ESG analysis and monitoring
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Swedbank Latvia is the largest bank in Latvia which nearly 1 million people and over 83,000 businesses have chosen as their partner in financial matters. Swedbank Latvia ambition and goal is to be one of the most sustainable financial sector companies in the world.
​Sustainable finance is the only future for banking. Banks are expected to analyze all customers' ESG performance (sustainability analysis), yet tools for analyzing small and medium-sized companies are not efficient enough. ESG-related risks are not yet fully integrated into risk management. This area is becoming more important as we speak, and banks will be expected to improve EGS-relates risk management in the near future considerably.
​Solutions to analyze and monitor the company's ESG-performance, preferably on an automated basis for small and medium-sized companies (not excluding large companies). A tool to obtain data, monitor, and analyze company ESG performance used by Swedbank in risk analysis and SMEs for self-assessment. While the perfect solution would analyze and monitor all three ESG components, a tool for one part, such as tracking carbon footprint, is also very welcomed.
Swedbank team startups will be working with
Food waste elimination
Rimi Baltic (RIMI) is one of the leading grocery retailers operating in the Baltic States through different store concepts (277 stores in total). RIMI is a subsidiary of Swedish group ICA Gruppen and is represented by three companies in the Baltic States – Rimi Eesti Food, Rimi Latvia and Rimi Lietuva.
RIMI’s CR target is to cut food waste from warehouses and stores by 50% by 2025 compared with the 2016 base year. When tackling food waste, we focus on the prevention part. Prevention of food waste would positively impact RIMI’s revenue and help to meet the CR target. However, the greatest potential for reducing food waste lies with retailers, food services, and consumers as approximately 70% of waste comes from these sectors. Therefore, it is also important to increase customers’ awareness of the environmental impacts of food waste and their ability to change the existing situation for the better.
The team that has a food waste solution with a focus on one of the supply chain parts (e.g. RIMI’s warehouses, RIMI’s stores, households). RIMI is open to different kinds of solutions, it can be linked with stakeholder education, process efficiency, or similar. If you see that your existing solution could help RIMI to solve food waste challenges or you have a team of experts within this sector – join us at Future Hub to solve this challenge together with RIMI.
Rimi team startups will be working with
Electric vehicle
charging
Latvenergo is the leading and largest energy company in the Baltics with a sustainable and forward-looking business portfolio. By generating green energy, developing electric mobility, solar energy, and other services, Latvenergo involves its customers in the responsible use of environmental resources.
Elektrum is a trading brand of Latvenergo, represented on all energy market segments in the Baltic States. Along with a sustainable attitude towards electricity and natural gas trading, Elektrum provides its customers with energy efficiency expertise and future-friendly electricity use by offering electric mobility and solar energy services.
Mass adoption of electric vehicles in Europe will reach its tipping point soon. The building of private cars' overnight charging infrastructure in an urban environment poses a challenge due to the shared nature of dwelling space, such as apartment housing. Almost half of the European population are living in the flats. Although apartment buildings prove to be a sustainable solution to urban residence planning, they are at odds with the faster growth of electromobility through hurdles in building and maintaining personalized charging infrastructure for its residents.
We are looking for easy-to-operate and efficient solutions for car charging at multiple apartment housing neighborhoods addressing installation, safety, operation, joint usage planning, dedicated billing, etc., challenges.
Photovoltaic panel
installation
Constant reduction of the costs of photovoltaic (PV) panels and demand for green and sustainable energy have contributed to the increase of popularity of electricity micro-generation using solar sources. Although costs of PV are reducing, when calculated without support benefits, small-scale residential PV projects' payback is still almost ten years. Almost half of the setup cost is related to the labor of installation works. DIY installations of home furniture and appliances is another growing trend lately.
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Latvenergo and Elektrum are looking for solutions that would help to reduce costs of turn-key residential PV installations either through a more efficient and scalable service rollout or assisted DIY process or any combination of the above.
Latvenergo team startups will be working with
Energy efficiency for multi-apartment buildings
Rigas Namu Parvaldnieks works to ensure the management of apartment residential buildings to improve the quality of services provided in the city of Riga, capital of Latvia. It means serving 167,000 customers and managing more than 4,200 residential houses with a total managed area of over 8 million square meters.
Multi-apartment buildings comprise almost half of the European housing stock and are, for the most part, old and energy inefficient. Heating energy consumption in an inefficient building can be up to 2.5 times higher than it should. Yet, the pace of energy-saving retrofits of apartment buildings is still far from desired in many urban communities throughout Europe, mainly because of the need for tailor-made retrofitting approaches, long payback horizons of such investments, as well as complex decision-making procedures among a pool of multiple apartment owners.
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An energy efficiency roadmap tool for multiple-apartment buildings, such as tackling the status quo monitoring needs, assessing evidence-based and building-specific suggestions on prioritizing energy-saving retrofits, measuring investment payback and operating cost outlines and comparisons, as well as tools for fostering local civic participation (initiative discussion, voting, best practice sharing).
Digital tool for sustainable grocery shopping
Orkla Latvija is part of the Norwegian concern Orkla, a leading consumer brand in the Nordic and Baltic region. Orkla Latvija is the leading branded consumer goods company in the Baltic States. The company unites and develops beloved local brands such as “Laima”, “Selga”, “Staburadze”, “Ä€dažu ÄŒipsi”, “Spilva”, “Gutta”, “Everest”, “Latplanta”, “Pedro” and others. “Orkla Latvija” is an expert in the development of strong local brands, preserving the traditions and values of their products, using only the highest quality ingredients, and investing in modern production processes.
We are what we eat. Sustainable eating embraces concepts of healthy food, environmentally friendly farming, socially responsible sourcing, recyclable packaging, and food waste reduction. More and more people want to contribute towards more nutritious choices in their food consumption. Similarly, ingredient traceability's growing trend allows customers to make informed purchasing decisions based on the environmental and social footprints their favorite products have left. Yet, making the right choice within an abundance of information and options is very hard. Those who want to eat sustainably often are lost and give up on it.
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Orkla is interested in a digital, consumer-oriented solution for making informed grocery shopping decisions, enabling product healthiness and its ESG data comparison in a buyer-friendly and informative way.
