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

The I4N Award identifies high-quality solutions and accelerates them in collaboration with partners to transition towards a regenerative economy 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 focus areas of the I4N Award are:

• sustainable management of ecosystems;
• nature as infrastructure and planet-compatible cities;
• regenerative food systems; 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:

• 4 x cash prizes of CHF 25,000 each across four focus areas (global);
• 1 x special grant of CHF 15,000 (regional, see guidelines);
• In-kind contributions such as training or mentoring.

This year, in addition to I4N’s global award with four cash prizes worth CHF 25,000, the Wyss Academy for Nature is sponsoring a thematic grant of CHF 15,000.

Under the topic ‘Nature-positive value chains for regenerative local economies’, this special grant invites early-stage solutions addressing environmental and socioeconomic challenges in biodiverse landscapes and building on or innovating existing local value chains.

The Wyss Academy grant can be won both additionally to the I4N Award or separately.

More information can be found in the guidelines.

The I4N Award application for 2025 will start on 15th May and remain open until 13th June 2025. Please fill out the form at the top of the page to be kept informed.

• Cost: participation is free of charge.
• Geographies: global; organisations in or from countries at high risk of money laundering are excluded, namely the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Myanmar and Iran. 
• Form: there are no specific requirements regarding legal form, ownership structure or age of entity.
• Maturity: the minimum requirement is the existence of a business model, a business plan, a marketable pilot product, or a minimum viable product (MVP).
• Applicants: we only accept applications directly from founders and not from fundraisers. Winners and finalists from previous years cannot apply for three years unless they have a new project.
• Availability: 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: 21st October 2025 in Switzerland

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

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

The I4N Award selects one winner per focus area and facilitates connections between the 20 finalists and potential partners or investors. While we don’t provide direct funding, we do offer a monetary prize to the winners and access to a valuable ecosystem of contacts and opportunities. If your project could benefit from this for potential future funding or partnerships, then applying to the I4N Award is a worthwhile opportunity.

• Round 1: Call for applications with nature impact assessment opens on 15th May 2025, and closes on 12th June 2025 at 18:00 CET. 
• Round 2: Business and governance assessment opens on 11th July 2025 for selected organisations, and closes on 31st July 2025 at 18:00 CET.
• Round 3: Pitch Day on 21st October 2025 in the afternoon for the finalists.

• Application Deadline for Round 1: Call for application, nature impact assessment. 12th June 2025, 18:00 CET.
• Feedback from Round 1: 11th July 2025.
• Submission Deadline for Round 2 for selected solutions: Business and governance assessment. 18:00 CET on 31st July 2025.
• Feedback from Round 2: 29th August 2025.
• Round 3 preparation for the 20 finalists: calls and training between 29th August and 20th October 2025
• Round 3: Pitch Day with the I4N Jury on 21st October 2025, in Switzerland.
• Award ceremony: late 2025/early 2026.

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 focus on the assessment of your solution’s biodiversity impact, specifically over the next five years and want to understand the basic details of your business.

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. 

• Round 1: In 2024, we received more than 400 applications; in 2025, we expect a higher number.
• Round 2: In 2024, we selected 150 applications for round 2.
• Round 3: In 2024, 20 applicants were allowed to pitch in round 3. In 2025, we expect to reduce this number. 

The 2025 criteria are still under development.

In 2024, the criteria were as follows:

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.

The 2025 criteria are still under development.

In 2024, the criteria were as follows:

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.
  
   

Please refer to the 2024 Jury on this page.

Please send us an email at award@i4n.ch. 

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