Innovation Project of the Year

Recognising first-of-a-kind projects, pilots, demonstrators, new methodologies or new business models with clear, evidenced potential to accelerate decarbonisation.

The finalists

Avalo & Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Decarbonising Sugar Cane

Avalo has built a platform that uses machine learning to analyse crop genomes and predict which trait combinations perform best in given conditions, in place of the slow trial-and-error cycles of conventional plant breeding. With Coca-Cola Europacific Partners it is applying the approach to sugarcane, among the more carbon-intensive agricultural ingredients, through field trials in Australia involving growers, mills and supply chain partners. Data is being gathered on growth cycles, inputs and yields to validate guidance on harvest timing and fertiliser use. Avalo describes the work as early deployment, with outputs so far limited to improved agronomic understanding.

Enquip Software & Liverpool City Council

Realising Net Zero Liverpool

Enquip Software Ltd worked with Liverpool City Council on an Innovate UK-funded project testing whether council asset data could be converted into investment-ready clean energy propositions. Local authorities frequently produce technical studies that never attract capital, so the platform combines carbon, financial and property data and packages options using the financial metrics investors recognise. Enquip assessed 31 council-owned assets and modelled combinations of solar, battery storage, heat pumps and EV charging, producing six investment and business models aimed at institutional lenders, pension funds and delivery partners. The analysis identified a portfolio requiring £11.08m of capital investment.

E.ON Next

Next Gen Home

Next Gen Home bundles solar panels, a battery, an air source heat pump and an electric vehicle charger together with a household's energy costs into a single fixed monthly subscription running for ten years, after which the customer owns the equipment outright. E.ON Next developed it after research found 60% of consumers cite upfront costs and payback periods as obstacles to improving home energy efficiency. A home energy management system coordinates the technologies. A trial launched in July 2025 covers 18 households, with installations complete, and a social housing proof of concept began in May 2026 with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.

Logivity

Turning Fragmented Transport Ecosystems into Collaborative Networks for Decarbonisation

Logivity AB has developed a platform that brings transport buyers, carriers and logistics partners onto a shared view of shipment execution, cost and emissions, on the basis that transport decarbonisation stalls when data and decision-making sit in separate systems across separate organisations. By improving planning, visibility and use of existing vehicle capacity, it aims to cut emissions without adding cost or requiring new assets. The platform is modular and designed to integrate with existing systems rather than replace them. More than 100 connected stakeholders now use Logivity, and around 1.5 million shipments have been managed through it.

Northumbria University & EcoTechX

S2Cool: Cooling the World Without Heating the Planet

S2Cool is a cooling system developed at Northumbria University with EcoTechX that uses indirect evaporative cooling paired with intelligent controls instead of refrigerant-based air conditioning. Cooling can account for up to 60% of building energy use, with a comparable share in data centres, and global demand is expected to rise steeply. The system operates without chemical refrigerants in standalone mode and can also be retrofitted alongside existing air conditioning, lowering the barrier to adoption. This has seen up to 65% lower electricity consumption and up to 60% lower carbon emissions, demonstrated at a UK data centre and a hospital in Pakistan.

Reepel & Protiomix

Net Carbon Negative Production of Animal Feed

Reepel Ltd and Protiomix Ltd have combined Protiomix's microbial cultures with Reepel's bioreactor technology to produce animal feed from waste liquor from food and drink manufacturing, together with captured carbon dioxide. Animal feed accounts for a substantial share of agricultural emissions, much of it embedded in imported crops, while existing alternative protein processes remain far too expensive for mainstream feed use. Around 1.65kg of CO2 is captured for every kilogram of biomass produced, and estimated total reductions are around 2.7kg per kilogram once indirect effects are counted. Production currently runs at a pro-rated 500 tonnes a year.

Squair

AI Copilot for Industrial Refrigeration: How Squair Cut 20% Energy Waste

Squair connects to existing industrial refrigeration equipment and uses software to monitor performance, detect inefficiency and adjust settings such as defrost cycles and evaporator synchronisation, without replacing plant or interrupting operations. Cold rooms can account for around 60% of energy use at a distribution centre, yet many are still managed through manual adjustment and reactive maintenance. In a pilot with AB InBev, supported by the 100+ Accelerator, Squair was deployed across 29 distribution centres in Brazil. The Average monthly energy savings are around 20% from an initial investment of $40,163, reaching breakeven in month five.

Wattstor

Price Protect at Icknield Biogas

Wattstor has paired a 1.2MW solar array and 2.4MWh battery at Icknield Biogas with its Price Protect tariff, which caps electricity prices over the long term and brings grid supply, on-site generation, storage and optimisation together under a single contract with one bill. A DC-coupled design allowed the full 1.2MW of solar to be installed behind a grid connection limited to 625kW, a constraint that would ordinarily have curtailed the scheme. The site has cut its dependence on grid electricity by up to 70%, alongside lower electricity costs and spare capacity for future expansion of the business.