Even for optimists, it might come as a surprise that a lot of solutions to the world’s problems are already available. They are, however, often not widely known and used because they have been developed by small tech-based startups, which lack global visibility. This is where the Solar Impulse Foundation steps in. It promotes the solutions that it has identified and assessed in a thorough process by granting these companies the “Solar Impulse Efficient Solution” label.
The foundation found a lot of solutions that qualify. It announced in April 2021 that it had reached its initial target of 1000 solutions that contribute to one of five (out of 17 in total) United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
- SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
- SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
- SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
- SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and CommunitiesDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
The Solar Impulse Foundation wants more people to invest in sustainable and profitable solutions: “We’ve proven that over 1000 profitable solutions exist to protect the environment profitably, but the companies providing these technologies need professional investment to grow. To help them, we demonstrate that investing in new and clean technologies makes both economic and ecological sense, fostering qualitative growth rather than just the quantitative growth we see today”, Solar Impulse’s founder Bertrand Piccard said.
“When we founded Verve Ventures, we were convinced that technological innovation is one of the biggest contributors to solving many of humanity’s biggest challenges”, says Verve Ventures co-founder Steffen Wagner.
These portfolio companies of Verve Ventures have already received the label from Solar Impulse Foundation:
CleanGreens is a Swiss agro-tech company that provides innovative farming solutions and sells mobile aeroponics automated systems to produce clean, fresh, pesticide-free leaf vegetables with 97% water efficiency. The systems are developed for growers with the intent to localize production all year long, thus reducing off-season imports and related carbon emissions. An additional effect of localization is to secure permanent jobs. The technology multiplies the lettuce yield by 30 (on an equal surface) while reducing the water consumption by a factor of 25 compared to traditional agriculture. Products grown with CleanGreens’ system are of premium quality in all aspects: full size, great taste, longer shelf-life, and without contaminants.
“The solution is a real application in closing the circular economy loop, as it gets fresher and better produce near consumers, while also reducing carbon emissions, recovering energy for heating, and minimizing water demand, with no chemical residues. The final product is of higher quality, with a substantially lower environmental, energy and climate footprint, paving the way of the future of food systems”, says Enrique Rebolledo, Climate Finance Specialist and Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Expert.
Insolight is a startup that develops innovative high-efficiency translucent solar modules. One of the key applications is in agrivoltaic installations such as greenhouses or directly over crops, where the combination of photovoltaics and agricultural production allows for optimization of land use, revenue increase and reduction of operating expenses. The active control of transmitted light ensures that plants get all the light required for photosynthesis, and only the excess light is transformed into electricity.
“There is increasing competition for land between food production and solar power, creating a strong push to the fast-growing agrivoltaic market that is already a multi-billion industry. Insolight is building new solar modules providing adjustable crops protection on top of electricity generation. The solar installation replaces agricultural shading systems in plastic tunnels or greenhouses, opening large installation deployments that don’t affect land use. It also creates multi-channel revenues for the developer, as the solar installation is also an agronomic tool, allowing attractive returns for the installation”, says Antonio Delfino, Corporate Director of Venturi Lab and Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Expert.
9T Labs has developed the Red Series 3D printing technology. It radically changes how high-performance composite parts are made at high production volumes. The 3D printing and software solution reduces material usage and cost and is available as an annual subscription. It thus reduces the barriers for companies from industries such as mobility, medical and leisure to reap the benefits of high-performance thermoplastic composites.
The inventors have developed a very niche sustainable technology that delivers in two main ways: (1) Lighter composite parts save energy and thus critical natural resources, reducing the carbon footprint of manufacturing processes. (2) Energy-saving also directly translates to cost savings which can be passed onto the ultimate customer and increase profitability. The invention has, thus, all the right ingredients for a clean and efficient solution
says Sudhir Pai, Head of Robotics, Automation and Sustainable at Axiom Space and Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Expert.
Eugen Stamm joined Verve Ventures in 2018 and covers startups and investment topics. He has invested in more than 30 startups and joined the board of directors of a fintech startup. Eugen has more than a decade of experience in financial journalism (including working for Neue Zürcher Zeitung) and wrote a book about family governance.