There is a growing opportunity for social enterprises to innovate to enable circular business models that prevent and reduce plastic waste. The aim of this accelerator programme is to identify such solutions and help them scale.
TRANSFORM, in collaboration with Social Alpha, aims to support sustainable technologies and solutions along the plastic packaging value chain, that drive positive environmental impact and create meaningful livelihood opportunities for the informal workforce involved.
We invite Indian social enterprises working on science and technology solutions and that can demonstrate:
- Positive social, environmental and economic impact
- Ability to scale across Indian geographies
- Business model sustainability
Material recovery and waste to value
- Bringing cost efficiencies to the collection, segregation of flexible plastics while improving the traceability across the value chain.
- Innovations in processing/recycling of flexible plastic waste.
- Resource recovery from waste streams through science and technology innovations and/or value chains.
Reuse and refill
- Business models that enable reuse of packaging material in the value chain.
- Refill-based systems that are user friendly and economically viable.
Material science innovations
- Materials or substrates to make packaging recyclable, compostable / biodegradable.
Up to 5 selected start-ups will receive:
Financial support
- A grant of up to INR 60L from TRANSFORM. Grants will be provided for operational expenses and bringing about behavioural change, etc.
- Eligibility to seed capital (equity) up to INR 1Cr per start-up from Social Alpha.
Market Access and Scale up support
- Opportunities to work with various functions across the value chain of HUL.
- Workshops with experts, specialists and sector leaders on making the product market fit and go-to-market strategy.
- Access to TRANSFORM and its partner’s wide network of public/private organisations and facilitation of introduction, where required.
Fundraising support
- Access to TRANSFORM and Social Alpha’s large and diverse investor and donor network.
Networking Opportunity
- Exposure to the wider network of stakeholders (corporates, government agencies, international development agencies etc.) as well as high visibility opportunities offered by TRANSFORM, through its partners Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and EY.
Knowledge Services
- Monitoring and evaluation technical assistance to enable evidence-led socio-economic impact assessment.
Timeline
30th August 2022: Applications open
30th September 2022: Applications deadline
3rd week of October 2022: First round of evaluations
1st week of November 2022: Grand jury round
2nd week of November 2022: Announcement of selected start-ups
