Advisory Services for Nature-based Solutions and Nature Tech
- About
Nature-based solutions involve working with and enhancing nature, as part of nature, to address societal goals, providing local benefits for people and biodiversity. The concept is grounded in the knowledge that healthy biodiverse ecosystems support humans in multiple ways (and vice versa). Nature Tech, on the other hand, is any technology that can be applied to enable, accelerate, and scale-up nature-based solutions.
Nature-based solutions constitute a recent sector, hence there are a lot of challenges in their implementation and scaling, as they require new ways of working across value chains, current technologies are not fit for the purpose, and the investment ecosystem is not yet well structured for investing.
The Community of Practice supports nature-based enterprises, which use nature as a core element of their product or service offering, to generate profitable business models, to excel in innovation management, to leverage additional public funding, and manage policy and societal implications, through effective stakeholder engagement.
Testimonials
- B&G Family Innovation
- Rongo Design
- The mentoring programme fits very well with our ambition, and the mentors supported us to customise our strategy, so that we could position our innovative product on the market of our choice.
- The ”Breakthrough to Scale” mentoring was extremely helpful for each step I needed to take to scale and internationalise the in-house innovation, and for improving my own business knowledge, as company founder.
- Terzi Balloons
- The mentoring programme empowered us to plan the transition of our breakthrough innovation from TRL 3 to TRL 4, as well as to prepare its readiness not only for public funding, but also in relation with private investors and commercialization partners.
- Through the programme, we benefitted from mentoring sessions with clear steps, KPIs, and goals for each step. The objective was to help us identify the major needs that we have in terms of innovation lifecycle processes, and to sustain us in bringing innovations through the whole journey, starting with an idea and arriving to a product or service ready for the market.
- The true value of innovation enabler programmes such as “Breakthrough to Scale” is that entrepreneurs are willing and open to make the most out of the mentoring, to build a sound strategy to develop a bright technical idea, and turn it into a market success.
- Podcasts
- Generating Impact for Radically Innovative Companies
- Innovation alone does not make a product, and it being totally new for the world does not guarantee market success.
- From lab to exit strategy there is a crescendo of business support services that need to be set in place in order to increase the odds of success on the market.
- "Venture babies" may have a larger number of contributors who bring complementarity for a company during its development.
- It is essential to avoid pushing promises to investors that cannot be fulfilled and focus on strategic aspects that a business ardently needs.
- Sustainability - The Yet Unexplored Window of Opportunity
- ESG - environmental, social, governance is not anymore, a cultural and ethical value umbrella for the future economy, but a mature operational concept and soon a standard for the present economy
- Sustainability is an actual innovation opportunity and allows discovering new clients when innovation is put at the core of the entrepreneurial discovery process
- Applying sustainable business principles to environmental challenges like reforestation, may enable social innovation and act as an accelerator towards solving the problem.
- Learning Networks for First Movers
- In a rapidly changing environment, developing a strategy may sems obsolete but as Charles de Monchy said “In any time slot there is something you can do”
- As “first movers” towards a better strategic positioning, entrepreneurs and strategists cannot act randomly
- Learning Networks are the place for engaging professionals and peers, within a facilitated process
- Collaboration is one of the key strategic assets that any organisation or company should master.
- Tools
Breakthrough to scale advanced process mentoring for climate innovation
- BREAKTHROUGH TO SCALE
- Advanced Process Mentoring for Climate Innovation
- Focused and systematic mentoring approach dedicated to climate innovation either within companies, start-ups and spin-offs or in standalone innovation projects.
- 5 drivers and 3 enablers, plus a cross-cutting “climate” component are made available for 15 hours mentoring covering the following topics: Technology readiness level (TRL) advancement, Innovation strategy, Innovation lifecycle, Go-to-market, Scaleup, Funding strategy, Internationalisation, and Digitalisation
- The mentoring process in conducive to various types of impact:
- Decrease time-to-market, time-to-profit, or time to advance TRL
- Increase income from sales from innovative products / processes, as well as sustainability at company level and / or at end user level
- LEARNING NETWORKS FOR FIRST MOVERS
- Facilitated Process for Strategy Design and Execution
- At the service of First Movers – professionals who are the first to see the need to improve and get moving.
- Partnership process based on a learning cycle of collaboration towards change for the better
- During 6-8 months within a group of 8 participants:
- Diagnose each other’s cases, and assist with interventions
- Transfer of tools is demand-driven, following live challenges of the work of participants
- Skills and tools are applied immediately.
- Showcase of the Mentoring Cases within the Pilot Phase of the Breakthrough to Scale Programme Delivery
E-Book
We empower innovators with internationally relevant tools and ways to operate. These tools take the beneficiary enterprises from their current situation to the envisioned future, while measuring and improving their impact in real-time.
The E-Book features the pilot mentoring cases that we deployed during November 2023 – March 2024 to support nine Romanian companies to develop, launch or scale their innovative products or services within a wide range of sectors, i.e.: advanced materials, aerospace, digital, wellness, construction, furniture, and industrial design. Our four mentors engaged in over 80 one-to-one meetings with the mentee companies, encompassing over 120 mentoring hours, and sustained by over 70 back office preparatory work.
- Join in the community
Subscribe
The Community of Practice on advisory services for nature-based solutions and nature tech welcomes worldwide companies, researchers, policy makers, civil society, and any other types of freelancers, organisations or networks that are consistently seeking ways to drive radical innovation and sustainable transformation, to regenerate nature, protect all life, and create a better society.