The Buy Nothing Project is a global network of hyper-local gift economies, founded in 2013. It uses a digital platform and mobile app to enable people to give away for free unwanted items and skills within local communities, fostering connections, circulating value, and reducing waste. The network transacts around 2.5 million gifts per month over 230,000 communities, 10 million neighbors with 13,000 volunteers.
- circular economy
- community
- localization
- mutual aid
Biohm is a research and development company working on broader applications of biotechnology that harmonize cultural and natural systems. Driven by the simple philosophy of allowing nature to lead innovation, Biohm's biotechnologies, which are patented in almost 60 countries, combine mycelium technology, organic refuse biocompounds, bioremediation and triagomy into high-performance materials, products and systems designed for local contextualization, social connection, and global scale.
- biopolymers
- biotech
- circular economy
- construction
- green chemistry
- material science
- open source
- plastics
Cambrian Innovation is a water treatment solutions company that focuses on transforming wastewater into clean water and renewable energy, enabling clients in resource recovery, energy circularity, and environmental responsibility. It offers several wastewater treatment infrastructure options, which leverage biological processes and microbes to naturally break down organic pollutants in the wastewater, making it cleaner and safer for release and reuse. Its flagship offering, the EcoVolt system, utilizes bioelectrically-active microbes which do not only treat wastewater but also produce electricity, reducing reliance on conventional energy sources. All infrastructure is remotely connected and operated via its AVEVA Insight managed cloud solution, which gathers, stores, visualizes, and analyzes plant performance.
- as a service
- bioremediation
- circular economy
- material science
- microbes
- renewables
- water conservation
- water treatment
Ascend Elements is company focused on large-scale EV battery recycling, providing solutions that help recover valuable materials from used batteries and e-waste, which are repurposed into new battery components through their proprietary Hydro-to-Cathode® technology. This closed-loop system results in up to 90% lower GHG emissions compared to than traditional methods, by reducing batteries going to the landfill, reducing reliance on virgin materials, enabling a cleaner manufacturing process, and lowering the environmental impact of battery production-- essential for driving the broader energy transition.
- batteries
- circularity
- electric vehicles
Ecovative is a biomaterials company that develops sustainable alternatives to traditional plastics and other environmentally harmful materials using mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms. Ecovative’s AirMycelium platform grows more than 400 tons of furniture, goods, and packaging annually with clients in CPG, housing, packaging, fashion, food, beauty, sports, and more. The platform uses AI to optimize mushroom mycelium for scale, density, elasticity, and other industrial parameters. Ecovative's products are fully biodegradable and compostable, offering a more sustainable alternative to petroleum-based plastics.
- biofabrication
- biomaterials
- biotech
- digital platform
- manufacturing
- mycelium
- mycotecture
Coral Vita is a company that works on restoring coral reefs by growing resilient corals and transplanting them to degraded reefs. They operate commercial land-based coral farms, using microfragmentation techniques to cultivate a diverse range of coral fragments which accelerates coral growth up to 50 times faster than natural rates and and assisted evolution, which trains corals to be resistant to the effects of climate change such as ocean acidification. Along with cultivatation of coral, Coral Vita also partners with local communities, eco-tourism operators, corporations, foundations, governments, mitigation banking, and other restoration organizations to design and accelerate projects supporting the restoration of vital marine ecosystems.
- agricultural tech
- coastal wetland restoration
- conservation agriculture
- coral
Junglefy is a company specializes in designing, installing, and maintaining living infrastructure, which are green walls, roofs, facades, and other gardens integrated into buildings or structures. They combine scientific research, biological design, and sensing and monitoring technology to create nature-based solutions to enhance the air quality, carbon sequestration, aesthetics, and improve wellbeing of people in and around built environments. Junglefy offers a full service suite, including financing, planning, co-benefits design, customization, installation, analytics and reporting, maintenance and removal of green waste.
- air quality
- built environment
- cities
- construction
- enterprise
- nature-based solutions
Apolitical is a global digital platform that provides tools and resources to help public servants and government officials build their skills and knowledge, connect with partners, and improve their effectiveness in serving the public good, while remaining neutral on political stances. Through online courses, online events, and a social learning network, they foster exchange of ideas and best practices from public servants across 170+ countries on a range of issue areas, including climate, equity, digital & data, healthcare, transporation, and more.
- democracy
- digital platforms
- e-learning
- gobal
- localization
Socialbnb is an online platform that allows people to book accommodations that support social and environmental projects around the world, and connect travelers with local communities in ways that directly support local economies and causes. Each overnight "Impact Stay" supports a social or ecological project and travelers can also book "Impact Trips," which are multi-day trips that combine socialbnb accommodations with activities. Socialbnb currently has 6 different types of projects: Nature conservation, animal welfare, education, health, equality or sports.
- digital platforms
- marketplaces
- rentals
- sharing economy
- travel
Commonplace is a digital platform for citizen/community engagement and co-design. Commonplace's enables communty leaders, organizations, and projects to reach their communities, engage them around ideas, suggestions, concerns, analyse their feedback, and collaborate on future ideas. Its tools support surveys, communications, geolocated sentiment mapping, translating diverse voices into key themes, dashboards and reporting capabilities. The platform aims to promote dialogue also speeds up projects by getting local buy-in faster. Commonplace has supported over 3500 projects across 8 million visitors and 60+ themes, from development consultations, to wind and solar farms, community services, infrastructure, local planning, transport, and many other areas.
- civic engagement
- community consultation
- development
- participatory governance
Sway is a cleantech startup scaling seaweed-based, rapidly compostable replacements for plastic, beginning with flexible packaging. Sway's patented products match the vital performance attributes of conventional plastics and are designed to plug into existing infrastructure, enabling scale and competitive pricing. Unlike plastic, Sway's materials are made from an abundant, regenerative resource and decompose into healthy soil after use.
- agricultural tech
- bioplastics
- bioremediation
- nature tech
- plastics
Hunome is a digital platform designed to help people understand complex issues by bring together diverse perspectives for multidisciplinary sensemaking. Its platform is designed to bridge fragmented information and siloed perspectives into clarity, and supports environments for people to spend the time in dialogue developing perspective, openness, accountability, and collective sensing around complex topics. It uses data to transparently show interactions, "thinking paths," and how decisions are informed. Hunome recognises 16 different "knowtypes." These encompass knowledge derived from experience, research, observation, intuition, aesthetics, and creative exploration. Exposure to diverse ideas can spark creativity and lead to new solutions for global challenges.
- city planning
- collective
- decision-making
- digital platforms
- market research
- sense-making
