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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.

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Specright Named to Fast Company’s List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2023

Specright a leader in Specification Management software, has been named to Fast Company’s prestigious annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2023, honored at No. 3 in the Enterprise category. Specright participated in SAP.iO Foundry New York’s Sustainability & Consumer program and SAP.iO’s Rising stars program in 2022.

This year’s list highlights the businesses at the forefront of their respective industries, paving the way for the innovations of tomorrow. These companies are setting the standard with some of the greatest accomplishments of the modern world. In addition to the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies, 540 organizations are recognized across 54 sectors and regions.

“At Specright, our vision is to live in a world without waste, and we believe the best opportunity to do so is to empower people and companies across the globe with the data needed to make products and packaging sustainably,” said Matthew Wright, Specright Founder and CEO. “It is such an honor for Specright to be named alongside so many incredible, innovative companies and this award is a testament to all of the great work our team has done in driving the Specright mission forward.”

Specright helps companies digitize product and packaging specification data and share and collaborate on that data with supply chain partners to reduce costs and errors, drive efficiency, and increase speed to market. This past year, the company surpassed two million products on its platform globally, supporting Fortune 500 and challenger brands and boasting a 99 percent customer retention rate. Specright also received a patent for its Specification Data Management™ platform, validating the uniqueness of Specright’s spec-first approach to product and packaging development, quality management, and above all – sustainability tracking and reporting. The patent also covers Specright Network, which enables brands, suppliers, retailers, and manufacturers to share live, digital specifications with one another.

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SAP.iO Launches Carbon Accounting Startup Program to Help Customers Enhance Sustainability Efforts

October 19, 2022 SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) launched a virtual startup program focused on carbon accounting at the SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv. A jury of SAP experts, partners, investment funds, and SAP customers, including ABInBev, DSV Global Transport and Logistics, and more, selected six international startups to join the program and build partnerships with SAP.

The increased awareness of sustainability has impacted consumers and investors alike. They are more and more choosing socially and environmentally responsible companies that consider their impact on people and the planet in their business activities. The finance sector continues to evolve as people and businesses transform how they spend, save, borrow, and invest.

SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv introduced the “Carbon Accounting” program to help customers enhance their sustainability efforts. The startups will work with the Foundry team as well as leading companies from various fields on integration and partnership with SAP.

Gunther Rothermel, Senior Vice President and Head of SAP Sustainability Engineering, “Data is a critical driver toward sustainability success. Enterprise data collection is a challenge where SAP helps its customers on their journey to Net Zero. It is about using the right tools and the latest innovation to achieve this goal.”

During the program, 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 worldwide. This includes creating new partnerships and value propositions.

The following startups are participating in the program:

  1. Connect Earth offers API-based data products that track the carbon footprint of financial transactions.
  2. ESGgo leverages machine learning to analyze and optimize enterprise environmental, social and governance (ESG) posture and score.
  3. ESG Enterprise provides integrated SaaS and data analytics for businesses to reduce compliance costs, automate carbon accounting, data collection, and reporting.
  4. SustainCert enables the digital verification of impact claims across carbon markets and value chains, bringing credibility to climate action.
  5. Sustain.Life enables companies to easily measure, manage and report their ESG impacts for shareholders and regulatory disclosure requirements and requests using global regulatory frameworks.
  6. Unravel Carbon helps companies track and reduce their carbon emissions, specializing in Scope 3.

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/.

SAP.iO Foundry Latin America Kicks Off Sustainability in Agriculture Program

October 6, 2022 SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today launched its very first program focused on sustainability in agriculture at SAP.iO Foundry Latin America. Seven startups have been selected by a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers, and investment funds to join the program.

The selected startups innovate on efficient and sustainable farming and optimizing agricultural logistics processes. Over the next 16 weeks, they 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.

The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry Latin America Fall 2022 program:

  1. Altum Lab (Chile) predicts the quality of raw material months in advance using AI and makes suggestions on how to use it in the production process to satisfy commercial contracts.
  2. CargoSnap (Brazil) is a mobile app that enables businesses to easily perform visual cargo inspections, resulting in less claims, less damage and happier customers.
  3. DigiFarmz (Brazil) provides smart agronomic recommendations for higher yield, profitability, and risk mitigation with less environmental impact.
  4. Drivin (Chile) optimizes deliveries and reduces transportation costs by delivering efficiency and visibility to every process, simplifying management and optimizing the transportation and distribution operations.
  5. goFlux (Brazil) digitizes the entire logistics process, including qualifying carriers, pre-approving suppliers and providing ways of negotiating freight, managing the entire process from contracting, operations to the payment process to the carrier.
  6. Solena Ag (Mexico) turns soil data into diagnostics insights through its proprietary AI engine that provides customized recommendations, helping farmers increase nutrients, productivity, and profitability, while reducing their carbon footprint.
  7. Woocar (Argentina) combines AI and behavioral sciences to improve efficiency, safety, and sustainability in transportation while reducing the carbon footprint and operational inefficiencies.

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/.

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.”

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What’s Next in High-Growth Digital Innovations

Quantum computing, the composable enterprise, and ubiquitous artificial intelligence (AI) were among the fastest-growing technology advancements that five experts saw reshaping the future of intelligent, sustainable, networked business. Here is a sampling of their insights shared during a panel discussion hosted by Kange Kaneene, vice president of SAP.iO Foundries North America, at the SAP Sapphire Orlando event.

Three Trends Drive Investments in Digital Startups

Nino Marakovic, founder and CEO of Sapphire Ventures, said that enterprise software startups have experienced record-breaking investments in the past two years, driven by the urgency of large companies adopting technology to help them transform and position themselves for the future. Originally SAP’s corporate venture capital arm, Sapphire Ventures has been an independent financial investment firm for 12 years. SAP is the largest investor in the Sapphire Ventures portfolio that totals US$10 billion.

“Last year alone, more than $60 billion was invested in startups making supply chains more sustainable, intelligent, and resilient,” said Marakovic. “Another major investment area is data and machine learning as we see more of the workflows and data move to the cloud. Companies want solutions that help customers manage, orchestrate, organize, and analyze that data. The third high-growth area is future of work. Company shifts from on-site to remote and hybrid work, [coupled with] a tight labor market and wave of employee resignations, have a created a perfect storm that’s modernizing the workplace.”

Data Saves Money and the Environment

Ivaldi Group is a great example of how startups are innovating to help supply chains hardest hit by pandemic-related disruption, in this case, in the automotive industry. Uvaldi Group participated in the SAP.iO Foundries New York City COVID-19 recovery cohort. SAP.iO Foundries is the company’s external startup accelerator. Integrating data from SAP S/4HANA customers, Ivaldi Group’s software calculates the carbon footprint of an auto supplier’s spare parts operation, analyzing potential candidates for advanced, local digital manufacturing such as 3D printing.

“Customers are interested in finding money where they didn’t know they were losing it and reducing their carbon footprint,” said Stefani Pellinen-Chavez, COO at Ivaldi Group. “We review the data, including how far a customer ships products, how long they remain in inventory, how hard it is to source these parts, and how long their factory or facility would be down if this part was not available…Suppliers might create local manufacturing centers so the community can partner with larger corporate customers.”

Holistic Planning with Connected Data Company-Wide

In an uncertain world, supply chain planning has become one of the major challenges for companies navigating disruptions. Juergen Mueller, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and chief technology officer at SAP, shared how organizations are innovating on SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) to collaborate with their ecosystem, explore what-if scenarios for planning purposes and flexibility, and gain competitive advantage. He said that advanced analytics and connected data help people immediately see and act on the impact of material shortages and potential alternatives for factory production lines, suppliers and logistics partners, finance and cash flow outlook, and workforce demands.

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SAP.iO Foundry Paris Launches Its New Program: Sustainability in the Service Industries

January 11, 2022 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today launched a startup program focused on sustainability as part of the 7th edition of SAP.iO Foundry Paris. Eight international startups have been selected by a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers and investment funds to join the program.

SAP.iO Foundry Paris, SAP’s startup acceleration unit in France, has already supported more than 50 startups. In three years, SAP has achieved the goal set at the #ChooseFrance summit with the French government in 2018 to support the startup economy.

This new program focuses on four topics related to different issues concerning sustainability in the service industries:

  • Responsible design and production
  • Responsible sourcing
  • Resource recovery and re-use
  • Responsible consumption

Sébastien Gibier, Director of SAP.iO Foundry Paris, said: “SAP.iO has always been a great incubator for startups. This year, the focus on sustainability will allow scale-ups to amplify their impact. SAP France is delighted to continue this program focused on innovation. We are particularly pleased to have met our objectives set with the government.”

Over the next 12 weeks, startups will have access to one-on-one mentoring from SAP executives, exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers around the world.

The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry Paris program:

  • ACTRADIS assists companies in the compilation, verification and digitization of documents on a sharing platform.
  • bloXmove is a decentralized mobility blockchain platform that provides easy-to-integrate interfaces for verifying identities and credentials, smart contracts and revenue distribution.
  • Cozero offers a digital carbon action platform covering the end-to-end carbon management process of companies to optimize their environmental and economic footprint throughout the supply chain.
  • HESUS provides solutions for the transport and treatment of soil and construction waste, while reducing their environmental impact.
  • Leanpath provides a comprehensive food waste prevention platform – including measurement, discovery and automation tools – enabling partner customers to reduce food waste by 50% or more in more than 40 countries.
  • Liftango guides international organizations and cities in planning, launching and implementing shared mobility projects. It solves parking, congestion and zoning problems by improving the efficiency of transportation services through on-demand transportation technology.
  • Madaster offers a cloud platform that provides a single point of access to leverage real estate data to meet environmental, regulatory, health and financial ambitions throughout the lifecycle of the object.
  • TotalCtrl creates digital products in collaboration with restaurants, hotels, municipalities and individuals to eliminate manual processes, streamline food inventory management, easily generate monthly cost of goods sold and accounting reports.

About SAP.iO
SAP.iO delivers new partnerships and products for SAP by accelerating and scaling startup innovation as well as incubating employee businesses. SAP.iO brings together innovators from all regions, industries and sectors to transform the way businesses work. Since 2017, SAP.iO has helped 380+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access to innovation. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.

SAP.iO Foundry Singapore Launches Sustainability Startup Program in Asia-Pacific and Japan

November 25, 2021 SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today launched a sustainability-focused virtual startup program at SAP.iO Foundry Singapore. Six international startups have been selected by a jury of SAP experts and partners to join the program.

New ideas and innovative solutions are essential to uncover the impact of emissions and waste across every facet of a business. The selected startups use next generation technologies to drive sustainability outcomes for companies across Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ), in areas such as climate action, circular economy, and socially responsible supply chains.

Over the next 13 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.

“Achieving our sustainability goals will require all of us to work together at pace, as our planet’s time is running out,” says Paul Marriott, President SAP Asia Pacific and Japan. “Initiatives such as this SAP.iO Foundry program are critical in identifying, enabling, and promoting innovative solutions that can change how our customers’ business is run, and ultimately the impact we have on the world. This program not only helps start-ups accelerate their growth, but it’s also one of the quickest ways to bring the latest innovation to thousands of our customers globally.”

The following startups are participating in the sustainability in APJ program:

  • Ambee helps people to breathe clean air using artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to analyze air quality, soil, micro weather, pollen, and more.
  • CarbonClick is a carbon credits marketplace that allows customers to purchase audited carbon offsets, as well as measure and reduce their carbon footprint.
  • givvable helps businesses to discover and track sustainability credentials, attributes and initiatives of suppliers.
  • Resync is a cloud energy management company which manages renewable assets, building energy and industrial energy.
  • Unabiz drives data-driven business efficiency through sensors, manufacturing and cloud platform services for smart metering, smart facilities management, smart logistics and supply chain.
  • WePower connects corporate energy buyers and retailers with green energy generators so all businesses, regardless of size, can purchase locally produced green energy at competitive rates with full transparency.

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 330+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit https://sap.io/.

The fashion takeaways from COP26

Just before the official launch of the climate conference, members of Prince Charles’ Sustainable Markets Initiative Fashion Taskforce — which includes the chief executives of Chloé, Mulberry, Vestiaire Collective, Selfridges and others — committed at the G20 meeting in Rome to begin using a technology they say will revolutionise transparency in the industry. The digital ID technology was enabled in part by startup Eon, and is anticipated to both inform customers of the sustainability credentials of their products and accelerate progress towards circularity.

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SAP.iO Foundry San Francisco Kicks off Sustainability in Utilities, Energy and Natural Resources Program

October 21, 2021 SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) launched a sustainability in utilities, energy and natural resources industries focused startup program at SAP.iO Foundry San Francisco. Six startups have been selected by a jury of SAP experts, partners, customers, and investment funds to join the program.

The startups in the program are using next generation technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and internet of things to help businesses become more sustainable by providing deeper insights into processes, greater transparency and reducing waste in the supply chain. Over the next 16 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.

The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry San Francisco Fall 2021 program:

  • Bidgely accelerates a clean energy future by enabling utilities and consumers to make data-driven energy decisions.
  • Camus Energy empowers utilities and energy providers with system-wide visibility, forecasting, and advanced controls to balance local renewable supply with flexible demand for a distributed, zero-carbon future.
  • Empower incentivizes transparent and traceable collection, sourcing and recycling of plastic waste globally.
  • OilX is the world’s first digital oil analyst. It leverages satellite technology and AI to create a digital twin of the oil supply chain, from well-to-wheel.
  • Singularity Energy is a data and analytics company that helps customers reduce their carbon emissions.
  • SupplHi covers the vendor management activities from vendor scouting to vendor qualification, vendor performance evaluation and assessment of vendor financials, compliance and sustainability.

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 330+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit https://sap.io/.

SAP.iO Foundry New York Launches Sustainability in Retail and Consumer Industries Program

October 19, 2021 SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) welcomes a new cohort for its startup program focused on sustainability in retail and consumer industries at SAP.iO Foundry New York. Seven startups were selected to join the program by a jury of SAP experts, partners and customers among hundreds of startups.

The startups are using next generation technologies to drive sustainability across the value chain in areas such as reusable packaging, responsible and ethical supply chain as well as circular economy. Over the next 16 weeks, the startups will have access to curated mentors, exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers around the world.

The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry New York sustainability in retail and consumer industries program:

  • Algramo offers a circular platform that encourages consumers to buy in a more convenient, affordable way with zero waste and connects people, brands and retailers to change consumption habits.
  • Ecocart calculates the carbon emissions of business activities, then programmatically offsets those emissions by funding impactful certified carbon offset projects like planting trees or building windfarms.
  • Everledger leverages blockchain and internet of things technology to offer transparency into supply chains for clarity on quality, origin, sustainability footprint and compliance standards.
  • EVRYTHNG helps customers run their business differently with real time data intelligence from each of their products, end-to-end from factory to consumer and beyond.
  • Inspectorio provides a dynamic and risk-assessment based quality compliance program for digitization, automation, transparency and traceability.
  • LimeLoop is a platform for sustainable shipping including reusable packaging, real time tracking, and predictive analytics.
  • Specright delivers a purpose-built platform for specification management that changes how brands, suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers manage data and collaborate to bring products to market.

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 330+ external startups and internal ventures accelerate their growth while enabling thousands of SAP customers to access innovation. For more information, visit https://sap.io/.

SAP Startup Spotlight: Streamwise D.I.

SAP invests in a lot of promising startups, and it’s sometimes hard to keep track of all of them. 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 Streamwise D.I.

Paul Hatten, CEO of Streamwise D.I., has over 25 years of experience driving corporate strategic international business management roles within the global water and wastewater sectors in high value Australian and U.S. companies. The companies he has managed include BioGill Group and Anue Water Technologies. He holds an Associate of Engineering Applied Science Construction Hydraulics from Technical and Further Education Queensland and is currently completing his Master of Business Administration from La Trobe University Melbourne. In this interview, Paul Hatten will talk about what Streamwise D.I. has to offer, how it is connected to SAP, and what’s next for the startup.

E-3 Magazine: What does Streamwise D.I. offer?

Paul Hatten: Streamwise D.I. is an enterprise-grade artificial intelligence (AI) software solution to drive digital transformation in industrial applications through data automation and decision intelligence. Our target market is the wastewater management of industrial operators across multiple verticals including food and beverage (F&B), mining, chemical distributors, and water authorities. Streamwise D.I. delivers value to enterprise customers by lowering operational costs, improving compliance, reducing operational risk, and increasing data transparency. On average, our solution reduces the operating expenses of wastewater operations by 60 percent through significant savings on chemical, asset management, compliance and energy costs.

How does your solution work?

Hatten: An industrial operator, such as a food and beverage manufacturer, with complex wastewater operations may have high operating costs, overuse of chemicals, and be out of compliance. They engage Streamwise D.I. to improve their operational efficiency and lower costs. The first step is to install sensors and probes on site at the wastewater treatment facility and install the ‘Monitor & Learn’ capability at the client site. The second step is an online analysis and deep dive into the operations data in order to identify inefficiencies and calculate the expected savings across asset management, energy, chemical use, and compliance. The third step is to fully utilize the power of Streamwise D.I.’s artificial intelligence capability to unlock decision intelligence and set optimization targets. The fourth step is reducing operating costs, often by around 60 percent, and to calculate the value-share pricing.

Why was Streamwise D.I. founded?

Hatten: Our founder and Chief Technology Officer, Alastair Lockey, has over 30 years of experience in technology innovation in wastewater management globally, with previous roles at global water giant Ecolab. Alastair saw opportunities to significantly improve data transparency and data analytics in wastewater operations through new software solutions with artificial intelligence capabilities to automate decision-making and reduce operating costs.

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This Is A Eureka Moment For Sustainability: Affordable Products

Once upon a time, we easily traded-off product sustainability for reasonable prices, quality, and safety. Now we expect companies to bake sustainability into business as usual, and startups like Simreka have the technology to make it happen. Its cloud-based simulation software helps manufacturers experiment faster to create more sustainable products.

“We are accelerating the design and manufacture of products that are both cost-effective and sustainable,” said Dr. Akshay Patel, co-founder and CEO at Simreka. “Companies can quickly collect and analyze data including materials, manufacturing processes, quality and performance standards, pricing, safety and compliance, and carbon emissions to simulate design options. With these insights, leaders can make product design decisions that will best meet business targets.”

Simreka’s customers are primarily consumer packaged goods (CPGs) and chemical materials manufacturers in the United States, Europe, Middle East, and Mexico. Professionals in product research and development (R&D), supply chain, materials, quality assurance, sustainability, and manufacturing operations are relying on the software’s AI-based algorithms to answer critical questions like should we develop this new product, redesign an existing one, select this particular material, or take another manufacturing approach? The company also provides data from public sources to support customer decisions.

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Cutting carbon with AI: Emitwise CEO on making sustainability profitable

On January 20, on his first day in office, US President Joe Biden signed the country back into the Paris Agreement.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that action on climate is “vital in our discussions of national security, migration, international health efforts, and in our economic diplomacy and trade talks.”

But while the anti-climate rhetoric of the last four years has been consigned to history, the effects of pumping out more carbon will last for decades to come.

The US is responsible for 13 percent of global emissions, and China recently signaled in a virtual climate summit that it is willing to cooperate with the rival superpower on the climate crisis.

China’s own five-year plan for 2021-25 aims to increase its share of renewable energy, and for the country dubbed ‘the world’s factory’ to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.

President Biden said in April that the US is aiming to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. A more aggressive target than China’s, but one that doesn’t go far enough for some.

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