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ImagineCargo wins in the Startup category at the Zurich Klimapreis 2014

«Thurgallien» erobert Klimapreis 2014

Zürich, 27. November 2014

Das Dorf Hohentannen trotzt den Energiekonzernen und gewinnt so den Zurich Klimapreis 2014. Zweiter Sieger ist der Elektro-Lastwagen von E-Force – der 18-Tönner ist schon für Coop und Feldschlösschen im Einsatz. Auf Platz drei schafft es die junge Firma Batte.re – mit Batterien, die Hausbesuche machen.

Wir befinden uns im Jahre 2014 n. Chr. Die ganze Schweiz wird von Energiekonzernen beherrscht. Die ganze Schweiz? Nein! Das unbeugsame Dorf Hohentannen im Thurgau leistet Widerstand wie einst Asterix und Obelix. Die 600 «Thurgallier» haben das Projekt «GemeindePower» gestartet: Ziel ist es, unabhängig zu bleiben und alle Energie fürs Dorf selbst zu produzieren. Der Plan kommt voran: Drei Viertel der Bevölkerung heizen mit Holz aus dem Gemeindewald und ein Drittel des benötigten Stroms wird mit der Sonne erzeugt. Mit diesem Projekt haben sich die Hohentanner das Preisgeld von 60’000 CHF für den ersten Rang des Zurich Klimapreis 2014 redlich verdient.

Joachim Masur, CEO Zurich Schweiz: «GemeindePower ist ein wegweisendes Projekt für die ganze Schweiz. Es zeigt, wie eine Gemeinde unabhängig bleibt und die Wertschöpfung im Dorf behält – wir gratulieren Hohentannen herzlich zu dieser Leistung.»

Die Elektro-Brummis kommen

18 Tonnen schwer, aber flink wie ein Wiesel. Das sind die auf Strom umgerüsteten Lastwagen der noch jungen Firma E-Force One. Schneller, leiser und umweltfreundlicher als jeder Diesel sind die Brummis, die übrigens nicht mehr brummen. Das macht sie perfekt für die Auslieferung von Gütern. Coop und Feldschlösschen sind so begeistert, dass sie bereits begonnen haben, die eigenen LKW-Flotten umzurüsten. Überzeugt haben sie auch die Jury: Der sanfte Kraftprotz aus Fehraltorf (ZH) schafft es gemeinsam mit Coop und Feldschlösschen auf den zweiten Platz – die drei teilen sich das Preisgeld von 30‘000 CHF.

Gespeicherter Solarstrom frei Haus

Was macht man mit leeren Batterien? Man bringt sie in den Laden zurück und kauft neue. Oder man lässt sie von Batte.re abholen. Die junge Firma lädt die leeren Batterien mit der Sonne wieder auf und bringt sie mit dem Velo zu ihren Kunden nach Hause. Sehr praktisch. Und auf jeden Fall günstiger, als neue Batterien zu kaufen. Die Jury hievt Batter.re auf den dritten Platz und vergibt 20‘000 CHF.

Die Sonderpreise

Die vier je mit 10‘000 CHF dotierten Sonderpreise gehen an:

Bauten & Wohnen:

  • «Zernez Energia 2020»: Die Gemeinde Zernez setzt die jüngsten
    Ergebnisse der Forschung in den Dienst des Klimaschutzes.

Produktion & Konsum:

  • Stiftung myclimate: Das Projekt «Klimawerkstatt» ermöglicht
    Lernenden, ihre Ideen zum Klimaschutz selbst zu verwirklichen.

Transport & Mobilität:

  • Bikesharing velospot: Neu kann man sich spontan auf den Sattel
    schwingen und das Leihvelo an einer beliebigen Station wieder abgeben.

Sonderpreis Start-up:

  • Die junge Firma ImagineCargo bietet die clevere Alternative zu traditionellen Kurierdiensten.Mit Velo und Bahn revolutioniert sie die Paketzustellung und senkt den CO2-Ausstoss markant.

Neuer Rekord bei der Projektanzahl

Joachim Masur, CEO Zurich Schweiz, sagt: «Die Schweiz steckt voller guter Ideen. Ich bin von der Vielfalt und der Qualität der Projekte begeistert. Hier zeigt sich in beeindruckender Weise, mit welcher Entschlossenheit die Schweizer und Liechtensteinern dem Klimawandel begegnen.»

Mit den 108 eingereichten Projekten aus der ganzen Schweiz und dem Lichtenstein feiert der Klimapreis 2014 einen neuen Rekord. Seit der ersten Ausschreibung 2009 wurden insgesamt fast 400 Projekte eingereicht. Der mit insgesamt 150‘000 CHF dotierte Preis ehrt Projekte, die einen Beitrag zum Klimaschutz leisten. Die Jury um ETH-Professor René Schwarzenbach entscheidet unabhängig über die Preisträger. Vergeben werden drei Hauptpreise und vier Sonderpreise. Die Gewinner wurden am 26. November 2014 in der Umwelt Arena in Spreitenbach bekannt gegeben.

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ImagineCargo to compete with Europe’s most innovative cleantech start-ups for €65,000 funding in Valencia, Spain on 31st October

ImagineCargo to compete with Europe’s most innovative cleantech start-ups for €65,000 funding in Valencia, Spain on 31st October

  • ImagineCargo has been named as a finalist in the Climate-KIC Venture Competition 2014
  • The Venture Competition is providing a total of 425,000 in funding to EU start-ups to further develop their ventures

Zürich, Switzerland – 27 October 2014 – ImagineCargo has been chosen as one of Europe’s eighteen most innovative cleantech start-ups by Climate-KIC to compete in the European finals of the Venture Competition 2014, on October 30th and 31st in Valencia, Spain.

A jury of experienced entrepreneurs, financiers and business people will be looking for the next generation of disruptive scalable clean technologies and services with the potential to make a substantial impact. Three winners will receive a total of €65,000 in funding to further develop their ventures.

ImagineCargo has been recognised as on of Europe’s most innovative companies, capable of making a national and global impact to create a more sustainable environment.

Nick Blake, CEO at ImagineCargo said “We’re really pleased to have been selected as one of the ventures representing Switzerland at the Climate-KIC Venture Competition in Valencia – it’s a real vote-of-confidence in our mission to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to package transportation.”

Hero Prins, Director of Entrepreneurship at Climate-KIC said: “The Venture Competition is designed to spur innovation by giving the cleantech start-ups of the future the funding and support they need to succeed commercially. As a finalist ImagineCargo represents one of the brightest prospects currently in our unique Accelerator, that is now supporting over 120 start-ups every year, and making it to this stage is a fantastic indicator of the potential we see in their business.”

The competition forms part of Climate-KIC’s annual Innovation Festival, which takes place from 29th-31st October in Valencia and brings together Climate-KIC partners, students and entrepreneurs, as well as European policy makers and business market leaders in order to develop and commercialise innovative climate change products and services. The finalists have already been awarded a total of €360,000 in Climate-KIC regional competitions across Europe to accelerate the development of their ventures.

– ENDS –

About ImagineCargo

Zürich-based ImagineCargo connects together cycle messengers using high-speed rail providing customers with an alternative to conventional package transportation that generates up to 99% less CO2 emissions.

Media contact

Nick Blake – nickblake@imaginecargo.com 

About Climate-KIC

Climate-KIC is the EU’s main climate innovation initiative. It is Europe’s largest public-private innovation partnership focused on mitigating and adapting to climate change. Climate-KIC consists of companies, academic institutions and the public sector.

The organisation has its headquarters in London, UK, and leverages its centres across Europe to support start-up companies, to bring together partners on innovation projects and to educate students to bring about a connected, creative transformation of knowledge and ideas into products and services that help mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Climate-KIC is one of the Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) created in 2010 by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), the EU body tasked with creating sustainable European growth while dealing with the global challenges of our time.

http://www.climate-kic.org/press-releases/climate-innovation-initiative-to-scale-up-efforts-throughout-2014-receives-e63m-eu-boost/

Climate-KIC media contact

Mona Ghobadi/Katie Ward

EML Wildfire Technology PR

climatekic@emlwildfire.com

+44 208 408 8000

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CEE Impact Day 2014 report

A recap from Lena Gansterer on the CEE Impact Day held in Vienna on 4th July 2014:

“The meaning of wealth is to make positive contribution to humanity and the planet”, with these lines Charly Kleissner, Toniic opened the conference, taking place in Vienna last Friday. Different session formats and exciting locations (Reitersaal, OeKB and ERSTE Bank Lounge) hosted more than 100 people dedicated to investment strategies that generate financial return and improve social and environmental conditions. We welcomed a diverse group from private and institutional investors to entrepreneurs, and all the supporting organizations between them.


Evelina Lundqvist, The Good Tribe

Ten social ventures from Austria, Romania, Serbia, Switzerland and Slovenia from this year’s Investment Ready Program pitched their investment cases in front of the audience. The innovative business ideas presented new ways to connect with your neighbours, healthcare access apps, peer-to-peer extra curricular education for youth, reusable diapers and more – pitching for approximately EUR 3 million, all in all.Michael Altrichterbusiness angel explained that impact investing is all about maximizing impact. His first impact investments were done last year and he is very happy with how things are developing. “Is there impact? – that is the question each investor should ask himself,”Michael highlighted.
“Social impact used to be solely related to charity. Profit was solely related to business. We are changing that paradigm here. If two years ago I had to explain to corporates and investors what is the term impact investing, now all that is changing. And we are the ones who are creating that new ecosystem of impact investing“ Julia Balandina, JBJ Consult underpinned.   


Lisa Kleissner, Toniic; Michael Altrichter, Business Angel
In the afternoon, crucial players in different fields came together for intimate discussions embracing the topics of crowd-investing for impact, impact banking, environmental impact, and early stage impact investing among others. “There is abundance of opportunities, and as the challenges get bigger, we become more dedicated. This whole event proves that we are not only believers but also doers”, was one of the final outcomes shared in the plenary session. The idea of impact investing is increasingly appealing for both social ventures and investors in the CEE region.“Europe has amazing potential. First of all, it still serves and maintains a rather successful social system. But we have to be careful and transform the system in a way that it won’t prevent entrepreneurship and innovation. Innovation is the only way forward and if I had one message to Europe, that would be: enable innovation, enable entrepreneurship,” Lisa Kleissner, a global impact investor.


Introductory Session to Impact Investment
Julia Balandina Jaquier, JBJ Consult

The CEE Impact Day created synergies of various efforts and is a starting point for more collaboration. Together, we enable innovation and pave the road to a new paradigm, one where profit meets purpose.

http://www.ceeimpactday.org

http://investment-ready.org/photogallery/irp-2014/cee-impact-day-2014/

 

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Is carbon offsetting the best way for transport to reduce negative impacts?

ImagineCargo’s business model focuses on re-engineering transport networks so that transport options are chosen that have the minimum possible external impact on the environment and society at large.

We’ve been asked a few times whether carbon offsetting would have been an easier and better approach for us to take.

A number of our competitors make the claim that their services are carbon neutral.  Indeed they take the approach of offsetting the carbon emissions they produce so that the potential impact on the environment their operations cause is balanced by investments in carbon reduction projects.  Sometimes the customer needs to pay a small supplement in order to pay for the offset.

We believe that in many cases the carbon dioxide does not need to be emitted in the first place if smart (but sometimes more difficult) choices are made in the way that transport networks are engineered.  By taking this approach the quantity of CO2 emissions that needs to be offset is dramatically reduced.  

So at ImagineCargo we took the decision to use cycle couriers and rail transport rather than trucks and aeroplanes – this allows us to offer package transportation services with up to 99% less CO2 emissions than competing offerings.

In addition we are able to provide service with lower levels of noise, congestion, cancer-causing particulates, NOx, upstream methane and various other negative external impacts of transportation (which incidentally carbon offsetting programmes do not address).

We decided not to take the ‘easy way out’ of continuing to pollute and then offsetting the emissions.

Find out more about an alternative way of transporting packages at sustainablecourier.com

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