Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge reveals its shortlist of planet-saving start-ups

This year’s shortlist for one of the world’s largest annual competitions in sustainability, Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge, has been revealed. The international top 25 organisations now edge closer to being crowned the overall Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge winner and receiving €500,000.

Among this year’s shortlist are a record number of exciting and innovative British start-ups that are combining creativity and science to solve a variety of environmental challenges, from plastic pollution and toxic waste to overfishing.

The shortlisted British start-ups are:

1. AirEx: automatically regulating indoor air flow to make our homes warmer, healthier and more energy efficient, slashing up to 15% off heating bills.
2. Colorifix: developing a revolutionary nature-based dyeing process to help the textile industry dramatically reduce its environmental impact.
3. Jiva Materials: manufacturing the world’s first fully recyclable printed circuit board to easily and safely recover precious metals.
4. Naturbeads: producing natural and biodegradable microbeads from renewable and sustainable resources to replace polluting fossil-fuel based microbeads in many everyday products.
5. Safety Net Technologies: designing, building, and testing light-emitting devices to increase the sustainability of commercial fishing, lowering bycatch by up to 90%.
6. SoluBlue: providing a plant-based, non-toxic alternative to plastic packaging that can transform the shelf life of food.
7. Spintex: artificially spinning the highest performance silk fibres available, through a spider inspired process to create 1000x more energy efficient fibres than synthetic plastic fibres.

Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge rewards British, Dutch, German, Norwegian and Swedish start-ups that successfully combine sustainability, entrepreneurship and creativity to help tackle some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

Clara Govier, managing director at People’s Postcode Lottery, commented: “With continued calls for a green economic recovery, there has never been a more vital time to support those working to tackle some of the world’s biggest environmental challenges. I am astounded by the calibre of this year’s shortlist for Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge and look forward to finding out more about these promising entrepreneurs ahead of the final in September.”

Postcode Lotteries Green Challenge is hosted by People’s Postcode Lottery along with its sister lotteries in the Netherlands, Germany, Norway and Sweden as part of their mission to create a fairer, greener world.

In Britain, players of People’s Postcode Lottery have raised over £500 million for more than 7,500 good causes, with over £10 billion raised together with its sister lotteries.

The shortlist applicants must now wait until August when the five finalists will be announced ahead of the Grand Final in Amsterdam (health and travel regulation permitting) in September, where the overall winner will be crowned.

The competition awards €500,000 to the overall winner while the runner-up receives €200,000 and the three other finalists receive €100,000 each. All the finalists have the chance to participate in a bespoke accelerator programme to identify the biggest challenges they face and provide mentorship and valuable connections to tackle them.