The start-up, CarbonCloud, is being awarded a grant by the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre

The Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre is awarding a grant to CarbonCloud for their innovation, CarbonAte, which enables restaurants to calculate the climate impact of their food. The grant is SEK 100,000, and a part of the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre’s 100 year anniversary celebration. The aim of the grant is to foster the meetings industry.

The Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre looked for a candidate who is developing an idea or innovation which, for example, increases competitiveness or improves the revenue or cost side. CarbonCloud is being awarded the grant in recognition for the fact that their service has a positive impact on climate and profitability, while making things easier for chefs and cooks within the food sector, and through that the revenue of the meetings industry.

“In our view, CarbonAte has fantastic potential. It is an innovation in which digitalisation and sustainability go hand in hand, and which creates an aid which benefits the environment and restaurants, as well as individual guests and visitors. Sustainability is an important area for our operation. It’s in all of our thinking, both as a meeting place and the workplace”, says Carin Kindbom, President and CEO of the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre Group.

CarbonCloud started as an idea developed from a research project at Chalmers University of Technology, which has now taken off. With David Bryngelsson in the team, as CEO and co-founder, the research revolved around the climate issue, and what can be done about it, focusing on the food sector.

“What we eat plays a major role in the climate issue, as research in the area has shown, but we discovered that the people who take decisions about food were not aware of that. Our climate labelling service makes things clearer for both chefs and restaurant guests, and has been received with real enthusiasm. The grant from the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre is very gratifying and valuable for us as a newly-established company”,says David Bryngelsson, CEO of CarbonCloud.

CarbonCloud and their climate-labelling service, CarbonAte, is helping restaurants to calculate the climate impact of every ingredient used in their food preparation, and also gives the consumer a clear climate calculation for every dish presented on the menu. In March, CarbonAte began collaborating with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which has launched the One Planet Plate concept. One part of this collaboration consists of the development and design of the Food Calculator, which makes it possible for private individuals to calculate the climate impact of various types of ingredients.

The Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre has been committed to sustainability for many years, as a natural part of its overall operation. The restaurants are no exception, and their own restaurant, West Coast with its chef Johan Lilja (image), is now the first to test CarbonAte.

As a foundation, the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre does not have individual owners or investors, and is financially independent. This also means that all profits are invested in the operation in the long term, focusing largely on sustainable profitability.