We know a lot about the environmental and social challenges we face. We care and want to make a difference. But how? What is a meaningful and sustainable life? How do we get there? This project tells the stories of individuals who live in European cities and who’ve found their own ways to lead sustainable and meaningful lives; people that we can identify with and who can open our eyes and inspire us to different ways of living, working and traveling.

www.everydaystories.b

AsBoasNovas.com helps companies establish a more direct, transparent and truthtful dialogue with their customers. Firstly they provide a content boutique that generates and customizes information in different formats (text, image, video, etc.) for digital platforms owned by existing companies. In addition they publish an online collaborative platform to spread positive news and help catalyse initiatives for a more balanced world.

asboasnovas.com

GUTTS reinvents the environment straining world of auto and motorsports. They build various race and rally cars that run on biofuels and help crews to become more sustainable. To date they helped more than 30 crews race on alternative fuels and make motorsport in the Netherlands more sustainable. In the next year they are looking to double that number.

www.gutts.nl

Kate and her brother Jamie launched Loco2 to help European travellers journey more sustainably. They provide a streamlined rail booking system that aims to make Europe by rail quicker, cheaper and easier. With its sophisticated online journey planning tool the platform allows travellers to find the best train route for their journey in Europe.

loco2.co.uk

KOKOZA is social enterprise founded in April 2012. The initial idea was born two years ago and shortly after they became the local winners of Social Business Idea 2010 in Prague. They then continued to develop the whole concept within the HUB community. KOKOZA promotes urban composting and urban gardening. In spring 2013 they will be opening their first big community composting garden right in the centre of Prague. Here they will grow (and sell) vegetables, fruits and flowers in containers, compost organic waste from households and companies as well as providing employment opportunities to people with handicaps as well as active seniors.

www.kokoza.cz

Timbuktu Labs builds the next generation of social learning environments for kids. They create impact in schools through design and technology, and call this invisible education. Their first product is Timbuktu, the first iPad magazine for children aged 7 to 11. Timbuktu displays news and stories wiht high educational value and positive meaning through the most advanced methods of education.

http://timbuktu.me/

Solstice offers consulting and business development services for eco-entrepreneurs tackling environmental challenges in Brazil – The Green Lungs of our Planet. Their approach considers both economic and ecological requirements and identifies effective action that can generate lasting results.

www.solstice.com.br

The London Orchard Project was started in 2009 and works to promote orchards and fruit trees in London. Working with communities across London to plant and harvest apple, pear and plum trees all over the city, and helping people to rediscover the pleasure of eating home-grown fruit. New community orchards in London’s unused spaces help address the city’s allotment shortfall, promotes community production and ownership of fruit, and helps reconnect people with the food they eat. Community orchards also green the urban environment and create habitats for wildlife. The London Orchard Project is leading a fruit tree revolution.

thelondonorchardproject.org

Sophia and Marten experienced the dilemma of busy urbanites wanting to grow food with good intentions but no green thumb. Marten, a typical city boy with smartphone and eco-shopping behaviour, is a point in case. Sophia on the other hand brings everything she touches to bear heavy fruit. They joined forces to make home farmers around the world have a more successful and enjoyable growing experience. Their first product - an online tool that helps people choose the plants that best suit their environment, ambitions and lifestyle - is in testing phase right now.

www.urbanedibles.eu

Colin is the founder a Loudsauce, a crowdfunding platform for amplifying ideas, messages, and campaigns for social and environmental change through traditional media outlets. Colin started the project with his partner Christie George (also a Hub member, Director at New Media Ventures) in London and brought the project to SF in 2010. It has seen massive growth here with multiple successful campaigns.

soundcloud.com/hubbayarea/hub-voices-colin-mutchler

Milo is the founder of Biorama, a magazine for sustainable lifestyle. When he passed it over it had more than 40.000 readers in the German speaking market. Now he is developing new projects to boost social innovations in cooperation with fellow Hub Vienna members.

www.biorama.at

Hu-Bu helps companies offer time and skills to social-profit organisations through corporate volunteering programs. Its innovative interface enables social-profit organisations to communicate their needs and allows corporate volunteers to directly select the social, environmental or cultural projects they want to help. They also coordinate the exchange of office material which companies wish to offer to social organisations who are unable to buy.

www.hu-bu.be

CarbonSoft is in the business of connecting carbon credits with communities. They want to make the carbon market more accessible, opening it up to people and communities. Rising energy use in developing countries is a key factor in global carbon emissions. So, CarbonSoft provides small renewable energy projects, such as solar LED lamp distribution, with access to carbon credits. Selling these offsets makes solar lamps cheaper, enabling more communities to gain access to energy from mankind’s greatest natural resource, the Sun.

http://www.carbonsoft.net/

Nina and Robert are social entrepreneurs and activists, founders of "IndyACT". They are interested in tackling all kind of social, environmental and cultural issues. In March 2011 they created "BIKE IT ON" a project around energy sustainability. Their idea is using bikes to generate electricity and to create awareness on the footprint of fossil fuels. The first BIKE IT ON event took place on September 2011 in Austria, where six bikes powered the concert of the funk band "the Cosmophoncs". In new year IndyACT will provide BIKE IT ON for workshops in schools and will embark on a ZERO-Carbon Bicycle Concert Tour from Passau down to Budapest.

www.indyact.at/bikeiton.htm

Water is scarce. And getting more so all the time. Organica is a global water management leader with patented water technology for treating and recycling wastewater. They combine traditional biological wastewater treatment methods with sophisticated ecological engineering, innovative process design and efficient control software.

www.organicawater.com

Design, physical theater, animation and experimentation with materials identify Leo as somewhere between an inventor, researcher and artist, which finally lead him to discover the "art toy”. His initiative Qoonas brings to life traditional imaginary beings and legends. Qoonas are thematic collections of fantasy characters from the mythical universe, handmade from wood and produced in limited edition. The production of animated short films tell the origin stories of these characters, reinterpreted in a playful way.

www.qoonas.com

More Associates creates carbon behaviour change software, integrated with user-centred design. The organisation was created by founding HUB member Luke Nicholson and has since grown to around ten staff members. Their current initiative, CarbonCulture,pioneers new ways of organising to reduce energy consumption and runs pilot schemes in a number of UK government departments.

http://www.moreassociates.com/

Verbeterdebuurt runs an award-winning platform that engages people to improve their neighborhood. Through their mobile and web application people can post problems and ideas and engage in positive action for their communities. 300 out of 418 councils in the Netherlands participate in their projects and thousands of issues have been addressed.

www.verbeterdebuurt.nl

After having founded the leading carbon offsetting company "myclimate.org", Renat co-founded Southpole Carbon to enable the implementation and operation of high-quality emission-reduction projects that address climate change and sustainable development. Renat has been recognized for his innovative approaches to climate change by becoming the Swiss Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the year 2012.

www.southpolecarbon.com

Instituto Educadigital (IED), is a non-profit organization that helps embed a digital culture within schools and educational public spaces in Brazil. Their mission is to create new learning opportunities to foster human development. IED works in partnership with social organizations, companies and governmental institutions that are interested in building a qualitative educaitonal system in Brazil.

educadigital.org.br

Christoph believes in connecting people for meaningful activities in their free time. He therefore founded Spontacts, a mobile app that allows finding like-minded people for spontaneous activities, such as playing soccer, going to the mountains for a hike or organizing a flash mob.

www.spontacts.com

Carmen runs Rambler, a clothing label by and for homeless teenagers. Streetkids are shaping its brand and they get a platform and a part of the profit. She started by shooting portraits of children in Ghana’s orphanages, and then in London. By juxtaposing two unusual extremes - fashion and homelessnes - she manages to change general public mindsets and enable homeless youth to reintegrate.

www.rmblr.com

What makes a budding mathematician change course and transform into an environmental facilitator? Through the right people and conversations of substance, Mabule Mokhine was introduced to the world of environmental sustainability in Johannesburg’s CBD at the GreenHouse Project (GHP). Here he found the space to run with his passion: community development programmes. Mabule was subsequently brought onto the GHP team and has played a valuable role in consolidating their projects. He is also a trained facilitator with Common Purpose and has used his approach towards responsible leadership in advancing GHP’s impact.

http://www.greenhouse.org.za/

An Ottawa software developer believes video games can be more than mindless entertainment — they can help educate young minds about the world around them. 3 years ago, David Rust-Smith began programming Bibz. The game is now raising funds for Ethiopian orphans. The idea is simple: players try to get their characters to jump on their opponents’ heads without getting jumped on in return. Up to 4 gamers can play at a time. Bibz was designed as a bit of a tribute to the Mario Bros. arcade game, which was released in 1983.

bibzgame.com

Roman is the first Hub Zürich Fellow and deservedly so: He quit his job as a marketing director at a big multinational in order to create a more sustainable way of doing agriculture. His venture “UrbanFarmers” has developed a unique aquaponic technology that allows growing both food and fish in an organic closed-loop system. Besides the ecological aspect, the intention is to bring agriculture back to the city in a hyper-local way and therefore get people back in touch with their food.

urbanfarmers.ch

Germán Argüelles is co-founder of InspiraSports which is a social enterprise specialized in the field of sports for development.Over decades, sport emerged as an increasingly effective tool in the field of social action. Both NGOs and public and private organizations are beginning to incorporate sport as part of its CSR strategy and InspiraSports helps them do so effectively.

http://www.inspirasports.org/

Starting with a junior enterprise company in college in 2006 they created Raízes Turismo e Desenvolvimento Local, a consulting firm through which they developed several projects in tourism, associations, training and promotion of destinations, among others. In 2009 they created Raízes Artesanato, a social business to improve the market of solidarity handcraft in Jequitinhonha Valley and North of Minas Gerais. By the end of 2011, Raízes had worked with over 20 artisan groups, having bought almost 1,500 handicrafts and disseminating the work and culture of these groups in various events.

raizesds.com.br

Puentes Global means “Global Bridges”. Their purpose: bridging the globalisation generated gaps in semi-skilled, specialized labor market segments and through this alleviate poverty. Driven by strong mutual values the Puentes team has the dedication, commitment, and impetus to promote sustainable, positive change in complex social contexts through their mission.

http://puentesglobal.org

Dusan and Juergen are a perfect example of a collaborative project that has come from within the Hub. Over coffee they realised they shared the desire to create something new and positive. So why not do this together, maximising their skills, networks and possibility for impact. They created an NGO called EEIP, a platform for Business and Policy. EEIP facilitates open and inclusive dialogue around energy efficiency between the major players of the industry and EU policy makers.

www.greencog.eu

Resonance is passionate about mobilising risk capital with values. A specialist financial intermediary, which connects investors looking for more than just a financial return with social enterprises that have a clear potential for growth and high social impact. Working with social enterprises predominantly throughout the UK, Resonance assists them in their development strategies and matching them with investors, large and small, who desire to get involved and invest in sustainable, well-planned, values-based projects.

http://www.resonance.ltd.uk

After a life spent working in the banking sector, Luciana dropped her successful career to found Officina Creativa. Since 2007, the cooperative has dedicated itself to “Made in Carcere”, a social business that helps women prisoners become agents of their own change. The women apply their creativity and imagination to make bags and accessories out of recycled textiles, showing that change happens in small steps.

www.madeincarcere.it

Pozible co-founder Rick Chen decided to leave the hustle and bustle of Sydney and run his new venture from Melbourne. The Pozible.com.au website was set up in 2010 to provide the creative industry in Australia a purpose-built platform to raise funds and pre-sell items relating to their work. The platform has evolved into an online tool to gauge demand for new ideas and also to provide creative social ventures an alternative way to raise awareness of their project whilst raising funds for their cause.

www.pozible.com.au

Eppela is the new crowdfunding project which lets people share ideas online and get the necessary funding to launch them. Social innovation, art, technology, sustainability, cinema, design, music, literature, no-profit initiatives: think up ideas, share them, get them funded, and bring them to life. A showcase with just one goal: to bring the creators of projects and their public together, so they can drive innovative projects to realisation.

http://www.eppela.com/

Ogunte promotes and supports women who want to lead the social economy and helps businesses to measure and articulate their economic and social impact. They also run the annual Women's Social Innovation Leadership Awards and Make a Wave, the first pre-incubator dedicated to Women Social Entrepreneurs. Their vision: A better World, powered by women.

www.ogunte.com/innovation/