The Liveability Challenge 2020 Submissions - Deadline Extended

The Liveability Challenge 2020 Submissions - Deadline Extended

Submissions deadline: 17 April 2020, 11:59 PM (GMT+8 Singapore time)

The Liveability Challenge is a global platform that hunts for and accelerates the launch of innovative and ground breaking solutions to challenges that cities in the tropics face in the 21st Century.

Are we consuming our way into extinction by chowing down on planetary boundaries?

By 2050, 2.5 billion more people will live in cities, demanding more food, products and conveniences than ever before.

But the ongoing climate crisis will lead to food security challenges. Changing weather patterns and a decline in arable land for farming will threaten the nutritional status of millions of people, while agricultural production continues to contribute 11 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Is the answer found in non-traditional farms and labs in cities?

Meanwhile 91 per cent of all plastics ever produced—mostly used for packaging—have not been recycled. This is only the tip of the iceberg for packaging waste, a symptom of the modern economy’s obsession with a take-make-waste society that has created a waste problem of epic proportions in societies around the world. Can the world find new ways to package and consume goods?

Keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will not happen without a strategy to actively remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. Although carbon capture, storage and utilisation technologies are nascent, costly and space intensive, it represents a huge trillion-dollar business opportunity.

Do you have a solution? From 14 January to 17 April, The Liveability Challenge wants your proposals in urban food production, circular packaging and decarbonisation to make cities in the tropics sustainable and future-ready. The winner will secure up to S$1 million in funding for project development.

Urban Food Production

Urban farming represents an opportunity to improve food security in cities and minimise agriculture-related emissions—but still consumes a large amount of resources today. We’re looking for technological solutions that will deliver a breakthrough in sustainable urban food production.

Submitted solutions should:

  • Produce novel food or alternative proteins
  • Considerably improve nutritional quality of food over current methods of production
  • Enable certain species of crops/livestock to be farmed in cities for the first time
  • Reduce resource and input requirements (eg energy, water land use) for production
  • Significantly increase productivity for food/nutrition production
  • Result in minimal waste output and/or demonstrate circular use of waste materials
  • Be scaleable

Circular Packaging

We’re looking for innovative packaging solutions to replace or reduce packaging waste made from plastic, glass, virgin/hard-to-recycle paper, or aluminium. These solutions should be useful in the retail, fashion, beauty, logistics and food & beverage industries.

Submitted solutions should:

  • Drastically reduce the resources that go into packaging
  • Enable manufacturers/producers to do away with packaging altogether
  • Equal the performance of conventional, unsustainable packaging and be cost competitive
  • Be closed-loop: Either compostable, recyclable or bio-degradable
  • Make use of renewable feedstock. The solution should consider the availability and sustainability of feedstock

Decarbonisation

We’re looking for solutions that will enable cities to capture and use carbon in a productive, sustainable way. Key considerations include how long CO2 captured can be sequestered and kept out of the air.​ We’re also searching for game-changing, disruptive new solutions to decarbonise traditional sectors and processes in industries such as logistics, mobility and more.   ​

Submitted solutions should: 

  • Enable the large-scale capture of atmospheric CO2​
  • Effectively capture, store or convert CO2 using little energy and space​
  • Turn captured CO2 into a viable product stream​
  • Be carbon negative in the overall life cycle​
  • Take a systems approach to carbon capture and storage/utilisation​
  • Demonstrate demand for outputs produced​
  • Drastically reduce the carbon emissions produced by industries or sectors
  • Be commercially viable and scaleable​

Finalists in The Liveability Challenge 2019 could secure one of five prizes:
• Up to S$1 million in funding by Temasek Foundation
• 1-year venture building package at The Circularity Studio 
• A mentorship with Closed Loop Partners 
• A spot in TXG Sustainability Business Accelerator Program 
• and more to be unveiled 

Secure up to S$1 million in funding and other opportunities by 17 April 2019, 11:59PM (GMT+8, Singapore time) here.

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