Europe 2019 Finalists

Eleftherios-Lampros Arapakis

Pêcher du plastique pour nettoyer les mers

Enaleia is a social enterprise with a vision to revolutionize the fishing sector by tackling the twin problems of overfishing and plastic pollution in the sea. In the last decades, Europe’s fish stocks have declined by 30 percent, while 8 million metric tons of plastic are thrown into the ocean annually. During our first project, we established Greece’s first professional fishing school, creating 30 jobs and motivating 10 new fishing boats to work with us. Our e-learning training program aims to attract and train more people in professional fishing, and Enaleia has also educated more than 130 fishermen in sustainable fishing. More than 60 participants have so far collected 2.5 tons of marine plastic monthly, which has been upcycled to create new products. We aim to incentivise fishermen to catch less fish and collect more plastic, and our goal is to collect 100 tons of plastic from the sea per year.

Felipe Villela

Faire de l'agro-foresterie l'avenir de l'agriculture

My idea is to make regenerative agroforestry practices mainstream into businesses & industries agricultural production. Conventional monoculture farming practises have been deforesting billions of hectares of land worldwide, and many next-generation farmers are disillusioned. I believe that sustainable farming practises can change this, and my goal is to co-design an agroforestry model farm where, for example, we plant cocoa trees demanded by the company Mars, shaded by palm oil required by Unilever. Shaded cocoa boosts high-quality production, and since palm oil likes a companion plant, a multi-cropping system can benefit two different businesses at the same time. I also aim at creating a portfolio of sustainable commodity packages that companies and businesses can incorporate within their responsible sourcing goals. My focus is on maximising impact within ecosystem services so that we can collectively reserve climate change within industries.

Laila Berning

Une nouvelle façon de stériliser les instruments médicaux

Noor Medical’s fundamental vision is to ensure that a reduction in post-surgical infections becomes a reality for the hundreds of millions of patients affected by health-care associated infections and surgical site infections. In African countries, infection is the most frequent complication in surgery and up to 20 percent of women who have a caesarean section develop a postoperative infection. Our pioneering product, the Hybriclave, is a hybrid solar thermal-electric autoclave which can utilize a multitude of energy inputs to achieve medical instrument sterilization conditions - independent of the electricity grid or polluting costly backup generators. Our current product development cycle is focused on integrating second life e-bike batteries with low-cost solar PV panels to provide even more flexibility for medical staff to operate our efficient unit at night in full independence of other thermal energy inputs traditionally used with off-grid autoclave devices, including those that use charcoal or cooking gas.

Marianna Muntianu

Making virtual trees real

The “Plant the Forest” project aims to engage more people in reforestation efforts through their website. The “Plant the forest” educational gaming project turns actions in virtual reality to tree restoration in real life. You can grow your own virtual forest and, in parallel, new forests planted by our volunteers will emerge.

Patricia Aymà

Utiliser des bactéries pour un monde sans plastique

We face a severe plastic problem today - thousands of marine animals are dying and if we continue in this way, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the sea. Our solution is a complete biodegradable bioplastic made by a very special bacterium. We work based on three principles: First, we produce bioplastics using bacteria. Bacteria use bioplastic is an energy reserve – so, we make them produce it constantly. Then, we extract the bioplastic from the bacteria and transform it into biodegradable bioplastic resin, with a multitude of applications. Third, we feed the bacteria with organic waste such as food waste, animal waste or sewage sludge. In this way, at VEnvirotech we move from waste to value for a cleaner world.