Green for Growth Fund announces winners of clim@ competition
Friday, 29 June 2018 16:46Green for Growth Fund announces winners of clim@ competition o.polyuga Fri, 06/29/2018 - 15:46
The Green for Growth Fund (GGF) announced the winners of the clim@ competition during the Sustainable Future Forum on 27 June. Inspidere was awarded first place and €15,000 to grow their business, which uses an innovative method and technology to transform cow manure into biomaterials for producing clothes and other products. Biomyc was awarded €10,000 for their novel approach to developing sustainable packaging solutions out of agricultural waste and mushroom mycelium, and Nüwiel received €5,000 for their electric bike trailer, a solution to urban freight mobility issues. In addition, the Ukrainian company Effa received an honorable mention for their initiative to develop a sustainable paper-based disposable toothbrush to reduce plastic waste.
The clim@ competition was launched by the GGF in 2018. Its aim was to find, showcase and support pioneering businesses and projects in the fields of sustainable energy and resource efficiency, which have the power to change current practices and have a strong, positive impact. The competition received more than 260 entries from 80 countries worldwide. 15 finalists were invited to Frankfurt on 25 June for the clim@ pitching event, where an experienced jury selected 5 grand finalists to compete for awards at the Sustainable Future Forum. 2 of these 15 finalists were companies from Eastern Partners countries: Effa from Ukraine and ResursConec from the Republic of Moldova.
GGF Chairman Christopher Knowles said: “clim@ gave pioneering entrepreneurs and innovative businesses the opportunity to meet potential sponsors and investors – leveraging the network and reach of the Green for Growth Fund and its partners – while competing for awards that can help them develop and scale-up their ideas. In this way, clim@ complements the work of the Green for Growth Fund, by supporting innovations that will play a role in setting us on a path towards a sustainable future.”
The clim@ competition was organised by Finance in Motion GmbH on behalf of the GGF Technical Assistance Facility, and sponsored by the European Commission and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
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GGF, part of the EU4Energy initiative, invests in measures designed to cut energy use and CO2 emissions, and improve resource efficiency in 19 markets across Southeast Europe, the Caucasus, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, the Middle East and North Africa. The GGF was initiated as a public-private partnership in December 2009 by Germany’s KfW Development Bank and the European Investment Bank, with financial support from the European Commission, the BMZ, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Austrian development bank OeEB.
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