Google commits €10m to fund bold ideas accelerating greener future in Europe

13 / 04 / 2021

By Marwa Nassar - -

The Google.org Impact Challenge on Climate has committed €10 million to fund bold ideas that aim to use technology to accelerate Europe’s progress toward a greener, more resilient future.

Selected organizations may receive up to €2 million in funding and possible customized post-grant support from the Google for Startups Accelerator to help bring their ideas to life.

Together with Google’s partners at Climate-KIC, the company has uncovered impactful and ambitious projects.
Eleven organizations working on urgent climate-related issues across Europe will receive Google.org funding.

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.

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

The eleven organizations selected by Google:

These eleven organizations include CEiiA in Portugal which wants to transform the world’s cities through 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.

Google also selected the UK-based Dark Matter Laboratories which 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.

Deltares in the Netherlands – which works in partnership with the World Resources Institute and the World Wildlife Fund- was also among selected organizations.

Deltares is working to democratize information on water resources. They’re developing an app with water resources indicators.

Google will also support the Energy Web Foundation in Switzerland which is working to accelerate a low-carbon electricity system through open-source technologies that connect customers with energy markets.

Among the selected organizations is Open Climate Fix in the UK which seeks to use machine learning and satellite data to improve the forecasting of solar electricity — supporting the greening of electricity supplies.

Google also selected the German organization Climate Farmers to get support. The German organization is developing soil carbon monitoring systems. This can help Europe’s farmers transition to regenerative agriculture.

Materiom, based in the UK, will also get financial support as it is helping share the building blocks of high-performing, low-carb compostables with an open-source library of bioplastic recipes.

Google will also back Sweden-based Normative which works in collaboration with the United Nations-backed SME Climate Hub to help the world’s companies automatically compile a carbon report by analyzing bank transactions, making climate mitigation easy and actionable.

Google will also buttress Open Food Facts in France which 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.

Saildrone, which works in collaboration with the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), will also get support from Google. Saildrone is using drones that will quantify Gulf Stream data in real-time to improve weather and global carbon predictions.

The Finland-based Snowchange Cooperative will also be backed by Google. Snowchange Cooperative is using technology and knowledge of indigenous communities to rewild this habitat.