Finance

Challenge Track

Finance

How can we make investments from both the financial sectors as organisations feed into achieving the SDGs?

Why Sustainable Finance?

Sustainable finance refers to any form of financial service integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into the business or investment decisions for the lasting benefit of both clients and society at large.  

Sustainable Finance covers a wide range of issues starting from a specific location to the global dimension. Do you have an idea, or do you want to co-create alongside a network of experts? Learn more about the challenges below & sign-up now!

The transformation to a more sustainable economy requires enormous investments from both the financial sectors, as organisations specifically (e.g. in energy production or waste management). 

In order to run a sustainable business, the management of ecological and social risk factors becomes increasingly a prerequisite for a resilient company and, therefore, a factor of utmost importance for the financial system as a whole. However, traditional investment criteria may not adequately cover these risks because of the long-term character of the environment, resources or climate change impacts. 

The financial sector, as an intersection for capital allocation, is to play a major role in promoting sustainability and sustainable management. For example, financial service providers should, in their loan portfolios, adopt new lending criteria related to long-term risks. It is essential for all banks and financial service providers to address the strategic and organisational implications of this regulatory and socio-economic change at an early stage.

Global issues & activities comprise concerns about: 

  • A new definition of value – investment in social & green bonds
  • Novel ways of financing: Green Bonds, Social Bonds, Sustainable Funds, Impact Investing, Micro Financing, active ownership. 
  • Credits for sustainable projects and development of the whole financial system in a more sustainable way.
  • The development of a unified classification system for sustainable economic activities
  • The effective coordination of sustainable finance initiatives
  • To help scale up the mobilisation of private capital towards environmentally sustainable investments.


While the location-specific
issues are for instance:

  • At the risk management level, the lending and compliance risks
  • At the management level, the development of a sustainability strategy
  • At the IT department level, the collection and processing of new data

Impact Experts

Within the circle17 impacthon, multidisciplinary teams will be connected with <b>impact experts </b>to reflect, exchange and develop the best possible understanding of their sustainability challenge, and a systemic and sustainable solution.

Challenge Track Partners

We are extremely thankful for all Challenge Track Partners, who ensure that the industry’s top knowledge is represented.

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Susanne Formanek
GRÜNSTATTGRAU
„The Circle 17 Impacthon was characterized by interesting people, future-oriented tasks and encouraging input. GRÜNSTATTGRAU was able to meet many motivated participants within the course of the challenge. Working together with them on solutions for the green city of the future was not only fun, but very successful.”
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Matthias Wagner
Mentor
„Was respACT & AustrianStartups geschaffen und organisiert haben, ist so viel mehr als nur erstaunliche Lösungen für die Herausforderungen zu finden. circle17 hat so viele inspirierende Menschen zusammengebracht, sie motiviert und ihnen Hoffnung auf eine bessere, grünere Zukunft gegeben. Es scheint, als ob es während dieses Impacthons eine Explosion von Wissen und positiven Emotionen gab!“
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Marie-Theres Lutz
OeEB
„Wir nehmen von der Zusammenarbeit nicht nur viel Inspiration und Motivation mit, sondern auch einen potentiellen Partner, der eine nachhaltige Lösung mit uns gemeinsam umsetzt."
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Markus Linder
Inoqo
“circle17 has been instrumental for us to get from a visionary idea towards a passionate team working together to help mitigate the climate and biodiversity crisis by empowering people to shop in line with their environmental and social priorities.”
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Esther Hummel
AeroSQAIR
"Through Circle17 we got to know our first business partner. The cooperation with an established company enables us to achieve a greater impact with our sustainable solution and thus to jointly contribute to the achievement of the SDGs."
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Fabian Artacker
Carpacity
"With Carpacity, we are meeting one of the biggest challenges facing society today: CO2 emissions caused by private transport. Our goal is to convince citizens of sustainable mobility. circle17 helps us to push our project further with its great networking effect"
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Michael Friedmann
ROSENBAUER
"circle17 provided us with the opportunity to reflect about our sustainability strategy and to select a major direction we would like to explore. During the sessions we experienced a lot of inspiring moments and new perspectives which helped us to generate more innovative ideas."
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Richard Kahlbacher
APUS
"It was a huge joy to work with the highly motivated and perfectly prepared circle17 team. Further it was an excellent opportunity for networking and exchanging ideas. The entire event was made in a professional and motivating way."
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Martin Stohanzl
Social Innovator
„Es ist faszinierend, was man mit einer gemeinsamen Vision, einem Team und einem Laptop an einem Wochenende erreichen kann."
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Philipp Kranewitter
Greiner AG
"circle17 managed to provide a robust innovation and idea process, which allowed us to quickly jump into the topic and start working together with the team on our Challenge. Overall the tools and preparation for the virtual collaboration was excellent."
OeEB
OeEB
Challenge Lead 2020
"circle 17 has been a highlight in 2020! Participation in the Impacthon offered an ideal opportunity to build a network in the digital world even during COVID-19 and to present OeEB to a new audience."
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Alexander Juranek
farmNOW
"circle17’s Impacthon was a fantastic experience: starting with interesting challenges, to the highly diverse participants, the world class workshop moderations/meeting logistics to the mentors/coaches it was a revelation – and while really intensive we can recommend it to any person who’s thinking about starting a social impact venture."
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Michaela Stephen
Sleepify
" The coaching and resources provided by circle17 have been extremely helpful in supporting Sleepify to take our idea and turn it into an initial start-up."
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Christoph Hornik
Epiclay
"The best part of this program is to meet and interact with like-minded people who all want to develop solutions that make a positive impact on the environment and our world. Furthermore, circle17 always provides a range of experts from various fields. Those who mentored and supported us not only helped us advance with our start-up, but also connected us with important key players of the market."
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Andrés Campaña
DAQ
"It is a good place to meet like-minded people who have the same vision as we have towards making our world a better place. This experience has also had a great impact on our personal lives, giving us the opportunity of meeting new cultures, new ways of thinking, and the possibility of improving our English and German language skills."

Frequently Asked Questions

For more in-depth questions on how your journey could look like, please see our full FAQ section.

What is Circle17?

circle17 supports the design of practical business solutions to the most urgent sustainability challenges, by facilitating a platform for startup collaboration with corporates and non-profit organisations.  

In order to identify these most pressing sustainability challenges, circle17 co-operates together with corporates- and non-profit organisations. These sustainability challenges function as a strong foundation, inspiration and validation for the design of system-changing solutions. 

The development of these solutions is not a straight-forward given. It requires an inclusive and experimental approach, modern methodologies, creativity and an innovative out-of-the-box mindset. 

This is where all social innovators come into place: startup founders, academics, changemakers, enthusiasts, coders and creatives come into place. The circle17 Impacthon is an open-call for all those who believe it’s important to unite, in order to solve the most pressing sustainability challenges together. 

Not only does circle17 provide a safe space for eye-to-eye level exchanges, but an inclusive growth platform where the potential that lies with multi-stakeholder collaboration can be understood and unleashed.

Who’s behind circle17?

The circle17 project is brought to life via the two Non-Profit organisations AustrianStartups & respACT.

AustrianStartups
AustrianStartups is Austria’s largest start-up platform and think tank for innovative entrepreneurship 

With a team of around 50 startup enthusiasts, the non-profit organization organizes more than 60 events annually, operates communication platforms for more than 30,000 followers from the startup environment and publishes Austria’s largest startup study – the Austrian Startup Monitor.

respACT
respACT has been supporting its more than 300 member companies for over 20 years in achieving ecological and social goals economically and independently. On a national level, respACT cooperates with ministries, scientific institutions and interest groups. As the coordinating office of the Global Compact Network Austria and partner of the WBCSD and CSR Europe, respACT is also the right contact at the international level.

How does the circle17 program work?

The circle17 programme consists of three phases. 

MARCH
1. DISCOVERY

The discovery is all set to identify and determine the most critical sustainability challenges. Corporates and Civil Society leading the change particiapte in two consecutive workshops (hosted by circle17) to explore trends and define challenges within the sustainable development goals.

Learn more about the programme’s offer on our Lead the change-Page

MAY
2. IMPACTHON 

The circle17 Impacthon is an online hackathon designed to share and rapidly develop practical solutions. Startup founders, entrepreneurs, academics and enthusiasts come together to work on society-level solutions to the sustainable challenges, posed by our network of (corporate) organisations.

Learn more about the impacthon, and how you can get involved here.

SEPTEMBER
3. MATCHMAKING

Our circle17 Matchmaking event is a day in which we’ll bring all programme participants and project innovations together with an external network collaboration partners, and offer supporting modules to match interests and needs. 

How can I join circle17?

We are looking for bold and innovative thinkers & do-ers that can help to develop solutions to the large-scale sustainability challenges that withhold us on individual, business and societal level to become more resilient.

For this to work, circle17 needs a strong community. We need you!

You can get involved in four different ways:

CHALLENGE LEADS
Challenge Leads are corporate- and non-profit organisations that have submitted sustainability challenges, they face inside- and outside of their organisation.

SOCIAL INNOVATORS
We are inviting all gamechangers, from creators, IT specialists, startups, academics and enthusiasts to participate and show us how you would solve various challenges through creative thinking and the (potential) application of technology.

Are you, or the organisation you are working with, faced with sustainability challenges in your daily operations? Are you interested in working together with a broad network of young innovators, startups and academics to dive deep into your challenge and work on solutions that could benefit your business- and society at larger scale?.

MENTOR
We’re looking for mentors who can coach the participants during the Impacthon and experts who can answer questions along the way.

Are you a superhero mentor, interested in partaking in our programme to support the development of sustainable project innovations? – learn more on this page on how you can get involved!

SPONSOR
The circle17 programme is a non-profit establishment, aimed at the development of resilient and sustainable business solutions. Are you, your company or organisation interested in exploring opportunities to support our cause? Contact us!

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