Wellington team wins Climathon

A start-up company, PoOol, supported by Victoria University of Wellington, has beaten teams from all over the world to win the international Climathon competition.

Organised by Climate-KIC, Climathon involved teams from 20 cities around the world and included a 24-hour hackathon-style event aimed at finding practical solutions to climate change. PoOol’s solution was an e-commerce business model that aims to help SMEs make sustainable procurement choices while reducing transport demands through collaborative purchasing.

“SMEs easily make up the majority of businesses in New Zealand and collectively have a big impact on the environment,” said team member Kim van Sparrentak, from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “By bringing them together using e-commerce, we hope to reduce this impact by helping them make more sustainable business choices.”

According to team member Isa Miralles, also from Wageningen University, the initial idea came from an awareness of the need for a strong channel to develop the market for environmentally sustainable goods and services, and to connect and facilitate the transactions of local businesses.

“PoOol provides an e-commerce platform for businesses that sell an environmentally friendly product, service or technology,” Miralles said. “As well as promoting the market itself, the platform will benefit urban transport logistics by aggregating the deliveries of multiple companies, thereby reducing CO₂ emissions.

“It’s estimated that a reduction of 8.1 tonnes per year in Wellington by just the second year of operation is possible.”

In the final weeks of the project, the team received mentoring from Viclink, Victoria University’s commercialisation office. The team members will now head to Paris in December to present their business plan and participate in a three-day workshop as part of the UN climate action conference.

Image caption: PoOol team members Isa Miralles, Kang Lin and Kim van Sparrentak.