These 11 organizations are building a greener Europe

The science is clear: the world must act now to avert the worst consequences of climate change. In September we laid out what our next decade of climate action will look like. It’s clear that the scale and complexity of the battle to combat climate change will require everybody to work together, that’s why we continue to advocate for strong climate action.  

We launched a €10m Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate to fund bold ideas that aim to use technology to accelerate Europe’s progress toward a greener, more resilient future. Together with our partners at Climate-KIC, we’ve uncovered impactful and ambitious projects.

Here are the 11 organizations working on urgent climate-related issues across Europe that will receive Google.org funding. 

Meet the funding recipients

• Image of a phone with app open.

  CEiiA in Portugal wants to transform the world’s cities. They're building a blockchain-based platform that rewards people for not emitting carbon with green digital credits that can be exchanged for goods and other incentives.

• Image of a tree with text that says: "Trees as Infrastructure: Urban Nature-based solutions at scale."

  Dark Matter Laboratories, based in the UK, is creating Trees As Infrastructure, a financial platform to support investments in urban forest management and restoration. The technology is open, verifiable and outcomes-based.

• Three people standing in front of a digital map.

  Deltares in the Netherlands, in partnership with the World Resources Institute and the World Wildlife Fund, is working to democratize information on water resources. They’re developing an app with water resources indicators.

• A group of people in Energy Web Foundation shirts huddled together in an office.

  The Energy Web Foundation in Switzerland is working to accelerate a low-carbon electricity system through open-source technologies that connect customers with energy markets.

• A field of solar panels.

  Open Climate Fix in the UK will use machine learning and satellite data to improve the forecasting of solar electricity — supporting the greening of electricity supplies.

• Climate Farmers logo with image of produce behind it.

  The German organization Climate Farmers is developing soil carbon monitoring systems. This can help Europe's farmers transition to regenerative agriculture. 

• Two women chatting.

  Materiom, based in the UK, is helping share the building blocks of high-performing, low-carb compostables with an open-source library of bioplastic recipes.

• Logo that says Normative.

  Sweden-basedNormative, in collaboration with the United Nations-backed SME Climate Hub, is helping the world's companies automatically compile a carbon report by analyzing bank transactions, making climate mitigation easy and actionable.

• Four of the Open Food Fact team members standing outside together.

  In France, Open Food Facts is working to link individual food scores to barcodes so that consumers and producers can see the environmental footprint of millions of food products and make choices to reduce their own impact. 

• Team members standing in front of drones.

  In collaboration with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Saildrone is using drones that will quantify Gulf Stream data in real-time to improve weather and global carbon predictions. 

• Team members from the Snowchange Cooperative standing near a bannister together.

  The Arctic North stores as much carbon as Amazonia. Keeping it there is essential. The Snowchange Cooperative, based in Finland, is using technology and knowledge of indigenous communities to rewild this habitat.

What’s ahead

Starting this week, the funding recipients of the Google Impact Challenge on Climate will receive mentoring and workshops from Google and external experts on topics like technology, growth, product, design, people, and more. 

You can learn more about these organizations in a new podcast series called Planet Progress. In each 25-minute episode our host, mathematician and broadcaster Dr Hannah Fry, talks to organizations about their big ideas and the challenges they’re attempting to solve. 

These incredible organizations are paving the way for sustainable changes at the local and global level. We’re proud to do our part in helping them move the world closer to a carbon-free future. 

by Matt BrittinGoogle Europe, Middle East and Africa via The Keyword