TRANSFORM Climate Challenge – Bangladesh

The TRANSFORM Climate Challenge is an initiative that aims to identify and support enterprises working on climate resilience and is specifically looking for innovations addressing plastic circularity.

TRANSFORM is an impact accelerator led by Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and EY, providing business insights alongside funding. It supports early-stage business models and behaviour change interventions to deliver low-income household needs sustainably.

There is a growing opportunity for social enterprises to build climate resilience through innovative business models including regenerative agriculture, water, sanitation, hygiene and circularity-based business models. The aim of the TRANSFORM Climate Challenge, in collaboration with the Climate Innovation Fund, is to identify such solutions and help them scale. The partners at Climate Innovation Fund have already received applications in the areas of regenerative agriculture, water and hygiene and so they are delighted to extend its scope to include plastics circularity.

Program Offerings

Successful applicants will receive:

• Financial support
  • A grant of up to £70,000 from TRANSFORM. Grants will be provided for operational expenses and bringing about behavioural change, etc. It will not cover capital expenses.
• Market Access and Scale up support
  • Opportunities to work with various functions across the value chain of Unilever Bangladesh.
  • Guidance from experts, specialists and sector leaders, especially from EY teams, for developing the product market fit and go-to-market strategy.
  • Access to TRANSFORM and its partners’ wide network of public/private organisations and facilitation of introduction, where required.
• Fundraising support
  • Access to TRANSFORM’s large and diverse investor and donor network.
• Networking Opportunity
  • Exposure to the wider network of stakeholders (corporates, government agencies, international development agencies etc.) as well as high visibility opportunities offered by TRANSFORM, through its partners Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and EY.
• Knowledge Services
  • Curated set of capacity building and knowledge sessions with qualified industry experts to augment understanding of product – market fit.
  • Monitoring and evaluation technical assistance to evidence socio-economic impact.

Who can apply for the transform climate challenge?

• TRANSFORM, in collaboration with the Climate Innovation Fund, aims to identify and support sustainable technologies and solutions that work on at least one of the following,
  • Improve the collection and processing of plastic waste, while integrating informal waste workers into the value chain
  • Implement innovative technologies/business models to enhance recycling capabilities for plastic waste, particularly for flexible plastics
• Additionally, applications for projects must meet all of the following criteria:
  • Alignment with impact and geographic priorities
    • Have a clear potential to create positive impact on low-income people’s lives
    • Be implemented in Bangladesh.
    • Demonstrate at least one of the following: female ownership, local ownership, a focus on the very poor/marginalised or an intention to expand to fragile contexts (including those caused by climate change).
  • Innovative approach to tackling social problems
    • Propose a project which represents a new technology, business model or approach. This could involve taking a proven business model to a new market.
    • Demonstrate how TRANSFORM plays a catalytic role in the testing and scaling the innovation.
    • Be willing to share learnings for the public good and disseminate learnings.
  • Market-based solutions with the potential to reach operational sustainability.
    • Demonstrate a clear pathway for the proposed project to be commercially viable at scale, with assumptions which can be tested through the project.
    • Show how TRANSFORM support unlocks resources/follow-on funding from other sources.
    • The application must come from a registered enterprise, not an NGO.
  • Strong leadership and networks
    • A commercially savvy CEO and/or leadership team who demonstrates personal commitment to the project.
    • A strong network of public, private and/or non-profit partners with evidenced traction relating to the proposed project.

For more information, visit Climate Innovation Fund.