Dublin’s Sustainability Startup Weekend
Last weekend, innovators, marketers, programmers, strategists, and creatives gathered in Dublin for a Sustainability Startup Weekend. From Friday to Sunday, 40 innovators formed teams, generated ideas, researched the market and created business models for their sustainable start-ups.
“I wanted to get involved because it’s an opportunity to reframe environmental challenges as an opportunity, rather than a burden or a cost.” explained Emer Cooney, Enterprise & Innovation Community Manager for Bank of Ireland, who acted as a mentor over the weekend.
Powered by Aviva, Dublin City Council and Huckletree and guided by TechStars and Startup Weekend, Dublin’s Sustainability Startup Weekend produced several innovative sustainable startup ideas. Here are the top three as chosen by a panel of expert judges:
Fraoch
Froach, which means heather in Irish, plan to harness the power of Irish honey bees to give the Manuka franchise a run for their money. A recent study from DCU found that Irish heather honey has higher antioxidant content than the famous Manuka honey. Given that Manuka retails at €40 to €60, I’m sure Fraoch will return quite a sustainable profit!
ECORENTR
ECORENTR plan to revolutionise peer-to-peer sharing. Many of our household appliances sit around, unused. This is a big waste because those products have a carbon footprint that will be wasted if they are not even used, all the while new products with new carbon footprints are being created.
ECORENTR aims to help those who don’t want to buy an appliance because it’s too expensive, they are living in a city/country for a short time, or they simply don’t want to buy something they know they will barely use. With ECORENTR, you can just borrow from your neighbour!
This start-up blends sustainability and convenience in order to get the most of the carbon footprint used to create each product. They will also reduce the demand for new products and reduce the amount of stuff ending up in landfills. Plus, it gives neighbours a reason to introduce themselves!
ZING
A lot of food must be thrown out at the end of the day due to its short shelf life. ZING plan to tackle this challenge. For example, a shop could have 100 unsold donuts as they near the end of the day. They probably won’t sell most of them which will be a loss of the company and a waste of food. ZING’s app will allow consumers craving a late-night snack and dramatically reduce food waste.
I can’t wait to see these three amazing start-ups on the market. Hopefully it won’t be long since Fraoch and ECORENTR won co-working space with Huckletree and The Hatch Labs, respectively, to get started on making their sustainable ideas a reality.
If you’ve been inspired to create your own startup, Dublin Startup Week takes place from November 19th — 23rd 2018. This week includes five different tracks: Entrepreneur 101, Design, Future, Developer, and Diversity and Inclusion. There is limited space for this event so get your tickets quick!
