Your Challenge:
Carbon-to-Value

Since the Industrial revolution, humanity has extracted and burned enormous amounts of carbon in the form of oil, coal or natural gas. The greenhouse gases released in the process are dramatically changing the lives of people around the world. Weather extremes and their effects, such as droughts, floods or wildfires, are on the rise. They destroy livelihoods and threaten people's health, lives and well-being. The global community agrees: global warming must be limited to less than two degrees Celsius compared to the level before the beginning of industrial era. That is why countries like Germany have formulated goals and steps on how they want to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the coming years and decades. And indeed, there is progress. Emissions are falling - but so far far too slowly.

Climate experts agree: reducing CO₂ emissions in itself will not be enough. We must also remove enormous amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and thus reverse past emissions. Innovators from all over the world have already shown that this is technically possible. However, these methods are immensely expensive, often energy-intensive and frequently fail to scale.

That's why we invited innovators to join this future-relevant challenge at the beginning of 2022 - to develop a solution in the fight against climate change that removes CO₂ from the atmosphere in the long term, is scalable and can be implemented in an economic business model.

Participating in the Challenge will push the teams to comprehensively stress-test their idea. We therefore provide intensive and individual support. This includes funding the teams as well as individual support from a Challenge coach, who has significant experience in the Challenge area and has already implemented high-impact innovations.

In the first year of the Challenge, SPRIND will fund the teams’ work with up to 600,000 euros. In the further course of the Challenge, this funding may be higher. We provide funding quickly and unbureaucratically, so that the teams can concentrate fully on their innovations. At the end of the first stage of the Challenge, the jury decides which teams will continue to participate in the Challenge based on interim evaluations. As finalists, these teams will have the opportunity to comprehensively demonstrate their breakthrough.

Thinking one step further: Ideas with the potential for a breakthrough must be brought to market for the benefit of people and planet. That is why SPRIND continues to support projects with breakthrough potential even after the Challenge has formally finished.

After months of intense work, experimentation, and collaboration, the three teams were declared joint winners of the Carbon-to-Value Challenge by the expert jury in September 2024. Each team successfully demonstrated significant advancements in their unique carbon sequestration technology. While the approaches varied—from creating carbon-negative building materials and seaweed farms to transforming CO₂ into hydrocarbons—all three teams have shown pathways towards making climate solutions both technologically and financially viable.