Guillaume Charny-Brunet
SPACE 10 Co-founder & Director of Strategy
Guillaume Charny-Brunet is a French national who has spent the past 15 years helping large organizations to anticipate change and develop new solutions. From Paris, NYC, and now Copenhagen where he co-founded SPACE10 in 2015. SPACE10 is a research and design lab on a mission to create a better everyday life for people and planet. As Director of Strategy & Development Guillaume operates at the crossroad of design, business & sustainability, working close to IKEA, and with a broad network for talents around the world. He also serves as an Advisory Board member for the Distributed Design Platform.
Judge’s selections
Big Blue Loop Prize
Sea vegetable Circulation
SEA VEGETABLE COMPANY
The holistic approach of the Sea Vegetable Company commands both admiration and praises. By developing unique technology and know-how for land-based cultivation of seaweed, the company is able to ensure a steady production, and foster a natural repopulation, of delicious species that are otherwise threatened by rising sea temperatures and changes in their natural habitat. By bringing together a great variety of people, from scientists, to fishermen, to local elders, and chefs, the Sea Vegetable Company is creating a productive, inspiring and restorative ecosystem that will benefit both biodiversity and local communities, but also stimulate creativity and taste buds far beyond. It is finally their great sense of aesthetics and ability to share their stories and recipes that make it contagious. Far all this, and for all that is coming next, the Sea Vegetable Company deserves a Big Blue Loop Prize.
Preferred Material Prize
Anam PALF® by Ananas Anam
Ananas Anam
"As the Textile and Footwear industry is directly responsible for nearly 10% of global GHG emissions (more than all international flights and maritime shipping combined), innovations and solutions like Anam PALF® are not only inspiring - they are necessary.
I remember being very impressed when touching and feeling Piñatex® - their pioneering low-impact alternative to leather - back in 2016. Since then the project has evolved to become a model B-Corp, whose impact can be felt across continents and industries. Their holistic approach and relentless efforst to innovate and create virtous production systems can be transformative for the textile industry and thousands of farmers on the ground. Maybe one day, this can be coupled with agroforestry and polycropping so that leather can be “cultivated” even more regeneratively."
Circular by Design Prize
MATR
A circular economy mattress solution for hotels
MATR
Unlike many “as-a-service” companies out there, MATR is tackling the issue of mattress life cycles from the onset - with design. By using only two materials (steel and polyester) and developing its click-on click-off glue, the company is manufacturing products designed for easy refurbishment and recycling. Hence, reducing their carbon footprint by 50% compared to conventional mattresses (which are notoriously hard to resell or recycle) and creating exponential value per mattresses over time within their subscription model. This is good for both the planet and their business. Down the line, looking into other materials (i.e. post-consumer recycled polyester, or natural kapok filling) could help MATR bring their emissions down even more. In the meantime their service model and flexible financing seems to bring a real value proposition for their clients - the hotels. Having found their circular-product-market-fit, it seems MATR is on track for scaling their model and their impact.
Genie in a Bottle Prize
DiFOLD Origami Bottle
DiFOLD
The Origami Bottle is one of my Coup de Coeur this year. Not only because it is the first foldable bottle made of 100% plants, but because it might be the “bottle that hides the forest”. Sure, the Origami Bottle is a smart, clean and innovative product, with great design and the potential to change our single use culture. I love that it only takes a fraction of the space when empty and folded - very practical on the move. Hopefully higher volumes and future partnerships with brands, suppliers and retailers will help bring its price point down. But beyond the bottle, it is the proprietary foldable geometrical patterns that holds a transformational potential. It could be used to create a new generation of reusable packaging and containers, leading to space and energy saving in transports, and even facilitate reverse logistics which are so important in circular economies.
Scale Tipping Scale-up Prize
Co-producing value-added, biodegradable plastics and additives from agricultural byproducts
Ourobio
Powered by microorganisms, armed with scientific breakthroughs, capital and MOUs, Ourobio is on a mission to foster a circular economy with synthetic biology. Their ability to turn various low value industrial byproducts into actual high value low-footprint biomaterials is impressive. I find their proof-of-concept on dairy processing byproducts particularly compelling on its own. Dairy industry wastes including lactose, protein and fat contents are important environmental pollutants. So far techno-economic analyses have mostly been for biogas production. Here, Ouriobio is able to co-produce bio-based plastic resins and colourants - lowering the cost, footprint, and difficulty for brands and retailers to adopt 100% bio-based and biodegradable products and packaging. With 133 million dairy farms globally (over 600 million people living on them) and rising demand, the potential of such technology is enormous.