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The AmCham Sustainability Competition, a program that brings together members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania and startups, with the aim of finding solutions to concrete circularity and sustainability challenges, has designated its participants: 14 green startups will enter a solution development program.
In the next phase, they will benefit from business workshops, as well as consultation and feedback from participating companies, to develop a Proof of Concept and adapt their proposed solutions to the reality of industry challenges. The most relevant solution for each challenge will be awarded at the AmCham ThanksGiving Day Event. The AmCham Sustainability Competition is a program organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania and Impact Hub Bucharest.
During the period of June-July 2023, 63 green startups submitted solutions in the AmCham Sustainability Competition, in response to the three pressing challenges affecting water, air, and soil, proposed by AmCham member companies: Coca-Cola HBC Romania, Cargill Agriculture, Kimball Electronics, Microsoft Romania, Raiffeisen Bank Romania, and Stericycle Romania.
The startups that have proposed the most innovative solutions will continue in the program, aiming to develop a Proof of Concept and adapt their solution to the industry and market realities. At the end of the three-month acceleration period, the companies that proposed challenges can choose to continue working alongside the award-winning startups in the AmCham Sustainability Competition for the development and implementation of their solutions.
"The concern for a sustainable future is one of the common values of AmCham members, and we are pleased that through the AmCham Sustainability Competition, we can encourage and help startups turn innovative ideas into practical solutions. We appreciate the involvement of AmCham members in this project, in addition to the sustainability agenda that each implements at the company level. The response from the startup community is encouraging, and our hope is that for each of the 14 designated startups, participation in this project will be a real gain and a milestone in their overall development," pointed out Alina Orban, a member of the Board of Directors of AmCham Romania.
Participating startups in the AmCham Sustainability Competition 2023
Challenge #1: The Impact of Adopting Regenerative Agricultural Practices - How do we measure the impact on biodiversity following the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices?
Challenge #2: Reducing Carbon Footprint - How can SMEs measure and report their carbon footprint (scopes 1, 2, and 3)?
Challenge #3: Waste Recycling - What innovative solutions exist for waste recycling?
"We were pleased to see among the applicants entrepreneurs with whom we have worked in other programs of ours, dedicated to green startups, and we hope to be able to offer them such opportunities, which continue the path of validation and development of their solution, more often. We noticed increased interest in two of the challenges addressed by the AmCham Sustainability Competition, which converge in a topic that is on everyone's lips: measuring impact. Whether we are talking about measuring the impact on biodiversity in regenerative agriculture (and here we think of agri-food, a sector that has taken off in recent times in Romania and which is one of the verticals on which we have focused our activity in recent years at Impact Hub Bucharest) or measuring the environmental impact for SMEs, an extremely important subject, given the European regulations that will come into effect from 2024 and which attracts many green innovators," declared Vlad Craioveanu, CEO and Co-founder of Impact Hub Bucharest.
Program Schedule and Benefits for Startups
For the startups participating in the AmCham Sustainability Competition, an intense period of developing the proposed solution alongside program trainers and professionals is ahead. In the next three months, they will participate in workshops on topics such as product development, marketing strategy, negotiation, pitching, and sales, which will offer them the opportunity to develop the proposed solutions, which they will be able to validate alongside the organizations that proposed the challenges, and, most importantly, contribute to the development of sustainable solutions for the environment. The 14 participating startups will have the opportunity to present their solution at the AmCham ThanksGiving Day Event, which concludes the series of events dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the American Chamber of Commerce in Romania. At the event that marks the end of the AmCham Sustainability Competition program, a single winning solution will be designated for each of the three challenges in the program.
More details about the evolution of the AmCham Sustainability Competition and the proposed solutions are available on the official program page: https://www.impacthub.ro/amcham-sustainability-competition/ .