First entries for the Climate Action Challenge published

In South Africa the start-up Khepri Biosciences is closing the loop in meat production. The company processes abattoir and food waste using flies that subsequently are converted into low cost feed proteins for cattle, substituting fishmeal and soya meal. Khepri’s nutrient bioconversion project is one of the early entries for the WDCD Climate Action Challenge.

The first entries for the WDCD Climate Action Challenge are now visible on the challenge platform for registered users. We are happy to see that submissions are coming in from all parts of the world, from Kenya, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and South Africa, from Nepal, Indonesia and Malaysia, from Trinidad and Tobago and the USA. Projects are entered in all three tracks: start-ups, professionals, and students.

Blue sky

The proposals range from very practical ones to blue sky ideas. Among the latter is a laser tree that uses laser technology to turn CO2 from the air into oxygen. A more tangible project is the plan to distribute mobile backpack radio stations throughout Indonesia’s 17,000 islands that are not connected to the internet. The radios can help to warn people of upcoming floods and natural disasters, that are likely to occur more often due to climate change.

Another project proposes to establish a ‘vertical university’ along the slopes of Eastern Nepal’s mountains. Instead of centralised education, Nepal ‘needs low-cost, low-tech, and field-based educational opportunities embedded in local communities,’ the submitters write. ‘By creating “Learning Grounds” of their own, this shared intellectual space can lead to local entrepreneurship and collaboration.’

Banana paper

Other proposals include paper from banana leave fibres, briquettes from biomass as an alternative for wood fuel, energy-efficient and resource saving buildings, and alternatives for traditional farming.

These first projects are just the beginning; together with our partners IKEA Foundation and Autodesk Foundation we are expecting much more to come. But these first few projects are showing a lot of diversity in every sense. A promising sign.

Join the Climate Action Challenge

Any innovative ideas yourself that can help us adapt to climate change? Then submit your proposal to the WDCD Climate Action Challenge. If you want to learn more about the key issues we’re tackling with this challenge, visit our platform and check out the in-depth resource kits compiled by our research partners STBY.

Top image: The Vertical University project by Priyanka Bista