Munich Archives • SAP.iO

Kelli Kohout In Munich, CRM & Customer Experience, Berlin

SAP Startup Spotlight: Footprint Technologies

SAP invests in a lot of promising startups, and it’s sometimes hard to keep track of them all. E-3 Magazine has selected the most interesting companies to showcase in our SAP Startup Spotlight Series. In this article, we will take a look at Footprint Technologies, which has an app listed in the SAP store.

Matthias Brendel’s is the CEO and co-founder of Footprint Technologies. He founded his first company at the age of 17 and has been working as a “sidepreneur” ever since. After finishing his degree in environmental engineering, Brendel became interested in reducing carbon emissions in combustion engines and joined Audi in 2007. He later had the opportunity to create and lead an innovation unit for new business development in Berlin’s startup ecosystem from scratch: Audi Denkwerkstatt. In November 2020, he joined his early-stage start-up, Footprint Technologies. Since then, he has contributed to the transformation of online shoe shopping into a more individual and sustainable experience. In this interview, he mentions what Footprint Technologies has to offer, how his solution works, and what’s next for the startup.

What is Footprint Technologies and what do you offer?

Footprint Technologies transforms online shoe shopping into a sustainable and individual experience: our software enables online shoppers to precisely measure their feet via smartphone and receive our perfect size and fit recommendation for the selected shoe model. The whole process is seamlessly integrated into their shopping experience: it starts directly in their favorite shop and ends up with the perfectly fitting shoe in the shopping cart. Thus we are avoiding shoe returns for a more profitable and sustainable e-commerce. Our team is based in Berlin, Germany but serves clients from all over Europe, Japan, and the USA.

How does your solution work?

Our software enables people to measure their feet easily with their smartphone and a standard sheet of paper (DIN A4 or US Letter). Using the latest cloud-based computer vision technology, we can determine the length and width of the foot to the millimeter. But measuring the exact foot size is only half the solution. In order to give the best possible size recommendation for the chosen model, we use our unique shoe database. In cooperation with the shoe manufacturers, we have identified and stored the relevant size and fit information for each shoe model here. Knowing feet and shoe dimensions and integrating the latest scientific research from University of Gothenburg Sweden, we recommend a comfortable fit that makes the user happy and prevents returns.

With AI, accurate demand forecasting is possible

Many businesses struggle with demand forecasting. Whether you run a small business or a large enterprise, the challenge of predicting customer behavior and stock levels never gets easier. Even major organizations like Target and Walmart that are able to afford teams of data scientists have recently reported struggles with excess inventory due to poor demand forecasting.

During this time of global uncertainty, many businesses have adopted a just-in-case mindset. They’ve relied on archaic methods of forecasting, scouring old data and drawing poor conclusions based on past problems.

But understanding demand accurately shouldn’t be so much of a struggle in 2023. Even as we battle post-pandemic turmoil, we now have clear alternatives to legacy forecasting tools — thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). And we don’t need endless reams of historical data to access the real-time patterns necessary to accurately forecast demand. In fact, AI-driven demand sensing has been shown to reduce inventory errors in supply chain management by up to 50%, according to McKinsey & Co.

Every company produces data, of course, but it’s almost all trapped in siloes and walled-point solutions that have evolved for specific tasks over many decades. Siloes emerge for noble reasons — they represent a business’s attempts to organize and become structured.

Truthfully, siloes are useful in many scenarios, but if the boundaries between them are too sturdy and there’s a lack of effective communication, siloes will negatively impact business, putting more pressure on processes. Inaccuracies are most common in silo-heavy organizations because teams and departments just don’t have enough of a shared language. Rigid siloes also make data, even good data, less credible.

When working with ThroughPut’s clients, I’ve seen AI make all the difference in demand forecasting. That’s because it can pull from disparate datasets, using real-time patterns to sense the demand around the corner rather than just assuming future demand from past events.

Using an AI-driven system will pick out time-stamped data — regardless of barriers — and rapidly stitch together a global vision of your virtual supply chain network. Supply chain AI processes the best signals from the noise that is constantly being generated by your disparate data systems and turns the din into a song you can understand.

Furthermore, AI is superior at analyzing and making sense of data in vast quantities; yet it also doesn’t need much information to learn. AI trained for real-world applications already intuits which data signals to extract from an ocean of noise, so it can solve needs before they cause problems.

The quality of data is most important, not the quantity, and delaying the use of AI to sense demand is only going to cause current supply challenges to stagnate and potentially get worse. From there, share prices and shareholders suffer. We are seeing this today across industries: innovation laggards and slow adopters paying the price for relying on old forecasting methods.

Zippin Walk-Up offers accessible way to deploy checkout-free locations with no CapEx

Zippin has launched Zippin Walk-Up which allows food and beverage counters to turn into checkout-free locations without changing the equipment already in place.

The company says that minimal construction is required, and existing stands can be converted in just days. An all inclusive monthly subscription starts at under $4,000 with no upfront CapEx.

Zippin says: “We’ve launched 83 stores to date and our customers are experiencing the significant business benefits that come with the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of checkout-free.”

“These include revenue increases of up to 78%, per-caps increases of over 60%, and average check sizes going up by 15%. With Zippin Walk-Up, all these benefits can be achieved with a lower upfront investment, faster deployment, and no CapEx requirements.”

It continues: “Our goal is to enable forward thinking businesses to invest in the technology that’s best for their customers and begin seeing results immediately.”

“The speed that Zippin Walk-Up offers retailers opens up new verticals wanting to deploy frictionless shopping in more spaces: truck stops, food courts, campus dining, stadiums, and more, can go fully frictionless with Zippin Walk-Up.”

IoT and Industry 4.0: Zerynth raises a €5.3 million round led by United Ventures

Zerynth supports companies in digitizing production processes through Industrial IoT solutions which enable any machinery to Industry 4.0.

The investment round, one of the largest in Italy in the Industrial IoT field, is led by United Ventures with the participation of a pool of selected Italian and international investors and business angels, including Vertis SGR with Venture Factory through the VV3TT Fund, LIFTT and CDP Venture Capital with the “Comparto IndustryTech” of the Corporate Partners Fund.

The capital increase will enable Zerynth to make AI and IoT technologies increasingly accessible, confirm its leadership in Italy, and strengthen its international expansion.

SAP.iO Launches Industry 4.0 Startup Program to Drive Startup Innovation in Collaboration with Accenture

October 11, 2022 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) is collaborating with Accenture on a virtual startup program focused on Industry 4.0 and based at the SAP.iO Foundry Munich. A jury of experts from SAP and Accenture, alongside SAP partners and customers evaluated numerous applicants and selected 11 startups to join the program.

Various factors are forcing companies to relocate their production back to their core markets. The pandemic, for example, has shown how vulnerable global supply chains are to disruption. In addition, extreme weather events such as droughts, forest fires or floods are increasing and putting even more strain on production. The unreliable supply chain requires companies to open new, highly automated production facilities to meet demand in a timely manner. SAP and Accenture are committed to helping companies create and discover new innovations that drive the total reinvention of supply chain processes.

During the five-month program, SAP will work with the selected startups to integrate and jointly offer solutions for this new manufacturing and production reality. The startups will receive curated mentorship, access to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and exposure to SAP and Accenture customers such as Siemens and BMW with the opportunity to develop high-impact proofs of concept.

“At SAP, we are always on the lookout for transformative solutions that address key customer pain points”, said Shwetha Shetty, Product Owner, Digital Supply Chain Solutions at SAP. “We are excited to team up with Accenture and build this new cohort to help customers realize the promise of Industry 4.0 technologies at scale.”

The following startups are participating in the Industry 4.0 program:

36Zero is a vision solution that revolutionizes visual inspection by replacing hardware with software, improving inspection results by 1800% and empowering workers for easy and independent installation – better, quicker, more efficient.
aiomatic has developed a digital maintenance assistant to help maintenance engineers in large productions reducing unplanned downtimes using explainable AI.
Aisight develops AI-powered sensors for predictive maintenance to eliminate machine failures and avoid downtime.
Andonix optimizes factory efficiencies through Smart Work Station, a digital hotline and factory collaboration platform that connects machines with frontline workers and supervisors.
Cintoo bridges the gap between reality capture and building information modeling or digital twins. Its SaaS platform Cintoo Cloud manages 3D scanned data collected from the built environment to enable collaborative asset management workflows.
Ecoplant helps industrial organizations reduce electricity consumption and CO2 emissions as well as improves operational efficiency and profitability using IoT and AI.
Kreatize is a leading cloud manufacturing procurement platform that enables mechanical engineering companies to handle the entire process from ordering to delivery of industrial components in a digital, fully transparent and sustainable manner.
Sparetech provides transparency for industrial spare parts that enables companies to automate their spare parts management processes, thereby reducing inventories, costs, and CO2 emissions.
Surveily allows businesses to automatically monitor and understand what happens on their CCTV cameras observing people, vehicles and processes – 24/7, automatically and in real time.
ThroughPut, Inc. provides an AI-powered supply chain software that predicts demand, reorients production capacity, reassigns warehouse space, and reorders materials optimally for better business, operational, financial and sustainability outcomes.
Zerynth helps companies digitalize their production processes and develop connected industrial products through a plug-and-play IoT platform.

About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 450+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.

Kelli Kohout In Supply Chain Management, Inspiring Innovators, Berlin, Munich, Interview

Inspiring Innovators: Chicko Sousa Founder of GreenPlat, On No Time for Waste

At SAP.iO, we work with innovative people and new technologies that positively impact our world every day, and we think it’s time to share their stories with you! In our series, “Inspiring Innovators,” we get to hear how leaders of cutting-edge startup technologies overcame, thrived, and pursued their goals. SAP.iO’s Alexa Gorman sat down to discuss the road to success and lessons learned with some of our most inspiring startup founders.

Meet Chicko Sousa

It has been said that Chico Sousa is a Mechanical Engineer by choice, but a specialist in the acceleration of clean production by nature aptly sums up his journey to entrepreneurship. Starting as a mechanical engineer working for Volvo, Chicko was assigned to projects that produced scrap materials needing to be recycled or reimagined. He left Volvo after successfully managing those projects to start a company that built recycling plants in Brazil, creating 13 new plants over 11 years before selling his company in 2013. He then came to Sao Paulo to help the municipality with public projects, generating environmental improvements in the fight against CO2 emissions and plastic use.

From there, Chicko created a YouTube series where he did interviews inside garbage trucks, much like Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”, to raise recycling awareness. The wild success of this web series helped increase the municipality’s recycling rates significantly but created new issues. They started to see problems with permits as they began selling the recycled materials. At this time, Chicko realized a need to control and manage information to produce the proper flow of materials for licensed recycling and founded the company GreenPlat in 2016.

Working with recycling technologies for over 20 years and with software for almost ten years, Chicko created GreenPlat, a clean production SaaS, which today has more than 690,000 companies registered on the platform. Since 2018, GreenPlat has been a part of the World Economic Forum in the Pioneering Technology category, as they were the first company to use blockchain technology for waste traceability. So far, 1 million tons of waste have been managed through their software; all disposed of correctly without polluting the environment. This means a cleaner and healthier environment for all and for businesses, increased visibility into recycling, compliance, and traceability.

“I think this is a worldwide situation where people are done talking and ready to act. We can see this movement, and it is encouraging. We are ready for action; there is no time for waste.”

Inspiring Innovators: Christine Moon President & Co-Founder of BlueSpace on Staying Curious

At SAP.iO, we work with innovative people and new technologies that positively impact our world every day, and we think it’s time to share their stories with you! In our series, “Inspiring Innovators,” we get to hear how founders, CEOs, presidents of cutting-edge startup technologies overcame, thrived, and pursued their goals. SAP.iO’s very own Alexa Gorman sat down to discuss the road to success and lessons learned with some of our most inspiring startup founders. Today we spent time with Christine Moon of BlueSpace to discuss how she used curiosity as a guide throughout her entrepreneurial journey.

Meet Christine Moon

Christine Moon is a perfect example of when life takes you to a fork in the road to look at it as an opportunity. Born in South Korea, she moved to the US as a child for her dad’s work. Not able to speak English and a new culture shook up her world, and she started to look at life differently as she learned new customs. A short time later, her family moved back to South Korea, and she faced another period of readjustment. The influence of other cultures allowed Christine to be curious and learn to enjoy the ride.

In 2019, her world changed once more. Apple purchased the company where Christine was working. As part of her curious nature, she sat back and asked herself, ‘what have we learned? What do we wish we had?’ the answer to that question was certainty. She wanted the certainty to safely deploy software that allows an autonomous system to “see” the velocity of all objects in all directions and scale it across geographies. This question led to a very different approach and inspired her to start a new company, BlueSpace.

Today, Christine Moon is president and Co-founder of BlueSpace, a company leveraging 4D sensors to provide a safety layer for self-driving vehicles. Their dynamic predictive perception software allows an autonomous system to “see” the velocity of all objects in all directions and won them the 2021 NASA iTech Cycle I award. Starting with Christine’s quest for certainty, they built a company that enables safety performance independent of any training data, a technology that allows for immediate reaction to new objects and scenarios.

“Be curious, and this is what I would share with my children or anyone who wants to think about this entrepreneurial journey and take the critical approach. Don’t be afraid to take a different approach to think outside of what you’re used to come up with a solution.”

SAP.iO Launches Resilient Supply Chain Startup Program in Collaboration with Accenture

April 06, 2022 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) has launched a virtual startup program focused on building a resilient supply chain at the SAP.iO Foundries Munich and Tel Aviv. A jury of experts from SAP and Accenture, alongside SAP partners and SAP customers including Siemens, Porsche Digital selected 12 startups from four supply chain domains to join the program.

The program builds upon SAP and Accenture’s long-standing partnership and shared commitment to using technology to help the world build a more resilient Supply Chain. The startups in this cohort will receive curated mentorship, access to SAP technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and exposure to SAP and Accenture customers to develop high-impact proofs of concept.

Supply chain operations often represent the greatest area for risk and loss in many companies. By their nature, supply chains are globally dispersed and complex in their functionality. This makes them especially vulnerable to risk. Resilient supply chain technologies reduce risk by allowing visibility into all operations across the network – and empowering businesses to optimize and adapt their processes and logistics in real-time.

To address these challenges in the world’s supply chains, SAP.iO Foundries Munich and Tel Aviv joined forces and introduced the “Resilient Supply Chain” program. The cohort is the largest to date. The startups will work with the Foundries as well as leading companies from various fields on integration and partnership with SAP.

According to Jan Gilg, President and Chief Product Officer SAP S/4HANA, “A resilient supply chain, with risk strategies in place, predicts, responds and recovers from unanticipated events by either returning to its original state or morphing into a state that is even better at profitably meeting customers’ needs. It is about using the right tools to make the right business decisions, even under pressure.”

Over the next 14 weeks, the startups will have access to curated mentorship from SAP executives, exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers around the world. Their work includes creating new partnerships and value propositions that help solve key supply chain challenges.

The following startups are participating in the program:

Business Planning & Resiliency

Bringoz – Intelligent delivery and distribution management system
Craft.co – Build a more resilient supply chain through deeper supplier intelligence
numi solutions GmbH – Enabling integrated and intelligent Supply Chain Decisions
Tacto – We build sustainable supply chains

Transportation Management

MIXMOVE AS – Pushing the boundaries of performance, efficiency and sustainability in logistics.
Portcast – Real-time predictive visibility and demand forecasting

Warehousing and fulfillment

CognitOps Inc. – Automate your warehouse management
Logidot – Optimize your industrial logistics and production with real-time tracking
Magazino GmbH – builds and develops intelligent, mobile robots that automate material supply in production logistics.
Picavi GmbH – Pick-by-Vision for cost reduction in your warehouse
Verity – Information and insights when and where you need them–powered by self-flying drones

Last-Mile Delivery

Milkman Technologies – Last-Mile is the new Retail

About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee ventures. SAP.iO brings together innovators from every region, industry, and line of business to transform how businesses run. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 300+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.

Kelli Kohout In Tel Aviv, Munich, Business Technology Platform

Marketing Data Integration Solution from Adverity, Now an SAP Endorsed App, Available on SAP® Store

Adverity, the leading data integration platform for marketing, sales, and e-commerce teams, announced today that its Marketing Data Integration solution is now an SAP-endorsed app, available for online purchase on SAP® Store. SAP Endorsed Apps are a category of solutions from SAP’s partner ecosystem that help customers become best-run, intelligent enterprises. Endorsed apps are meant to deliver value with desired outcomes.

lexander Igelsböck, CEO at Adverity, commented: “For our solution to be recognized as an SAP Endorsed App is a huge achievement that clearly demonstrates the enormous value Adverity has for SAP customers. As marketing evolves, the need for data-driven marketing decisions that drive performance is becoming ever more acute, and automated data integration is a crucial step in businesses becoming more analytically and data mature.”

SAP Endorsed Apps are premium certified by SAP with added security, in-depth testing, and measurements against benchmarks results. Adverity’s solution integrates with SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) using SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and SAP Analytics Cloud, allowing businesses to harmonize their data and then push it into the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.

Two SAP.iO Startups Named to CB Insights’ Tech Market Map for Decarbonization Tech in Industrials

Two SAP.iO startups were identified as leaders in decarbonization tech by CB Insights. This report looks at decarbonization tech companies serving companies in the industrials space. Carbonara (Singularity Energy) was identified as a leader in offset verification tools and Emitwise was identified as a leader in emission tracking & management.

100+ startups driving innovation in recommerce tech

Queen of Raw, Lizee, and EON were named leading startups in recommerce tech by CB Insights. Consumer demand for more sustainable and affordable products is driving the shift to a more circular economy and one of the main pillars of this is recommerce, or giving old items new life instead of discarding them.

From retail-as-a-service to authentication to managed marketplaces, companies in the retail industry are making the process of giving old items new life more seamless and efficient.

Three SAP.iO Startups Named to CB Insights’ Retail Tech 100

The Retail Tech 100 is CB Insights’ annual ranking of the 100 most promising B2B retail tech companies in the world. This year’s winning companies include vendors working on hyper-personalized shopping experiences, blockchain-powered commerce, autonomous delivery, virtual shopping, and more.

The following SAP.iO startups were ranked this year:

Supply Chain Visibility: Shippeo
E-Commerce Logistics & Fulfilment: parcelLab
E-Commerce Merchandising & Discovery: Constructor.io

They were chosen based on several factors, including data submitted by the companies, company business models and momentum in the market, and Mosaic scores, CB Insights’ proprietary algorithm that measures the overall health and growth potential of private companies.

Kelli Kohout In Munich, ERP & Finance

gridX signs four new partnerships in the e-mobility sector

On expansion course: gridX signs four new partnerships in the e-mobility sector

The smart grid company gridX, which was recently acquired by E.ON, continues to expand and today announces partnerships with four companies that are actively shaping the energy market in Europe.

For the time being, the focus of the collaborations is on expanding their offerings in the area of electric mobility. The power grid was not built with today’s demand for e-mobility in mind – but with gridX’s AI-based charging management, seamless charging can become a reality.

With the installation of charging infrastructure in buildings, underground garages and parking areas, the load on the grid or at house connections increases enormously. Dynamic load management enables efficient distribution and control of energy. In this way, sufficient charging infrastructure can be implemented without expensive grid expansion.

With the four new partnerships, gridX is consolidating its role as a platform solutions provider in the field of e-mobility.

Electris

With the Luxembourg-based energy supplier and grid operator, Electris, gridX gains another international customer. gridX and Electris already implemented their first joint pilot projects in the field of home energy management in 2019. The new partnership enables cost-efficient, comprehensive solutions for charging infrastructure in Luxembourg, including hardware, billing services and dynamic load management (DLM). Electris customers receive a full service package that encompasses planning, installation and operation. In addition, the gridX platform will enable comprehensive management for non-public and semi-public charging infrastructure (CPO).

SMART/LAB Innovationsgesellschaft mbH

SMART/LAB works with more than 245 utilities and over 100 companies to realize innovative services, products and concepts in e-mobility. With “ladenetz” for municipal utilities and “ladebusiness” for corporate customers, SMART/LAB currently offers the largest municipal publicly accessible charging network. By working with gridX, SMART/LAB can continually extend their solutions to include things like DLM, standardize the user experience (front-end integration via API), put together complete packages for tenders (for billing and DLM) and implement further research projects in the field of e-mobility (electrification of transportation).

DEW21 GmbH

The Dortmund energy supplier DEW21 already has many years of experience and has realized numerous projects in the field of charging infrastructure. With DLM, DEW21 complements its product portfolio and establishes it as the only solution for e-mobility projects in the catchment area. In the first year of the cooperation, at least 17 locations are to be equipped with DLM. The focus of the partnership is on scaling concepts, such as public charging infrastructure and multi-site customers. By using the API interface to gridX, DEW21 also opens up the possibility for data-driven business development and can thus continue to offer suitable solutions tailored to charging behavior in the future.

eliso GmbH

Throughout Germany, eliso supports companies, commercial and residential properties on their journey to building their own charging infrastructure. With a fully comprehensive service, the Stuttgart-based charging infrastructure specialist plans, installs and operates holistic and suitable charging solutions. A network of regional project managers and certified installation partners across Germany allows eliso to offer holistic and suitable charging solutions for companies, from planning and subsidy consulting, to installation and operation. With a specially developed DLM solution from gridX, eliso aims to become the full-service provider for cross-industry, intelligent and, above all, future-proof charging infrastructure in Germany. In addition, the platform solution enables a simple, central overview of all sites under its own operational management for optimized (multi-) site management.

David Balensiefen, Co-Founder and CEO of gridX, says: “We are really looking forward to working with our new partners, as each of these companies is driving the energy and mobility transition. To take e-mobility to the next level, dynamic load management is essential. Equally important are manufacturer-independent end-to-end solutions, which is possible through a long-term partnership with us. Our partners are able to deliver lasting benefits to their customers, easily expand and adapt their offerings, scale projects more easily, and reduce both costs and emissions.”

Ingredients database helps companies launch better food products

AI-powered software analyses millions of ingredients to find the best fit for a particular product

According to food tech company Journey Foods, the global food industry is broken, with supply chain inefficiencies, sustainability failings, and malnutrition adding up to a broken system. In response, the US startup proposes a clear solution: data.

Journey Foods provides a suite of tools to help teams developing new food products understand everything about the lifecycle of their products, from the environmental impact of ingredients, to supply inefficiencies and opportunities for cost savings. At the heart of the offering is a vast database that contains information on millions of products and ingredients – amounting to 17 billion individual datapoints in total. AI is used to sift through all this information and provide recommendations for ingredients based on factors such as nutrition, sustainability, cost, and packaging requirements.

The Shift To A Circular Economy: How Tech Is Shaping The Future Of Sustainable Retail

Consumers are increasingly pushing for sustainable business practices in retail, driving businesses to reassess what they produce — and how. From ingredient upcycling to plastic alternatives to smart trash cans, we look at the technologies placing sustainability at the center of retail products and processes.

It’s no secret that industries in the retail sector are some of the most wasteful and polluting in the world. The fashion industry, for example, generates over 92M metric tons of waste every year. Meanwhile, global food waste totals around 1.6B metric tons.

Consumers are increasingly demanding change. Fifty-two percent of textile industry experts say consumers are driving the heightened focus on sustainability in fashion, which includes more transparent supply chains, alternative materials, and secondhand shopping. Similarly, 65% of consumers say they want food products that are sustainable, from alternative proteins to compostable packaging.

Regulatory agencies are also driving the shift to a circular economy focused on waste reduction. For example, the European Union is creating a strategy for sustainable textiles that aims to create products that are more durable, reusable, recyclable, and energy-efficient. It’s set to be adopted in early 2022. In the US, President Joe Biden signed an executive order in 2021 directing federal institutions to draft regulations that protect the consumer’s right to repair electronic devices and other tools. This could reduce electrical waste and lengthen product life cycles.

The shift to a circular economy will doubtlessly pose major challenges for retailers, but it’s also a massive opportunity — and new tech solutions are emerging all the time to make the transition easier. From resale platforms to regenerative farming to autonomous delivery vehicles, we examine how technology is shaping the future of sustainable retail.

White-label solutions in the rental space allow brands to easily set up their own renting operations. For instance, Paris-based Lizee allows brands to enter the circular economy by renting (or reselling) their inventory. The company, which has worked with the likes of Adidas and Decathlon, helps power all the logistics associated with resale or rental operations.

An innovative solution for single-use plastic packaging comes from Chile-based Algramo. Its circular platform allows users to purchase bottles for cleaning products, refill them in a store with a smart Algramo dispenser, and pay for the product using an app. In 2020, the company launched in the US by installing dispensers in vending machines around New York City.

On a global scale, manufacturers can resell deadstock fabrics on the online marketplace Queen of Raw. To date, the platform has supported 325,000 buyers and sellers around the world, boasting partnerships with brands such as H&M and LVMH.