Grand Challenges for conservation
Our prizes and challenges allow us to focus a growing community of innovators on the world's toughest environmental problems – bringing in new perspectives, technologies, and innovations into conservation, and creating a network of new solutions that will transform the field and change the perception of what is possible.
Instead of looking for the needle in the haystack, we incentivize the needle to find us. By inspiring innovation through a challenge, we can change entire ecosystems of solvers, and expand the focus and resources dedicated to a problem. There’s a long history of prizes and challenges to develop new technologies – challenges have created entirely new economies and industries – from private space companies to self-driving cars. But now it’s time to use them for the biggest challenge of all: To save the planet.
How does a Grand Challenge work? Learn about the history, process, and benefits in our infographic.
Cxl’s Prizes & challenges
+ Fire Grand Challenge
In remote, low-resource environments, communities often manage lands and fight fires with little outside help. Yet traditional and local communities have deep knowledge and practice of fire management. Their approaches, merged with new science and technology, can generate improved tools for effective response in our rapidly changing environments.
+ Microfiber Innovation Challenge
Plastic microfibers from our clothing are the source of 35% of all microplastics in the ocean. This Challenge is awarding $650,000 in prizes to winning innovations to prevent further microfiber pollution. We’re supporting upstream innovations to replace plastic in textiles and/or prevent microfiber shedding. Five winners were announced in March 2022.
+ Artisanal Mining Grand Challenge
The demand for minerals in our phones, computers, and jewelry often causes devastating environmental and human health impacts - from deforestation to mercury poisoning. We awarded $750,000 in prizes for solutions to transform artisanal mining in October 2020. The current round of this Challenge focuses on solutions for the Amazon region and offers more than $1 million in prizes.
+ Global Cooling Prize
This $3 million competition asked innovators to develop a climate-friendly residential cooling solution to provide people around the world access to cooling without warming the planet. This technology could prevent up to 100 gigatons of CO2-equivalent emissions by 2050. The Prize was launched in partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute and the government of India in 2018, and winners were awarded in April 2021.
+ ARSX Challenge
CXL partnered with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) for the ARSX 2020 Challenge, awarding $100,000 in prize money proposals that addressed disruptive agricultural or livestock pests and pathogens in an innovative manner with potential for scalable results.
+ ‘Ohiʻa Challenge
CXL, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the National Park Service partnered to identify advanced technological solutions to detect and prevent the spread of Rapid ‘Ōhiʻa Death (ROD), an invasive fungal pathogen that has decimated Hawaiian forests.
Landscape Analyses
Launching the Grand Challenges for Ocean Conservation
As part of our scoping and design process for The Grand Challenges for Conservation, Conservation X Labs develops a landscape analysis that encompasses all current innovation in the industry.
These reports demonstrate our thought leadership and are considered industry standards for open innovation. Each report identifies the most pressing challenges in the field where technology and innovation can create exponential solutions to extinction’s underlying drivers.
Our first report, Launching the Grand Challenges for Ocean Conservation, outlines the most impactful ocean conservation challenges and a pathway to solve them.
Saving water for nature: TEN GRAND CHALLENGES FOR WATER AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION
As part of our scoping and design process for the Grand Challenges for Conservation, Conservation X Labs developed a landscape analysis that identifies ten of the most pressing challenges in the field where technology and innovation can lead to exponential solutions to address the underlying drivers of extinction.
Freshwater ecosystems need revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, solutions to scale over the next decade. Saving Water for Nature: Ten Grand Challenges for Water and Biodiversity Conservation outlines opportunities for technology and innovation to radically transform the future for freshwater ecosystems and the human communities that rely on them.
scaling & accelerators
After each Grand Challenges for Conservation, we work to bring promising innovations to scale by creating incubator and accelerator programs.
Launched with World Wildlife Fund (US), Oceans X Labs was the world’s first conservation technology accelerator designed to develop scalable innovations that directly address wicked sustainability challenges for aquaculture, and to bring the most transformative innovations from the Blue Economy Challenge to scale.
Conservation X Labs built and operated OXL securing $2M+ of external investment for the 6-company cohort of aquaculture companies.
Running a Grand Challenge with CXL
The cxl process
Conservation X Labs selects and designs our challenges through a multi-month research and development process that consults dozens of global experts and applies our proprietary analysis to identify wicked problems for conservation ripe for innovation. These activities include:
Gathering world-class experts for Big Thinks
Consulting global field leaders
Conducting extensive research
Leveraging our proprietary analysis
Applying our open innovation expertise
Building & strengthening partnerships
Designing exponential open innovation competitions
Creating follow-on opportunities to scale winners
Global Leaders at the Water & Biodiversity Conservation Big Think, 2018
Global Leaders at the The Ocean Conservation Big Think, 2015
