Spanish startups fighting climate change

Every entrepreneur has a goal that goes above anything else: to be profitable and make money. It is totally logical, since, more than a dream, setting up a startup is a job to get ahead. But within this situation there is a type of entrepreneur who goes beyond profits and seeks to improve our environment: the social entrepreneur. In this more specific case, in the fight against climate change.

There are more and more startups that fight to respect, care for and preserve the environment in our country. If you are interested in learning about the Spanish companies fighting climate change, these are some of them:

1. Hydraredox (Aragon)

The entrepreneurs of Hydraredox start from a basic premise: renewable energy shapes the energy future of the whole world, but it is not always used properly. And it is an intermittent energy, so it can sometimes have excess power or even penalties for deficiencies in the supply.

Thus, this startup offers its customers electrical storage for renewable energy sources. In this way, large energy companies will be able to make much more elaborate use of renewables.

2. Powen (Madrid)

Spain has been immersed in a controversy for several years over the so-called ‘sun tax’. Once eliminated, solar energy seems to be established as a viable alternative – subsidized or not – for many citizens and, above all, for many companies. In this sense, the Madrid-based startup Powen works by supplying solar panels to companies of all kinds such as schools and large companies, but especially within the agricultural sector, so that they can better manage their electricity resources. In addition, thanks to artificial intelligence , they can help their customers to make more efficient use of the energy they have accumulated.

3. AgropestAlert (Navarra)

The world of the countryside has a problem: pesticides are essential for its operation and for the care of crops, but sometimes they contain chemical substances that are extremely polluting, so the sector ends up being not only inefficient, but also very harmful to the environment. To solve this problem, the Navarrese startup AgropestAlert uses sensors based on the Internet of Things to analyse the state of crops, detect the existence of pests early and eliminate them by reducing the use of chemical pesticides.

4. Rated Power (Madrid)

We are going to the world of photovoltaic energy. Rated Power, led by entrepreneur Andrea Barber, has its own software, pvDesign, which is responsible for designing and optimizing photovoltaic solar plants in a few minutes and on a large scale. Its customers are large companies and, so far, they have optimized 1,000 GW in more than 90 countries around the world.

5. Notpla (UK)

The consumption of plastics is one of the biggest sustainability problems facing our generation. Some studies, in fact, calculate that by 2050 there will be even more plastics in the sea than fish. To solve this, there is Notpla, a British startup founded by a Spaniard that, within its wide category of products, includes a water wrapper that replaces plastic, which is made of a biodegradable material and that, in its manufacture, it is not necessary to resort to any type of fossil fuel.

As the population of cities grows, they account for an increasing percentage of global energy consumption and generate more greenhouse gases and waste. That is why any initiative that seeks to reduce the environmental impact on the planet must consider what happens in cities. This circumstance was one of the topics analysed at the meeting on Disruptive Cities by the Future Trends Forum, the think tank of the Bankinter Innovation Foundation.