Entrepreneurs Lead The Charge When It Comes To Fixing Climate Change
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Green Business is growing impact around the globe, and global teams are innovating to fix climate change.
In 2014 ClimateLaunchpad* started out as a green business ideas competition in Europe. The platform offers training and coaching in entrepreneurial skills and is the springboard to successful and scalable cleantech businesses.
As part of the EIT Climate-KIC offerings, the first ClimateLaunchpad event attracted some 200 participants from 10 European countries. In the past 5 years, the competition has grown immensely. This year it accepted a record total of 2,600 business idea applications from 53 countries across all continents.
What’s behind the exponential growth of this green business competition? Obviously, increased climate awareness has led to growing consumer demand or new and clean solutions across the board. But there is more.
As the green business market is maturing in Europe, it makes sense that ClimateLaunchpad is shifting its focus to other regions. Developing countries and emerging markets often have limited resources to create a cleantech revolution. Initiatives like ClimateLaunchpad fill that void and support and stimulate entrepreneurship to secure a green future.
Scalable Business to Create Impact
ClimateLaunchpad trainer Hans Westerhof explains: “Business scales – that’s the wonderful thing about business. The risk with ideas within the cleantech scope is that people tend to think that they should not make money with their efforts to help the planet. But if that is your mindset, it will limit your impact on climate change. ClimateLaunchpad is an opportunity to get people to see their idea as a business, and the real benefit of approaching their idea like a business is that they get to create real impact.”
This diversity of countries, continents and people that join the competition brings more innovation to the green economy. More diverse participants means more diverse ideas. Frans Nauta, Founder of ClimateLaunchpad, knows that this diversification is exactly what is needed. “We know climate change is solvable. We also know there will not be one single cure, we need – and there will be – thousands of big and small cures. We want experiments, lots of them. What we’ve learned with ClimateLaunchpad is that there are entrepreneurs thinking of new solutions everywhere in the world, from Nepal to South Africa, and from Canada to Estonia. Entrepreneurs can build scalable businesses with global impact. That is why it is our mission to fix climate change, one start-up at a time. When it comes to fixing climate change, entrepreneurs will lead the charge.”
What’s Next for Climate Launchpad
ClimateLaunchpad’s Global Grand Final is up next – on November 14–15, about 140 startups from 53 countries will gather in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. There will be cash prizes and business accelerator opportunities for the winners. But the true value is that each of these green entrepreneurs will be set to create successful businesses — and help fix climate change.
The plan for next year is to get even more countries involved in the program. There is a waiting list with 20 countries ready to jump in. The ClimateLaunchpad is looking for funding to help that expansion to continue its mission to grow and conquer the world.
CleanTechnica will be there too! We’ve been invited back this coming year to the Netherlands for the Grand Final competition, and I’m very excited to see how this year will move us closer to business-driven solutions working to build a better planet. See our previous coverage from last year in Edinburgh, Scotland, and the previous year in Cyprus in our ClimateLaunchpad archives here.
*This article is sponsored by ClimateLaunchpad; images from ClimateLaunchpad and used with permission.
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