While structural reform will be a key component of decarbonizing society in order to stave off the worst effects of the climate crisis, businesses also will need to play their part in order to ensure a stable, sustainable future for all. And innovation, in particular, will play a big role in this, which is why competitions such as Innovate2030 and UNIDO’s Global Call for Innovative Solutions are so important.
Innovate2030 is a pan-European innovation competition, run in cooperation with the German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, and the President of Germany’s Federal Environment Agency. The goal? To find new digital innovations that can help tackle the climate crisis.
The competition is open to anyone worldwide, with the goal to identify innovators who have the will but also the skills to actually implement the submitted solution. These can be startups that already have a working business model, student teams, or individuals working in related industries.
UN Climate Change helped select some of the finalists and chose winners based around criteria such as their impact towards SDG11 (sustainable cities and communities) and their overall business model.
Competitions such as these play a big role, says Innovate2030’s Nico Sedovnik, who helped organize the event. “Start-ups can tailor their business model to the climate crisis and offer direct, quick solutions that actually work,” he says. “The best-known example of this is probably The Ocean Cleanup. If you can bring powerful and well-connected organizations to the table with such innovators, solutions can emerge that not only combat the climate crisis, but endure beyond it and contribute to a greener, healthier planet,” he adds.
One of the segments that UNFCCC helped choose finalists in was in Transformative Climate Actions. This segment reflects the fact that the “green revolution” and digital transformation are closely intertwined. “Any economic growth has to be considered within the context of developing sustainable models within society,” Sedovnik says.
“This is why we are targeting digital solutions to help bring about climate neutrality. Which innovative digital solutions can be used to change our business practices and consumption behaviour with an eye to sustainability and carbon neutrality?”
Five Green Digital Transformation Projects
Huniflex – an Indonesian company – aims to build movable prefabricated downsized houses which can be moved from location to location, for example to different tourist destinations depending on the time of the year. Due to the small size of the houses, they will take up less land, use less materials to be built, minimise energy consumption and cut down on waste. All the housing solutions feature integrated data and app services, which the company claims will reduce energy use.
Capomaso is aiming to enhance supply chain effectiveness via digital vehicle route planning. The Belgian company understands that empty trucks and unused return trips produce emissions, which is why Capomaso is focusing on cutting these trips to a minimum by developing adigital framework – essentially an application – that supply chain actors can use to maximise truck/container usage.
Kasana from Uganda wants to leverage green affordable shareable energy technologies to build livelihoods and enhance communities. Having established Uganda’s first green renewable energy sharing and exchange platform, the Kasana Share team is powering households and small and medium sized companies through Photovoltaic technology and harnessing the Internet of Things (IoT) to bring about the transition to clean energy sources.
Zentur.io, based in Germany, has developed an energy management software suite to continuously monitor and optimize the operation of heat networks4.0, an innovative heating network with a predominant share of renewable energies . As part of this process, they merge IoT and Artificial Intelligence into a holistic software-as-a-service solution. The start-up is currently developing an AI-based assistant to be used by heating network operators to reduce costs and cut CO2 emissions.
Carbon Tag – a UK-based start-up – focuses on calculating and communicating CO2 emissions in the food industry. It also uses “social challenges” using apps, helping consumers to make purchasing decisions that lead to fewer emissions. This creates demand for low-emission products/services and provides companies with the information they need to reduce their emissions.