Green start-ups from the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain, Norway and Sweden, the countries with a Postcode Lottery, can once again secure a place in the final of the Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge.
SoluBlue (UK) has just been announced as the winner of the Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge 2020. Ayca Dundar, CEO and Francis Field, CTO, both Co-Founders of SoluBlue, convinced the international jury and received the grand prize of 500,000 euros for their green start-up. The runner-up prize of 200,000 euros went to the UK-based start-up Jiva. The other finalists were awarded 100,000 euros each to grow their businesses. In addition to the prize money, the finalists receive six months of support and coaching in furthering their business during the Green Challenge DeepDive. The Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge is an annual international competition in the field of sustainability innovation which encourages and supports start-ups to take their business to the next level.
SoluBlue packaging looks and feels like plastic, but is breathable and hydrophilic, absorbing excess moisture from food and preventing mould growth. Not only does the packaging extend shelf life – in SoluBlue packaging, food gradually dries over months, providing a second life for fresh food in cooking, or as animal feed. Being made from seaweed, the material is bio digestible, making it safe for marine life. The packaging is also home compostable, biodegrading as quickly as the food it contains."
Ayca Dundar: “Winning Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge 2020 is an incredible achievement and honour for us. Winning the top prize is not only going to revolutionise our growth plans, but it will provide further confidence to investors that our technology is the future. We’ve proven that our packaging works so now is the time to show the food industry and consumers that SoluBlue can help create a cleaner and greener planet!”
Director Jack Herring of the British start-up Jiva, was rewarded by the jury with the runner-up prize of 200,000 euros. Together with his team, Jack found out that 18 billion square metres of PCBs are manufactured every year and the rising value of precious metals means that efficient recycling of PCBs is a necessity. The organic structure of Soluboard® means the natural fibres can be separated in hot water. This allows the electronic components to be removed efficiently for recycling.
The 100,000 euro prizes went to: Made of Air from Germany, which developed high-value, carbon negative, thermoplastic materials which can replace fossil plastics in manufactured products, Orbisk from the Netherlands, which developed the world’s first automated food waste monitor to enable restaurants to change processes and reduce waste significantly, N2 Applied from Norway, which developed a technology that enables local production of fertiliser from liquid organic substrates such as slurry or digestate with air and electricity making it an efficient and sustainable fertiliser, and creating a more circular farm system and Enjay, a Swedish cleantech company which offers profitable energy recovery from restaurant ventilation.
Last year, the Swedish start-up Swedish Algae Factory won the first prize. It grows a special type of algae that is used to make solar panels more efficient and can also be used as a natural ingredient for personal care products. Sofie Allert, Co-Founder and CEO of Swedish Algae Factory: “The award opened several doors around Europe and was a huge boost for me and everyone working at the company. This is proof that people believe in what we do. And the award was a valuable contribution to our first larger facility that we have now started to build.”
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