The Portuguese firm Natural Business Intelligence (NBI) has won the eleventh edition of the Sacyr Foundation Innovation Awards.
The Sacyr Foundation has awarded the solution presented by this firm, which acts on the valuation and management of the natural capital of projects. Out of the 245 submissions, NBI's proposal is the one that adapts best to one of the four challenges issued by Sacyr in the framework of its open innovation program, Sacyr iChallenges.
In addition, the Sacyr Foundation has awarded a second price to the German firm Heliatek for its organic photovoltaic solutions technology.
NBI's solution is a tool to valuate the natural capital and the impacts of Sacyr's projects on ecosystem services. Together with NBI, Sacyr will carry out a pilot project in La Palma (Canary Islands), where, for the last three months, there has been an active volcano that is changing the physiognomy of the island.
The solution provided by NBI responds to the challenge issued through Sacyr iChallenges regarding the measurement of the ecological impact of the company's activities. The finalists for this challenge were BC3 Research Basque Centre for Climate Change (Spain) and Creando Redes (Spain).
Manuel Manrique, Chairman of Sacyr, stressed that the company has extended innovation to the entire workforce and the different external innovation agents. “The great reception of the challenges that we issue in Sacyr iChallenges and the high regard of these Innovation Awards, which are already on their 11th edition, are proof of the success of this strategy”, Manrique pointed out.
“Thanks to innovation, we are able to be of better assistance to out clients, and their present and future needs; every time more and more focused on sustainability”, he added.
Runner-up prize goes to Heliatek
Heliatek wins second price prize thanks to a project that responds to the challenge of creating energy-efficient facilities, such as university campuses, and reducing their carbon footprint.
The German firm works in the field of organic photovoltaics and develops solutions that adapt to different building structures. Heliatek presented its solution of ultra-thin, organic photovoltaic modules that can adhere to any surface.
The other finalists in this challenge were SEaB Energy (UK) and BDP EnviroTech (USA).
As for the other two challenges, Alpha 311 (UK) is the solution that best addressed the Genera challenge of clean energy production in linear infrastructures. Greerail (Italy) and Lusoco (Netherlands) were the other two finalists. For the Smart Inventory challenge, DotGIS (Spain) took home the diploma, and ESRI (Spain), along with Cyclomedia and SEITECH Solutions (Spain) were finalists.
Sacyr's innovation strategy
The Sacyr Foundation annually recognizes the best initiatives presented by the innovative community in Sacyr iChallenges, Sacyr's open innovation program.
Sacyr iChallenges is one of the pillars of the company's innovation and transformation strategy, based on a commitment to teamwork and co-creation with the innovation ecosystem worldwide.
In this fourth edition of the program, the company has focused on driving sustainability, a key pillar of its Sustainable Sacyr Action Plan 2021-2025, with innovation as one of the key catalysts for achieving the objectives set by Sacyr. With this plan, Sacyr is committed to contributing to the fight against climate change with a significant increase in investment in innovation for the protection of the environment.
In this edition of the program, Sacyr received a total of 245 submissions from 25 countries. After carefully analyzing all of them, the company selected the 12 agents (from Spain, the UK, Portugal, the USA, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany) whose solutions best addressed the challenges issued in this 4th edition of Sacyr iChallenges.
