event 25 Sep 2012

Agenda Setting // UK Deputy Prime Minister launches Greenius - a national competition to drive forwards the UK's green growth agenda

The "Greenius" - or Green Genius - competition is seeking innovative solutions to questions of food, water and energy sustainability such as "How to keep bills down for consumers and businesses?" or "How to better manage our energy, food and water resources?"

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Shutterstock/Ant Clausen
It is jointly funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) of the United Kingdom. Successful applications will propose solutions that address at least two and preferably all three of these themes. Organisations are invited to compete for a share of a total £3million fund for the further development and commercialisation of innovative, near-market technologies. Entrepreneurs and businesses will be invited to compete for £3million to fund the further development and commercialisation of innovative technologies. The Deputy Prime Minister will launch the contest before leaving the Rio+20 summit in Brazil, where he has argued for the importance of using natural resources sustainably for long-term prosperity. Under current projections, by 2030 the world will need at least 50% more food, 45% more energy, and 30% more water, and this will need to be produced without further damaging the environment. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: "When it comes to green innovation, Britain is a world leader. The 'green' sector is worth 8 per cent of UK GDP — the largest proportion of any of the leading industrial G20 nations — and employs almost 940,000 people - up 2.8% from last year. Sales in the green economy are also growing at a rate of 4.7%. "Now we want the very best of Britain's green talent to set their minds to some of the toughest challenges facing the country today — how to keep bills down for households and businesses and ensure we manage our food, water and energy supplies more sustainably."

More

{http://www.innovateuk.org/_assets/sbri_decc_defra_bis_117_002_competition_brief_greenius_award%20v3.pdf|Competition brief} {http://news.bis.gov.uk/Press-Releases/Deputy-Prime-Minister-launches-search-for-the-next-Green-Genius-67bb7.aspx|read more}

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