water management
• Sustainable Campus, Launching Customer.
  Creating a great European campus network by bringing climate innovation research to the market
• SWIPO – Smart Wiring for Power Grid Stability.
  Helping to redesign energy transmission grids in order to cope with the stresses of climate change
• Transition Cities.
  Building an integrated innovation system for the transition to a low carbon economy
• Transition to Zero Emission Bus Transportation.
  Accelerating the move to Zero Emissions Bus systems
• Urban Mobile Instruments for Environmental Monitoring.
  Urban Resistance to the Effects of Climate Change
• Visualisation of Energy Efficiency Performance and User Behaviour.
  Sense4EN: Changing Individual Attitudes to Climate Change
• Waste 2.0.
  Intelligent Environmental Services for Urban Areas
• Water and Energy for Climate Change.
  Utilising waste heat for water production and climate control
• Working with Nature.
  Business opportunities for sustainable coastal and river engineering

And here’s an A to Z list of start-ups sorted by year of ‘founding’ by NewsRoom_Plus – link to the Climate-KIC page here:

2015

• Algreen BV – Everyday algae
• BladeRunner Energy – Grow with the Flow
• CARBON DELTA – The best financial data on climate change
• eMio – Electric scooter sharing
• Lilium – Electric flying as the future of private mobility
• MgAubel – recyclable mineral composites
• Modalyzer – Mobility insights
• Open Foret
• PCM Cooling – Reliable cooling with minimal energy waste
• Unlocking land value

2014

• 3R Waste Management – Plastic waste recycling
• Adaptavate – Breathing a breath of fresh air into the buildings of the future
• Adaptricity – Innovative Software for Power Systems in Transition
• Agromet – Meteo climatic forecasts for food sector
• Alchemie Technology Ltd – Digital solutions for sustainable manufacturing
• Cambond – Biomass-based Green Glue for Green Board and Green Construction
• Canary Control – Home heating control management
• Delft Spectral Technologies – High speed optical measurement
• Design By Sol – It is about time that our expiry dates got smarter
• Desolenator – Transforming sunshine into water
• DutchEES – We make heating affordable
• e.Ray – Delivering hydrokinetic power plants
• EARTHWAYS – Redefining geothermal energy
• Eaternity – Appetite for Change – CO2-calculation for restaurants
• Ecoglobe – Ecological water treatment and reuse
• Eddy Labs – Harnessing Sound for the Smart Home
• Enit Systems – Energy management for industry
• ET Index Ltd – Carbon-tilted index provider
• Flipflower – Standalone hybrid public lighting system
• Green City Solutions – A new generation of urban infrastructure
• Heliac – Revolutionizing the field of concentrated solar power
• H2GO P – Powering the future
• ImagineCargo Sustainable Courier – Packages delivered bike-train-bike instead of truck-plane-truck
• INTEKO – Save your money and give the climate a chance!
• LEDsafari – Sharing knowledge to make a sustainable world
• Nordic Power Converters – Small, low cost power supplies
• Novagg Limited – The world’s greenest structural lightweight aggregate
• OpenTRV – Saving energy via intelligent heating controls
• Palletechnology Ltd. – Smart pallets and an Industrial Internet of Things platform for an evolved supply chain
• PowerWindow – Transparent and patented energy producing windows
• Rencat – Catalyzing Green Power
• ReWinner – Reusing Building Products & Materials
• Shared Electric – Smart from the Start – Tools for electricity utilities making their consumers responsive
• Solar Application Lab – Configurable power converters
• Suntherm – Transforming residential heating systems to occupy less physical space and to retain heat more efficiently, for longer periods of time and at lower cost to the end-consumer
• Torque Wind Turbine R&D BV – Wind turbine development, production and sales
• TroFaCo – Action for climate change and rural development in developing countries
• Upside Energy – Enabling people to get paid for not using energy
• WeAct – Empowers people to live more sustainably
• Woodyshousing – Smart housing makes quality affordable: everywhere, everytime!
• Zum guten Heinrich – Delivers sustainable food whilst reducing food waste

2013

• Agrilution – Kitchen device for home-growing vegetables and herbs
• Algoritmica – Predictive maintenance software
• Making unused private parking accessible to the public via mobile
• akvola Technologies – Sustainable water treatment
• Aqualligence – Water contamination alert service
• aQysta – Hydro-powered irrigation system
• Avular – Agricultural data platform
• Carbon Analytics – Cloud computing solutions for emissions management
• CarbonOrO – Carbon capture from gasses
• CLOSCA -A fashionable bicycle eco helmet that collapses for easy storage
• Cogent Heat Energy Storage Systems (CHESS) – Carbon negative power
• Coheat – Residential heat networks
• Dingify – Unlimited 3D printing on location
• E-STONE – Renewable energy storage
• EcoBrix – Easy accessible mobile wastewater treatment solutions
• Energie 365 – Smart grid solutions
• ENERMAP – Online platform of Energy Performance Certificates
• Flissade – Innovative façade system
• GreenStar Statistics – Improvement of Driving Behaviour
• GrowUp Urban Farms – Aquaponic urban farm
• Hello Energie – Delivery of electricity and gas
• JackSavior – New design for the audio jack plug
• Kassence – Improving the micro climate to improve our climate – convenient in- and outdoor sensors
• Lumenaza – Transparent regional electricity markets
• NER (Nafici Environmental Research Ltd) – Eco paper from wheat straw, not trees
• Nerdalize – Heating Buildings with Computing Power
• One Earth One Ocean
• One Nights Tent – Bio-based product design
• One Shore – We know diesel. We love solar
• Open Utility – Peer-to-peer energy marketplace
• OsmoBlue – Generate electricity from low-temperature heat
• Reduse – home of the Unprinter – Give your paper new life
• ReVibe Ene – Enabling a sustainable and self-sufficient power source for low-current applications
• Repurpose
• ruction b.v – 3Dconcrete printing
• SNOCOM B.V. – Energy efficient snow removal
• StexFibers B.V. – Hemp for High Quality Textiles
• Strawberry – The inkless printer
• Sunfloat – more performance from PV panels
• Trakeo – Supply chain sustainability compliance
• Tube Barrier – Flexible Flood Protection
• UrbanSeeds – Indoors waste recycling solution
• Windmanufactur – Volkwind-Turbines – people’s small wind turbines
• ZIGZAGSOLAR – Aesthetic solar power from facades

2012

• Aqdot – Smart microcapsules
• Aquademia – Information for precision agriculture
• Awaju – Private household energy management.
• Better Taxi – Think mobility. Throw in social change & ecology
• BringBee – The home delivery network: Crowdsourced & Green Deliveries
• Carzapp – Next generation carsharing
• CocoPallet – Low cost eco transport pallets from coconut waste
• DexLeChem – Our innovation: Your green future in chemistry! *
• Disdro – Impact by measuring rain
• eBikeFINDER – Stop searching for your E-Bike. Find it.
• ECF Farmsystems GmbH – Planning and construction aquapnic farm systems in urban environments
• ElectricFeel – Smart Urban Mobility: E-Bike-Transportation System
• Elemental Water Makers – Renewable driven desalination
• FARMTASY – Bring Farmville into real life!
• Greengineering – DrainMiserTM: Doubles the energy from your Dollar
• Lumo
• MeshPower – Solar micro-grid
• Milk the Sun – The photovoltaic marketplace.
• Mobile Water Management – Saving water using smartphones
• MOCS – Modular composite structures
• NOVOTEK – Cogeneration based on wood biomass
• PlugSurfing – Just charge.
• q-Bot – Underfloor insulation with robots
• QwikSense – Building Performance Dashboard
• Rezatec – Analyzing earth data
• Solandeo – Metering and power management for small renewable energy plants
• Solarfreeze.net – Cooling by the sun
• SolarSwing – Innovative solar shading
• Stignergy SA – Energy Control & Optimization by Bio-inspired Technology
• Thermondo – The easy way to your new heating
• Tvilight – Intelligent Lighting Solutions
• ViriCiti B.V. – Influencing energy consumption

2011

• Agora Energy – Smart bins for Cities, Cutting cost and CO2 emission by 40%
• Antaco UK – Biomass to biocoal
• Archimedes Solutions – Archisol: Provider of sustainable energy solutions
• B.V. – Connecting horticulture buyers and suppliers worldwide
• BoxTango GmbH – Logistics with passion – green container transport
• CarbonGenie – Changing travel behavior
• Cella Energy – Safe, low-cost hydrogen storage material
• Cohere – Smart charging for electric vehicles
• Ebee – A technology provider for the utility and automotive industry
• Econic Technologies – Polymers from CO2
• Empower Generation – Clean Energy Market Builder
• Eternal Sun – Solar testing equipment
• Fleet Cleaner – Hull cleaning and inspection equipment
• Pectcof B.V. – Biorefinery of coffee biomass
• Pilio – Energy analytic software and hardware
• Solease – Leasing of solar PV systems
• tado° – Intelligent Climate Control
• Urban-e MSC GmbH – Innovative Mobility
• Virtual Streamlining – Smart aerodynamic drag reduction for reducing vehicle fuel consumption
• Yellow Pallet B.V. – Use waste agri-fibers of fruit plants to produce pallets
• Ynsect – Insect products

2010

• Airino – High-resolution agronomic data on demand
• Bettervest – Crowd-funding platform for energy-efficiency projects
• Bluerise – Harnessing the ocean’s power
• Eternum Energy – Creating micro energy businesses in off-grid Africa
• Evolution Energie – Energy efficiency software
• Giaura – On-site CO2 supply
• Qarnot computing – Green computing & free heating
• SAFETY LINE – Airline fuel efficiency
• Virtenio GmbH – Smart wireless devices
• Waste2Chemical – Making sustainability profitable

2009

• Climeworks AG – Capturing CO2 from air
• Econitor GmbH – Save energy, Easy
• Naked Energy – Solar energy redefined
• Plant-e – Electricity generation with living plants while the plants are growing
• Sénova – Your home energy efficiency is now easy to improve
• SimGas BV – Biogas solutions for the sub-tropics

2008

• Fruition Sciences
• Holland Container Innovations B.V. – HCI Foldable Container

2007

E-volo – The world’s first green helicopter

2000

Select Innovations – Intelligent energy, efficient lighting control solutions

NOT founded yet, or no date:

• 21st century technology for preventing wildfire and illegal logging
• BIO2CHP – “Don’t throw what you pay to grow”
• BIOMON
• Bringing delicious insects onto the plates of Europe
• CALTROPe – Reducing the impact of rising sea levels in the world’s delta regions
• Captain Plant – Veggie Burger: healthy food for people on the move
• Corellian – Fuel reducing aerodynamic products
• eChecker – A power test bench for all E-bikes.
• essento
• Founded: Not founded yet
• Founded: Not founded yet
• Freemium service for modern hitchhikers
• Good – Bio-based panels for building
• HitchHyper
• IndieWatt
• Libralato – The world’s first 1-stroke engine – an ‘eco-engine’ for the 21st century
• Magic Mitad – Connecting high level technologies with basic needs
• mobile hydro – Energy for off-grid areas
• ModuTank – Modular composite water tank
• Mr. Green Trading – Setting an end to emerging markets’ plastic waste menace
• Nature Today – Nature marketing & communication
• Ooho! – Edible water packaging
• Renewable energy production and supply
• SEA-V- Inspire your employees to have a positive impact!
• Smart Crusher – Concrete trash is cash
• Social Fabric – Supporting the creation of sustainable clothes
• SUREST – Sunlight energy solutions for better living
• Symoto – Online systems modeling software
• TEN innovation design – Enhance shrimp production toward sustainable development
• THE ELECTRIC HOTEL – Human centric power generation
• Use – Circular headphone service
• Veganaut – Discover a new world – Gamifying a social movement
• WaterHub – Bio-based infrastructure services to reduce CO2 emission
• Younergy – Manage your own energy!

ENDS – Contributed by Stephen Olsen 

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