The number one focus of Sustainary is the SDG 17 – Partnerships for the SDG. That is also why we were excited to team up with the UK Trade Commission on the Sustainable Fast Track UK programme.
Sustainable Fast Track UK
Europe’s biggest programme of its kind!
Fast track your sustainable business with green finance and access to growth markets.
What is the Sustainable Fast Track UK programme?
The goal of this project driven by the UK Department for International Trade was to identify the best businesses with sustainable products or services in six industrial sectors from across 25 European markets and support them with access to green finance, impact investors, office space and legal or tax advice, to help them scale and expand their solution in the UK and globally.
The categories
Infrastructure
Circular Economy
Financial Services
Agritech
Energy
Health & Life Sciences
Sustainary prepared the online campaign as well as the layout of the Sustainable Fast Track UK Awards scheduled to take place 24 March 2020 in London at Mansion House. Which at the end had to be transformed into virtual activities on the same day instead.
The search for the best European sustainability businesses took place both online and offline with events of the Sustainability Tour Europe in 14 countries from Copenhagen, ReykjavÃk, through Prague and Lisbon all the way to Tel Aviv. The online campaign kicked off in late August with content running on LinkedIn and Facebook but also with ads in the Economist and CNBC and two targeted LinkedIn InMail campaigns.
Sustainability Tour Europe
Bringing sustainable solutions and leaders together
From September to January the UK embassies across Europe hosted a range of events to identify sustainable initiatives in their markets but also to present the great opportunities in the UK for green businesses and to highlight some already successful businesses that expanded to the UK and globally.
Watch the stories from the Sustainability Tour Europe here:
The Sustainable Fast Track UK programme attracted 280 companies from 30 countries, with the top 100 green businesses shortlisted and invited to the Awards day.
The international online jury of experts evaluated the participants applications and selected first the 18 finalists and in the second round the 6 winners.
Unfortunately the pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 prevented us from gathering all the sustainability innovators in London for a packed day with keynote speakers, one-on-one meetings with impact investors, finalists delivering pitches in front of a live jury of experts and much more.
We had to improvise and instead had some of the speakers deliver their message to the participants through a video, meetings with investors took place on Skype and Zoom, winners were announced online and their awards as well as prize certificates are on the way through post. (here we could link to the article Dan put together regarding the challenges about transforming the event to virtual)
The solutions Expo planned for Mansion House was transformed into the Sustainable Fast Track UK eBook, available online for everyone. We believe that now more than ever, the world will need international cooperation, innovative solutions and game changers in all and every field that are ready to centre health and prosperity of our planet in their business model. We hope this virtual exhibition will serve as an inspiration but also as a space to create connections and spark business partnerships to help accelerate the sustainable transition in Europe and in the world.
Programme Partners
