From utilising bacteria to create light, a new approach to packaging waste to apps to re-utilise food and DIY waste, six innovative European startups have been named as finalists for the third Green Alley Awards.

Taken from royalty free Pixabay.
Taken from royalty free Pixabay.

The Green Alley Award is a prize that rewards business model ideas that contribute to a range of topics around conserving resources, including circular economy approaches. Originally launched in 2014, the competition has a number of partners including, German crowdfunding platform Seedmatch, London-based accelerator programme Bethnal Green Ventures and the European Recycling Platform in Finland.

The finalists

Das Tiffin Projekt – a returnable lending system that enables registered restaurants to cut down on packaging waste, based in Berlin.

Design by Sol – a UK startup that has fitted a food expiry label with gelatin to enable customers to understand the freshness of their food.

Glowee – a French startup that leverages light generating bacteria on its own or through symbiosis, replicating processes from the natural world.

Green City Solutions – an installation made of moss culture and powered autonomously through solar panels, rainwater and IoT tech, which absorbs CO2 cleaning the air.

ResQ Club –an app in Finland that gives restaurants a chance to sell their leftover food at a lower price to customers in local neighbourhoods.

Restado – aiming to bring digitisation to DIY construction, where a marketplace is created for leftover materials on a user-to-user level. 

The six finalists have been selected from 200 business ideas from across Europe, and the six teams will pitch their concepts to an international audience on 27 October.

The continued interest and success of the reward reflects general interest and excitement in the startup space for the potential of the circular economy as a business opportunity. Of course, many of the innovative examples coming out are still more heavily focused on dealing with the challenges in existing waste streams, rather than designing out system issues from the start.

 

Source: Six new innovative startups shortlisted for European circular award

More information about the Green Alley Award can be found on the award’s website.

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