Each year, Innovate 4 Nature awards an “I4N Award” to projects, companies and entrepreneurs developing particularly promising nature-positive solutions across four categories.

The I4N Award identifies high-quality solutions and accelerates them in collaboration with partners to halt and improve nature loss by 2030.

The goal of I4N is to support nature-positive solution providers around the pre-seed and seed stage, where a business plan or a minimum viable product is available and needs validation.

Source: Nature Positive Initiative.

“Nature Positive is a global societal goal defined as ‘Halt and Reverse Nature Loss by 2030 on a 2020 baseline, and achieve full recovery by 2050’. To put this more simply, it means ensuring more nature in the world in 2030 than in 2020 and continued recovery after that.

Delivering the Nature Positive goal requires measurable net-positive biodiversity outcomes through the improvement in the abundance, diversity, integrity and resilience of species, ecosystems and natural processes. The Nature Positive goal is designed to drive society to deliver a measurable absolute improvement in the state of nature against a defined baseline, which will in turn improve nature’s ability to contribute to human wellbeing.”

The four key areas of the I4N Award are:

• sustainable management of ecosystems;
• nature as infrastructure;
• regenerative agriculture; and
• circular nature-positive solutions.

Your organisation can be active in one or several of these areas. You don’t need to categorise yourself.

It is also possible to apply if you are unsure about the above categories, as long as your organisation is contributing to a nature-positive future in some form. Examples could be nature tech or nature finance.

Please refer to https://i4n.ch/nature-positive-solutions/

The I4N Award offers monetary prizes totalling up to CHF 100,000 across four key areas.

In addition to the financial support, award winners can benefit from access to an ecosystem of partners and experts.

Moreover, I4N Grants or access to training or mentoring may be provided to particularly promising nature-positive solution providers.

The I4N Award application for 2024 has closed. Please follow us on LinkedIn, where we will inform you when the call for applications 2025 opens.

• Participation is free of charge.
• There is no geographical restriction, organisations from any country are welcome to apply.
• There are no specific requirements regarding legal form, ownership structure or age of entity.
• The minimum requirement is the presence of a business model, a business plan, a marketable pilot product, or a minimum viable product (MVP).
• We only accept applications directly from founders and not from fundraisers.
• Should you be selected, at least one founder or executive director must be available either in person or via video call on the day of the Jury meeting: Thursday, June 13th, 2024, in the afternoon in Lausanne, Switzerland.

If you meet the above mentioned criteria, you can apply for several organisations. Keep the following in mind:

• You need to be founder or director at all organisations.
• You need to submit an individual application for each organisation.

The goal of I4N is to support nature-positive solution providers around the pre-seed and seed stage, where a business plan or a minimum viable product is available and needs validation.

With the above definition we are focussing on nature-positive solutions that have a business understanding and scale in size with more funding. We do not support projects and organizations that are solely funded through donations.

• Round 1: Call for application. 12:00 CET on April 5th, 2024.
• Round 2: Detailed assessment 23:59 CET on May 14th, 2024.

• Application Deadline for Round 1: Call for application. April 5th, 2024, 12:00 CET
• Feedback from Round 1: April 25th 2024.
• Submission Deadline for Round 2: Detailed assessment. 23:59 CET on May 14th, 2024.
• Feedback from Round 2: May 31st 2024.
• Pitch Day: June 13th 2024 in the afternoon in Lausanne, Switzerland
• Public announcement at I4N Day on September 13th in Arles, France. 

To ensure that we accelerate the most impactful solution providers we need to get a clear understanding of how your solution impacts nature and biodiversity. We do this along a three-step approach.

In Round 1, we assess your solution’s biodiversity impact over the next five years and want to understand your business model basics.

In Round 2, we will explore the positive and negative impacts of your business model and delve deeper into critical activities. Additionally, we’ll request further details on financials and funding. This additional information will be used to quantify the impact pathways and allow the jury to compare solutions.

In Round 3, a jury will judge the solution of your organisation during a pitch day. More details on the jury will be presented on our homepage.

• Round 1: We received more than 400 applications
• Round 2: A maximum of 150 applications is set for round 2.
• Round 3: A maximum of 20 applicants will be allowed to pitch in round 3.

Business criteria

To assess the potential of your solution in a business context, we evaluate the following elements:

• Problem-Fit: Ability of your solution to solve the selected problem.
• Financial viability: Potential ability of business-model to self-sustain at scale.
• Maturity: Stage after initial idea, before growth phase.
• Team: Composition and skills of team.

Nature/Biodiversity criteria

To assess the potential of your solution in the nature/biodiversity space, we evaluate the following elements:

• Theory of change: Ability to identify and articulate the solution’s positive impact.
• Extent: Potential size of area positively affected by the solution.
• Condition change: Potential size of the positive ecosystem condition change.
• Significance: Relative importance of the impacted area for biodiversity.
• Transformation: Solution potential to transform economic/social systems.

In the second round we want to validate the assumptions we made based on the information provided in round 1.

Business criteria

• Market understanding: Realistic estimation of market size and competition.
• Customers: Identification of current and future customers.
• Competitive edge: Identification of and potential of competitive edge.
• Revenue & Financials: Realistic financial model based on existing operations.
• Funding needs: Appropriate ask for next step in the business plan.
• Governance and social: Ability to identify impacts and risks
  
   

Nature/Biodiversity criteria

The primary criteria for round 2 are the same as in round 1 but will allow a better understanding of the nature impact based on the additional information provided in round 2.

Additionally, the following criteria will be applied:

• Negative Impact: Ability to identify and articulate the solution’s negative impact.
• Economic activities and nature: Inherent links between business model and nature impact.
  
   

The I4N Jury will be announced before the pitch day.

The risk of non-action in biodiversity is the highest risk we are facing today. In order to scale nature-positive solutions, I4N brings together solution-providers, investors and corporates. The Innovate 4 Nature Day provides visibility and networking opportunities to foster collaboration and action in this field.

All applicants are invited to join the Innovate 4 Nature Day 2024 via video stream.

All contestants of the pitch day will be invited to participate in person in the Innovate 4 Nature Day 2024. Two free passes per contesting organisation will be offered.

Please send us an email to info@i4n.ch

Kindly avoid contacting I4N staff for individual presentations or demos, as they will not be factored into the evaluation process.