Runners-up Shiply.com & Ephicas SideWing

For 2009, two one-time €100,000 prizes have also gone to runners-up, both services for the haulage industry. The online transport marketplace Shiply.com matches people shipping goods with truckers already going in the right direction, making the industry more efficient. The Ephicas SideWing truck trailer skirt lowers wind resistance by guiding airflow, cutting fuel use.

The RidgeBlade “has great potential to reduce emissions,” said Greenpeace Netherlands’ executive director Liesbeth van Tongeren, another juror, who read out the jury report at Friday's award ceremony. “The adaptation of an existing technology is innovative, and the production cost makes it affordable and attractive for consumers.”

She said Shiply.com, already running in the UK, had “successfully applied a scalable business model to cut down on the extreme inefficiency of the transport sector.” And the Ephicas SideWing “will greatly reduce carbon emissions in a sector where this is difficult to do.”