GI GOES BUSINESS AWARD

GI GOES BUSINESS AWARD 2024

The Green Infrastructure Goes Business Award 2024 is now open for application!

Do you have an innovative product, service, business model or idea with a positive impact on Green Infrastructure (= natural spaces with high ecological quality)? Does your solution have benefits for wise water management, climate change mitigation or adaptation?

We are looking for you! Submit your proposal until 1 September 2024! Participation is easy. Enter our website and fill in the short application form.

Everyone from the alpine region can participate in the competition: start-ups, long-established companies, institutions, associations, private persons or teams.

An international jury will select 6-8 winners.This is what you can win:

  • Tailor-made coaching to bring your business or idea to the next level.
  • International networking with other companies, experts, sponsors etc.
  • Pitching to an international audience at the Awarding Ceremony in Slovenia.
  • Presence on our website.

The GI Goes Business Award is a competition to support green economy and nature-based business in the alpine macro-region, initiated within the framework of the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region (EUSALP). The 2024 edition is financed and supported by the Slovenian Ministry of Natural Resources and Spatial Planning, the Soča Valley Development Centre, the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen – South Tyrol, the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection and operated by planval.

You will find more information at www.gi-goes-business.eu.

Flyer GIGBA english version

(pdf - 2.68 MB)

 french version

(pdf - 2.68 MB)

 german version

(pdf - 2.68 MB)

 italian version

(pdf - 2.68 MB)

 slovenian version

(pdf - 2.68 MB)

 

High-level attended GI goes business awarding ceremony 2022 in Bolzano shows the great potential of combining green infrastructure with green economy the Alpine region.

Making a business out of Green Infrastructure (GI), be it innovative and sustainable products or services, is one of the best ways to preserve our landscape, to create economic prosperity all around in the Alps and to provide pioneering answers to the climate crisis. This was impressively demonstrated at the GI goes business awarding ceremony in Bolzano. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to the Italian EUSALP Presidency 2022, the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), and PLANVAL- The event turned out to be the perfect setting to celebrate the successful combination of business and GI in the Alps.

In 2021, the "GI goes business award" was initiated in the frame of the EUSALP Action Group 7 as a cross-sectoral initiative, funded by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection (StMUV). Around 40 start-ups, established enterprises and creative minds from Austria, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovenia and Switzerland submitted their approaches for products, services and ideas proving that the Green Economy is on the rise in the Alpine region. Finally, six pioneering business cases from all around the Alps which successfully link Green Infrastructure (GI) with innovative, sustainable business models and services creating a positive impact on the Alpine region, were selected as winners by the responsible jury.

After receiving an intense product and business coaching by the company PLANVAL from Switzerland as main price, the six winners had the unique opportunity to present their products, services and ideas to an international audience in the frame of an awarding ceremony on the 13th of May 2022 in Bolzano (South Tyrol). The event, which was attended by high-ranking political representatives like the South Tyrolean Governor Arno Kompatscher, proved to be the right and worthy setting for the celebration of the successful connection of Green Infrastructure and Green Economy. The exciting event took place in the frame of the current Italian EUSALP Presidency, which had made the awarding ceremony an integral part of its programme, as well as back to back with the 16th EUSALP AG7 meeting and the EUSALP Youth Council meeting. Through this special constellation, amazing opportunities for an international, cross-sectoral and also intergenerational dialogue were created. The fact that one of the winning teams also reported being contacted by an investor shows that the GI goes business award made headlines and garnered widespread attention all around the Alps.

Everyone involved was and is in agreement that the 2021/2022 edition of the GI goes business award was a complete success and that a clear and recognized contribution to the promotion of green infrastructure in the Alpine region was made. The winners did not only win a competition. They are frontrunners in our joint future development which cannot be highlighted enough.

Website of the GI goes business award: https://www.gi-goes-business.eu/