13 April 2023 - Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) welcomes three new, impact-led businesses as official members of its Canopy innovation hub.
Rural Voices, ClimateNode and Archipel&Co are the latest to join the entrepreneurial community, with a range of focus from standing up for farming communities in the world’s supply chains and using AI to calculate climate risk, to consulting with businesses to accelerate the transition to a sustainable economy.
Sam Laakkonen, Director of The Canopy at CISL said:
“It’s exciting to see the different kinds of sustainability startups drawn to joining the Canopy: from those working in social responsibility to using AI as an alternative to classic quantitative approaches. We’re building a community of green entrepreneurs and it’s inspiring to watch them bounce thoughts and ideas off one another.”
Rural Voices is a startup founded by Miguel Zamora. Miguel has been involved in agriculture for over 25 years and has created a collective of agronomists, economists and farmers from the Global South who envisage a world where the perspectives of farming communities are seen and heard.
Miguel wants to amplify farmers’ voices so they can feed into discussions around sustainability and regenerative agriculture and build more resilient supply chains for products we all take for granted, like coffee. He is currently supporting cacao communities in Latin America to better understand labour rights risks and how to implement human rights due diligence systems.
Miguel Zamora, founder of Rural Voices, said:
“I moved to Cambridge last year and joined the Canopy to learn more about the sustainability ecosystem in the UK and in Europe. We hope to start working with food companies in the UK and Europe this year. Being part of the Canopy is a crucial first step for Rural Voices on this journey.”
ClimateNode is a non-for-profit run by Helen Jackson, an environment and natural resource economist. Her startup aims to systematically gather, organise and connect information on climate risk - for the public benefit. Her team works with a mixture of AI and data science techniques, including natural language processing, which is the intersection of computer science and linguistics to understand more about human language. Their algorithms can extract information on hazards and impacts from newspaper articles, reports and other texts and link them to places, assets or organisations.
Helen Jackson, founder of ClimateNode, said:
"When, like me, your work involves long hours of coding, it's vitally important to have a social network of people who understand the purpose of what you're trying to achieve and/or are going through the same process. This is what Canopy provides. It's a beautiful physical space to work in and CISL gives you the chance to work in alliance with a globally networked sustainable leadership organisation.”
Archipel&Co was founded by Justin DeKoszmovszky and is a consulting company accelerating the transition to a sustainable economy. It works with clients based on three areas of expertise: responsible, inclusive and collaborative business. This includes managing very specific elements such as water stewardship, stakeholder engagement or local acceptance of a business, always putting social impact first. Archipel&Co exists to help organisations design their ‘impact pathway’, think about their societal contributions and take accountability for their actions.
Justin DeKoszmovszky, founder of Archipel&Co, said:
“I joined the Canopy because I knew it would be a phenomenal community of people already engaged - and really moving the ball forward on sustainability and business. That was something that I absolutely wanted to be a part of.”
Each business joins the Canopy at an exciting time, as the community of entrepreneurs grows and continues to work on solutions to global sustainability challenges.
The Canopy opened its doors to businesses in October 2022. It provides both a physical workspace for startups and SMEs and a virtual ecosystem where members can network and collaborate.
Desks and shared space are housed in CISL’s new Entopia Building – an energy efficient, sustainable retrofit. What used to be a 1930s telephone exchange is now a world-leading example of green architecture, aiming for BREEAM certification (Outstanding), the Passivhauss 'EnerPHit' standard and WELL (Gold) certification.
Canopy is currently inviting pioneering members to apply for workspace and support within our sustainable innovation community.