Green Gown Awards 2019 - City, University of London - Winner

The GreenSpark Award encourages and supports students and recent graduates (up to two years after graduation) to develop sustainable business ideas and apply innovation to real world problems. It is run as a two-phase competition that challenges budding entrepreneurs to develop businesses that deliver positive social impact and/or tackle key environmental issues we are currently facing.  

GreenSpark is a collaboration between the Enterprise Education team and the Sustainability team and has successfully been running for 3 years. In this period, the number of sustainable business ideas across all of City’s entrepreneurial competitions has increased from 21 in the 2016-17 academic year to 73 in 2018-19. 

The increase in numbers also translates into successfully launched ventures;  EatChay, 2017 winners, are now one of London’s most popular vegan food outlets, Wearth, winners in 2018, is creating a digital marketplace to help consumers buy sustainable goods and Shellpod Shampoo, 2019 winners, are preparing to eliminate plastic from the toiletries industry. 

Top 3 learnings:

• We changed how sustainability in business is thought of by students.  
• We realised students are more receptive to learn from hands on experience. 
• Our message changed to make sustainability an integral value in start-ups. 

Videos

• The GreenSpark Award (click to hide)