Borderstep expertise for Greece

Borderstep expertise for Greece: The Goethe-Institut organized a trip to Germany for a delegation from Greece on behalf of the Federal Foreign Office. Borderstep supported the project with expertise on sustainable entrepreneurship and green start-ups.

Trip to Germany on the topic of “Change and Innovation”

The participants are representatives from research, politics and business. They will visit Germany from May 8 to 12, 2022, to learn more about the topic of “Change and Innovation” and to experience practices in this field on site.

The thematic focus will be on the promotion of innovative companies and start-ups in Germany. Sessions on technology, energy and the environment, also in connection with structural change in former coal mining areas, will complement the program.

Innovation in practice: Green Startup Monitor 2022

Alexander Schabel, Borderstep Senior Project Manager in Sustainable Entrepreneurship, presented current Borderstep research projects and successful practical projects in a session at the Instituto Cervantes in Berlin-Mitte (photo) as part of this study tour. This included the results of the Green Startup Monitor 2022, which Borderstep published in spring together with the Startup-Verband.

The goal of the trip is also to exchange ideas with regard to future collaborations and network building. The program was launched as part of the Greek government’s current support for the start-up environment.

  • © ImpactNexus - Alexander Schabel

ImpactNexus: Making sustainability investable

ImpactNexus was founded at the beginning of 2021 as a spin-off of the Borderstep Institute in Berlin. The company’s software products are primarily aimed at investors who want to manage the sustainability of their portfolios. In this interview for the website StartGreen, co-founder and CEO Dr. Jannic Horne talks about current developments in sustainability regulation. He knows why measuring the sustainability of startups is currently becoming increasingly relevant.

 

ESG and Impact: What’s the difference and why are these topics becoming increasingly important for start-ups as well?

While ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) focuses on minimizing risk, impact investing is more about taking a long-term view of one’s impact. Impact investing aims to achieve a significant positive social or environmental change with the investments made. ESG criteria are now applied to look for non-financial risks that can have a material impact on the value of an asset.

Today, there are good reasons for both large companies and small businesses such as start-ups or SMEs to engage with the topic of ESG and impact. Investors consider ESG as a major risk factor when considering new investments. Startups that are strong in ESG are considered safer companies because they have a lower risk of civil litigation or government fines, for example. In addition, more and more investors are specifically looking to make a positive impact. Particularly with regard to climate change, the number of impact investments is rising sharply. Climate tech, for example, is the fastest growing startup sector in Europe, growing 10-fold in four years. Compared to 2017, $1.1 billion has been invested in the sector, up from $11 billion in 2021. However, the benefits do not stop at better access to capital: for example, the issue is becoming increasingly important both on the customer side and in the area of recruiting qualified personnel, and can represent a decisive competitive advantage.

What is the situation on the side of the investors? What motivates them to become active in these topics?

Private capital plays a central role in the transition to a sustainable future. Legislators have also recognized this, which is why the regulatory environment at EU level for the financial sector is currently undergoing fundamental change. The EU Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) is particularly important here. The regulation, which came into force in March 2021, obliges financial market participants and advisors to incorporate ESG criteria within the entire process from disclosure obligations at company and product level, to advising clients, to investment decisions and risk management. From January 1, 2023, the corresponding reporting requirements will also be applied. The regulation will therefore also oblige venture capital players to underpin any decision-making processes relating to the product and company level from the point of view of sustainability.

How does ImpactNexus become active here?

ImpactNexus help investors such as VCs or private equity firms, as well as their portfolio companies, to reduce the complexity of these developments and make sustainable decisions in a simple way. For portfolio managers, this means that they can gain insights into the ESG risks of their investments in no time at all. Simple reporting features help them, as does the ability to track key sustainability performance metrics across the portfolio. Thus, many important steps have been taken to meet the demands of various new regulatory requirements.

What makes ImpactNexus different from other software providers?

What’s special about our solution is that we don’t just target investors, we take the portfolio companies by the hand with our software and help them. Our approach makes it easy for both the companies and their supporters. In addition, we are using AI processes to build a unique impact database that contains the social and environmental impacts on countless products and services. This will enable us to evaluate the impact of companies in an increasingly automated way. By the end of 2022, we will complete a first automated assessment for climate impacts. We will then successively add other important sustainability topics. In addition to the assessments, our tools also provide concrete suggestions for improvements to more sustainable measures, materials or processes.

“Impact” is part of the start-up name: How do the aforementioned themes connect to the concepts of impact measurement and management?

Like important international players, we finally understand the topic of impact as the overarching task. However, the precise measurement and management of impact based on the business model requires a very profound examination of a company’s own processes. This is a lot of effort. In addition, the measurement of impact very often takes place afterwards – often by then considerable damage has already been done to people and the environment. Our solution enables early intervention in this process and models any effects. This makes impact management much easier. Measurement is then still necessary afterwards. In our view, however, both are needed – good forecasts and then actual empiricism.

Are there any specific tips on what investors and startups can do to address the issue in a straightforward way?

Investors should ask themselves early on whether they want to address sustainability in their portfolio primarily as a risk factor or actually analyze the impact of the entire portfolio. According to the objective, they should focus on evaluating the appropriate targets and metrics for each company. Here, it is advisable to focus on the metrics that are particularly important. In other words, those that have a supposedly high sustainability impact. For a manufacturing company, for example, this might be annual greenhouse gas equivalent emissions. For a digital start-up, however, the focus could be on metrics from the area of diversity, for example.

At ImpactNexus, we are working on successively further automating all relevant processes and enhancing them with intelligent recommendations for potential improvements. For this, we are currently working on projects with DATEV as well as a research project within the framework of the Nationale Klimaschutzinitiative (NKI). If you would like to learn more about this, you can find out more on our website and easily make an appointment for a demo.

ScaleUp4Sustainability: New platform online

New platform launched: As a consortium partner in the EU project ScaleUp4Sustainability, Borderstep is working with a number of universities and companies from Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden to promote the development of innovative, challenge-based teaching and learning programs for sustainable entrepreneurship.

Now, an online platform developed in the project to promote challenge-based collaboration between students and companies has been launched. The Sustainable Venturing Challenges platform aims to facilitate collaboration between companies as challenge providers and students as solution providers.

The platform’s core offering is a growing database that brings together all challenge matchmakers, alliances and initiatives. This is intended to provide a holistic overview of the European landscape of student-business challenges in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship. Challenge profiles, real-life experiences and a series of guides and tools complete the platform offering.

Borderstep further develops the EdiCitNet Marketplace

The EdiCitNet project is entering its next phase: The Edible Cities Network (EdiCitNet) aims to make cities around the world more livable for all by implementing Edible City Solutions (ECS) measures. Since September 2018, the project, which is funded by the European Commission, has been building a global network of cities.

Goal: Establish viable, sustainable business models

Within the network, Borderstep accompanied initiatives, start-ups and people interested in founding companies in the development of viable, sustainable business models. How can knowledge gaps be closed in the effective implementation of Edible City Solutions? What creative revenue models exist? What innovations can be developed along the urban agriculture value chain?

In this context, the Marketplace was launched with the support of Borderstep. The EdiCitNet Marketplace is a digital, collaborative platform for founders and initiatives creating solutions for urban food systems around the world. The goal is to connect Edible City Solutions (ECS), entrepreneurs, institutions, NGOs, and other third parties at local, regional, and global levels to enable global knowledge sharing, scalability, and replicability, and to create complementary collaborations with other companies worldwide.

EdiCitNet marketplace becomes platform for urban food revolution

In the meantime, 50 actors are already represented on the platform. These include pioneers of the Edible City as well as actors who are committed to the urban food revolution at the political and civil society level. The EdiCitNet includes Slow Food Deutschland, Prinzessinnengärten Berlin, degewo, Bundesverband Gebäudegrün, Restlos Glücklich Berlin, Netzwerk Urbane Gärten Berlin, Mundraub, Marktschwärmer, Grüne Liga Berlin and Ernährungsrat Berlin.

What does the Marketplace offer?

  •     Collaborative networking: round tables, working groups and workshops
  •     Expertise: support from experts to further develop ECS products/services
  •     Promotion: a global platform to highlight ECS services and products and find customers and partners
  •     Free hybrid consulting: a tailored professional consulting service. This is based on the maturity level, position in the value chain, needs, scalability and replicability of the respective company.

Borderstep is part of the EdiCitNet Consulting Team

For the next project phase, the Marketplace will be further developed and integrated into the new “Joint Platform”. The next step will be to further optimize the platform and improve its offerings and functions.

Borderstep will also continue its consulting activities. These include workshops for ECS initiatives as well as one-to-one consulting. As part of the EdiCitNet Consulting Team, the institute successfully participated in a series of events and workshops to advise and support edible city initiatives. Topics were for example sustainable development models or marketing strategies.

4th Green Startup Monitor published

With their great innovative capacity, green startups are driving the transformation of the German economy. This is shown by the 4th Green Startup Monitor, compiled by the Startup Association and the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability.

Young innovative companies in Germany have a clear focus on the issue of sustainability: The support of innovations to tackle climate change (38%) forms the most important demand of German startups to politicians after the reduction of bureaucracy (40%). Thus, they are the driver of the sustainable transformation of our economy. This becomes clear in the energy sector: More than two-thirds of all startups in the energy sector can be classified as green because they accelerate Germany’s steps toward climate neutrality with their environmentally friendly products and services.

Women founding “green”

Green startups have become a central part of the German startup ecosystem; almost one in three German startups is green, according to the findings of the Green Startup Monitor. In addition, green startups are also doing pioneering work in terms of diversity. At 21 percent, the proportion of female founders is significantly higher than in the startup ecosystem as a whole.

At the same time, green startups want to have the greatest possible impact with entrepreneurial means and are transformation-oriented: 35% of these startups combine their sustainable orientation with an orientation toward rapid growth in order to change value chains and markets. In doing so, they meet the challenge of a sustainable transformation of the German economy with radically new entrepreneurial approaches to solutions, whereby they are more innovative and technology-oriented than conventional startups. German universities are an important starting point for green innovations. Almost one third of all green startups are research-related startups.

Little push in the construction and financial sectors

Green innovations are essential for achieving the climate targets. Green startups are spread across almost all sectors of the German economy. In addition to the energy industry, the proportion of green startups in agriculture is particularly high (66 percent). Other climate-relevant sectors such as construction and real estate (25 percent) or tourism (18 percent) urgently need to catch up. The same applies to financial service providers. Startups in the banking, finance and insurance sectors are not providing sufficient impetus for the realization of the Sustainable Finance Strategy of the EU and the German government.

Universities as hotspots

The dense network of outstanding university research in Germany is the origin of numerous innovative green companies. Almost one third of all green startups are research-related startups. Green founders often get to know each other at university (40%). Among green startups, the share of founders with a degree in engineering is significantly higher (29 percent) than among non-green startups (20 percent). While three out of four startups have taken advantage of consulting services and financial support such as EXIST funding, there is still considerable need for development in terms of sustainability-related offerings. Sustainability-related consulting and support services for startups have so far been scarce at German universities.

Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter, Co-author GSM22, Founder and Director of the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Adjunct Professorship for Innovation Management and Sustainability (PIN):
“The Green Startup Monitor 2022 shows the high importance of universities and research institutions for innovative green startups. One serious deficit, however, is that universities have so far provided hardly any sustainability-related services as part of their startup support. Here, university managers and funding policy are equally in demand. The study Sustainability in University Start-up Support shows practical examples and starting points.”

 

Prof. Dr. Yasmin Olteanu, Co-Author GSM22, Borderstep Research Fellow, Berlin University of Applied Sciences, Professor of Business Administration/Entrepreneurship.:
“Every third green startup is transformational, i.e. a high potential for the big transformation towards a sustainable society and economy. These green startups think much bigger, are more innovative and technology-oriented – and thus actually highly attractive to funders. Nevertheless, a lack of capital is currently holding them back – especially in the area of venture capital. Our demand: a targeted improvement in the financing conditions for transformation-oriented startups in Germany.”

 

David Hanf, Vice Chairman Startup Association: “The Green Startup Monitor 2022 clearly shows that startups with a positive ecological impact have established themselves in Germany at a high level. This is good news in the context of the necessary transformation towards a climate-neutral economic system, because what matters now is speed and consistent implementation. To this end, startups need target-group-oriented support, especially for growth companies that have the potential to sustainably change markets in the sense of a generation-appropriate future.”

Green Startup Monitor

The Green Startup Monitor analyzes the importance of those startups that contribute to the ecological goals of a Green Economy with their products and services. It was published for the fourth time by the Borderstep Institute and the German Startups Association in 2022. The study is based on data collected through an online questionnaire from 1,707 innovative and growth-oriented companies that are less than 10 years old and have their headquarters in Germany. The Green Startup Monitor can be downloaded free of charge.

Study Sustainability in University Start-up Support

The brochure offers universities and especially university start-up consulting an insight into the spectrum of support services.

Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability gGmbH

As an independent and non-profit scientific institution, Borderstep researches the future and examines what is coming (innovation) and what is staying (sustainability). The focus is on developing solutions to problems and action strategies for sustainable economic activity.

Startup Association

The Startup-Verband is the representative and voice of startups in Germany. It explains and represents the interests, viewpoints and concerns of startup companies to legislation, administration and the public. It promotes innovative entrepreneurship and carries the startup mentality into society. The association sees itself as a network of startups in Germany.

Heating and cooling with the help of the sun

Heating and cooling with the sun – how can that work? Borderstep is investigating this in a new project using the example of heat pumps and their technology.

In Germany, 85 percent of heat for heating and hot water is supplied by fossil fuels. To achieve climate neutrality, therefore, the technology must be almost completely converted. Wherever there are or will be no heating networks, the heat pump is the central technology for heating.

The aim of the project is to inform as many people as possible about climate change and to draw their attention to the concrete possibilities of using heat pumps for heating and cooling. In the long term, this should mobilize people to take swift action against climate change. A demonstration system of an air-to-air heat pump with PV system and battery will be used to communicate the function of the heat pump to a broad public.

All information about the project can be found here.

Hydrogen as a panacea?

Is hydrogen really the panacea in the climate crisis? Together with the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW), Borderstep is analyzing in a new project the areas in which the use of hydrogen appears to make sense for achieving climate goals.

Hydrogen – panacea or hype?

The starting point for the project is the observation that there is currently a massive “overbooking” of green hydrogen by a large number of sectors. This potentially leads to climate targets not being met and there could be negative impacts on alternative transformation pathways.

Providing directional certainty for the climate turnaround

The project builds on insights from interdisciplinary transformation research and the findings of the ITA project Governance of Radical System Innovations (Go) on the importance of directional certainty for the successful transformation of energy, industry and mobility systems.

Borderstep Impact Guide published

Guide for impact management of start-up support programs published

Despite the huge amounts of money invested in start-up support programmes, there is a lack of analysis on the long-term impact of these programmes. Little is known about their economic impacts. Whether the supported start-ups also contribute to climate protection or other societal objectives has not yet been the subject of evaluation of start-up support programmes. With regard to the economic, environmental and societal impact, the principle of hope has prevailed so far. Political actors and programme managers lack reliable evidence.

But how can a support programme be designed for impact orientation? Which methods and concepts are suitable for measuring and evaluating the impact – on the supported start-ups as well as on the economy, society and the environment? To this end, the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and Sustainability developed the IMPACT Guide „Moving from Evaluation to Impact Management of Start-up Support Programmes“.

The IMPACT Guide is a result of the Borderstep project IMPACT of sustainability-oriented start-up support. It was funded and supported by the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt). The project developed innovative approaches to analyse and manage the economic, ecological and social impact of start-up support programmes.

The brochure can be downloaded free of charge in English and German.

Background

“What contribution do we want our support programme to make to solving societal challenges?” This question of impact is still asked too little in start-up support. Yet alignment with societal goals offers the opportunity to actively drive sustainable development of business and society. The IMPACT Guide shows how support programmes can develop appropriate impact goals and then monitor their achievement. In this way, the program’s contribution to economic, environmental, and social impact can be understood and maximized.

Impacting society with start-up support

How can the impact that a support programme and its services have on supported start-ups be determined? How can the contribution of a program to positive changes on environment, society and economy be evaluated? And how can the impact be maximized?

These are the questions addressed in the now-published IMPACT Guide, “Moving from Evaluation to Impact Management of Start-up Support Programmes”.

The brochure provides start-up supporters, programme managers and accompanying research with impulses and approaches to assess and manage the impact of start-up support programmes.

The Borderstep Impact Guide can be downloaded free of charge.

 

Your Contacts

Prof. Dr. Klaus Fichter
  • Founder and Director
  • +49 30 306 45 100-0
Alexandra Widrat
  • Researcher

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