Our GeoVation judging panel met this week and were delighted at the quality and scope of the ideas submitted to our GeoVation Challenge to look for ways that British business could improve their environmental performance using Ordnance Survey products or services in the solution.

The judging panel have now selected a short-list of 10 finalists who have been invited to develop their ideas further at GeoVation Camp,  held over the weekend of 21 -23 June 2013 at Ordnance Survey in Southampton.

The finalists who have been invited to GeoVation Camp are:

• “Virtual” national transport fleet.  An idea to create a connect-able, broker-free web of independent transport companies; breaking down the systemic big company / small company inefficiencies which exist.

• Creating an Energy Democracy: The Wasted Energy Network – This was the top voted idea on the GeoVation Challenge. The idea a platform for encouraging inter-business recycling, triggering waste based economies and identifying areas of opportunity for sustainable waste management and energy generation systems.

• RecycleLink The idea is to bring waste producers and processors together using a centralised trading platform that will facilitate collaboration and therefore reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.

• Which renewable energy scheme is right for you? This idea is based around finding out whether a particular business is suitable for different renewable energy schemes and will show the buildings that are suitable using OS OpenData

• The ‘Green’ Contest.  Novel visualisation of environmental impact indicators such as energy usage overlaid onto Ordnance Survey maps will surface information, allowing consumers to view in a spatial context, the ‘environmental performance’ of businesses and businesses to view how they fare against their competitors and be incentivised to reduce their environmental impact through competition.

• Mapping Soil Carbon to Improve Environmental Performance  The idea is to use Ordnance Survey mapping technology and soil sampling techniques to create a carbon map of the United Kingdom’s agricultural soil to use as the basis for a carbon offset trading scheme.

• Reducing the impact of food consumption and waste using geodata – using a decision making Geotool that helps make more effective and targeted decisions geographically regarding consumption and waste production.

• Get on my land  which aims to facilitate a peer to peer network to provide potential agriculturists with the information, support and practical opportunities they need to get started.

• How to reduce costs and make money by separating your waste.  Cleanly separated recyclable materials without contaminants are greatly sought after by reprocessing and manufacturing companies. This idea achieves this ‘early separation’ with the vessel which the public, businesses and organisations use and the reprocessing industry will benefit from good quality recycling materials and in turn revenue.

• Streetkleen Bio Project a practical, innovative solution based around the anaerobic digestion of dog waste to create usable energy (methane). It will provide the impetus to demonstrate why we should divert dog waste from landfill and transform it into usable energy.

This year we have limited the number of ideas that are invited to camp so that there will be more time to work with teams and help them to develop their ideas into prototyped ventures and work on their pitches for funding. Because places at camp are limited we are operating a reserve list and have notified the teams that are on this list.

At the end of the fun and intense weekend, the teams will pitch their idea to the judging panel and assembled audience and successful finalists will be selected to receive a slice of £100,000 innovation funding to develop and launch their ideas.  Participants at camp will also be able to vote for their favourite idea to receive the  £1,000 Community Award prize.

If you feel you can help teams develop their ideas at the Environment Challenge GeoVation Camp then please register for Camp Helper tickets here and let us know what skills you can offer.