Au revoir IVS…but there’s more!
by: Brindusa Burrows, Founder and CEO of The Ground_Up Project
If you’re like me and have been collecting all those funky conference plastic badges, look at them really well because those days are about to be gone! These days we have set a new standard for zero-waste, time efficient and personable conferences that anyone should want to be part of.
Thank you, to all of you in so many parts of the world who participated in these two amazing, content and networking rich days at the Impact Virtual Summit 2018 “Zero-Waste: Build a Profitable Business.”
We would like to thank our summit partners — Swiss Economic Forum and their Circular Economy Community, the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, Eqlosion and Transformational Business Network for their support and for increasing the reach of the summit worldwide. Our gratitude also to The Ground_Up Project partners and especially UNCTAD, UNFCCC and Sustainable Finance Geneva who spread the word to their networks.
We were overwhelmed by the large number of participants that registered and attended the conference. Half of the audience was made up of business owners, which reinforces the potential that the circular economy has at the SME level.
You have helped save 700t of CO2 (and if you sat in a stuffy conference room well that’s entirely on you!), about 600kg of food waste, 170 trees and your own TIME.
There were 2 private pitching sessions: one for less than 1M USD and one for 1–10M USD. Selected to pitch in the first category were: Biocomp Nepal — a Nepal-based Dutch-founded business that is leading on organic composting and farmer education; Ecobora — a Kenyan-based startup that manufactures and distributes pellets out of organic waste; NuLeaf — a US based startup that designed a water purification device using biomimicry that is now targeted at micro-breweries.
In the second category selected to pitch were: MIWA — Czech Republic based company with a technology and process system helping producers, retailers and households reduce packaging and food waste production, CupClub in the UK offers returnable packaging service for drinks that utilizes technology to provide complete supply chain traceability, Rainbow Ecosystem — Ukraine-based company that produces prefab 100% biosourced blocks of panels for construction, local mass production of passive buildings and equipment for eco-friendly technologies, Limeloop — a US-based platform where brands rent LimeLoop’s reusable shippers and gain access to fleet management and predictive analytics and The Renewal Workshop — the US-based provider of circular solutions for apparel and home textile brands.
7 out of the 8 companies pitching received 1h of time with jury members who are investors or intermediaries. We wish them lots of success!
We talked about many things during the summit — looking at the most promising zero-waste sectors, risks circular entrepreneurs should be aware of from the perspective of an investor, new and retrofit business models, what makes a circular business model viable, technology innovations and their pathways to market, the role of the consumers and that of business customers up and down the value chain in making circular models viable for the long term. We also spoke about some of the latest vehicles for circular investment and high opportunities for both business and investors and the recent China-EU cooperation on the circular economy and the opportunities as well as challenges it opened, about the Swiss community of circular entrepreneurs and the competitive advantage Switzerland offers in this space.
There were also 3 hands-on business labs that taught us to analyze impact (with Impaakt), marketing tips and tricks (with Fast-Forward Marketing) and how to prepare financials statements to get one step closer to being prepared for fundraising (with The Social Partner).
I would like to thank my team at The Ground_Up Project — Neil, Claire, Gabby and Roopesh — you did a stellar job putting together and managing a complex 2-day online streaming event with multiple panels, shared content and audience interaction. You rock!
All this content (and more!) is now available at the Impact Virtual Summit — anyone can still obtain access to it even after the event — that’s the beauty of this new type of summit!
In the meantime, check out our new live investor interviews podcast series The Investment Clinic LIVE now available on Soundcloud, iTunes, and Stitcher.
Bye for now. We look forward to seeing you again online or in person soon!
