Explorer for sustainability

Bertrand dedicates his life to demonstrate the opportunities lying in sustainable development and to raise interest in profitable solutions to protect the environment.

Pioneering vision

As a pioneer, he understood that fighting climate change with clean and efficient technologies is opening-up new industrial markets and offering a unique and profitable opportunity for economic growth.

Collaborators

The Solar Impulse Foundation has entered in close and impactful collaboration with several international institutions, corporations, states and cities around the world to facilitate the identification, assessment, funding and implementation of efficient solutions.

Supporters

The Solar Impulse Foundation is working with like-minded incubators, accelerators and organizations, creating a qualitative worldwide network to boost the adoption of efficient solutions.

The search-engine for climate action

The Explorer is a one-of-a-kind search engine that showcases profitable climate solutions from all over the world which are part of an ever-growing, curated, and publicly-accessible database.

Explore

Industrial Processes & Consumer Goods

Buildings & Construction

Utilities (Water, Energy, Waste)

Agrifood & Natural Environment

Mobility

A label focused on both environment and profitability

Assessed by independent experts, the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution label, serves as a credible marker of quality to decision-makers in business and governments.

Submit your Efficient Solution

For the first time a label assesses the economic profitability of solutions that protect the environment.
Sign up to become a Member of the World Alliance for Efficient Solutions and submit it now!

What is the Experts’ role in evaluating the Solutions?

The Experts are key in the labelling process, using their technical and professional expertise to assess and critique Solutions seeking the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label.

Turning Ideas into Action: Pioneers Forum & Pioneer Awards 2025

Written by Olivia Mahaux 5 min read

Brussels, Belgium, 8 October 2025

The Solar Impulse Foundation gathered 350 innovators, corporates, investors and policymakers for the third Pioneers Forum at the Maison de la Poste in Brussels, with one clear goal: turning clean and profitable solutions into concrete action by connecting those who develop them with those who can implement them.

Connecting people who make things happen

The Pioneers Forum is built around a simple idea: bringing together people who can turn ecological ambition into reality. Through more than 450 curated matchmaking meetings and inspiring dialogues, participants explored tangible ways to deploy clean technologies and scale impact.

The day opened with the Solar Impulse Foundation President, Bertrand Piccard challenging the way we talk about climate action.

“The wrong narrative has been used for too long. You cannot motivate industry, finance or politics if you say climate action is sacrificial, expensive or will slow down the economy.
Our narrative is the opposite: fighting climate change with solutions that are economically attractive, that create jobs and offer clear advantages for policymakers”.
— Bertrand Piccard

This was followed by a major announcement from Alexandrina Boyanova, Head of the Operational Management and Policy Support Division at the European Investment Bank (EIB), unveiling a €17 billion program to boost energy efficiency in SMEs. The announcement highlighted the power of aligning finance, technology and policy to drive growth for European small and medium-sized enterprises.

Exploration as a driver for change

In an inspiring exchange titled Climate Impulse: Innovation born from Exploration, Bertrand Piccard and Vincent Colegrave, Head of Syensqo.ai, shared the vision behind Climate Impulse, the next great challenge: a flight around the world in a zero-emission green hydrogen aircraft. Developed with partners Syensqo, UM6P, OCP Group and BREITLING, the project embodies the pioneering spirit that unites innovation, exploration and sustainability.

The Pioneer Awards: Celebrating the doers

At the heart of the event, the Pioneer Awards celebrated corporates and public entities that have implemented one of the Efficient Solutions labeled by the Solar Impulse Foundation to reduce their environmental impact.
Throughout the morning, ten finalist duos, each pairing an innovator with an adopter, took the stage to present their use cases.
The ceremony honored five winning duos across key sectors:

Coop Norge x Danfoss / Aneo Retail / BASE Foundation – Energy-efficient retail refrigeration
EDF x MyTroc Pro – Circular reuse of industrial equipment
Swapfiets x NOWOS – Circular battery repair for micromobility
City of Mykolaiv x Boreal Light GmbH – Solar-powered desalination in Ukraine
Indicium Dynamics x Robotics Cats – AI-powered wildfire prevention

These collaborations set the standard for what should become the new status quo and demonstrate that protecting the environment is not a cost but an opportunity for innovation, efficiency and growth. Meet all the finalists here.

Why the Pioneers Forum matters

The Pioneers Forum is not about promises or prototypes. It celebrates real solutions, technologies and models that have already proven their impact, and the people behind them. What makes this event special is the shared mission and mindset that drive collaboration. Here, we do not debate whether solutions work; we focus on how, and how soon.

“Pioneers are those who start by believing, continue by reflecting, and end up finding the solution.”
— Jean-Luc Crucke, Belgian Federal Minister of Mobility, Climate and Environment

Looking ahead

The 2025 edition once again showed that clean technologies are not a vision for tomorrow but a reality today. By creating the right connections and rewarding those who act, the Solar Impulse Foundation continues to accelerate the deployment of solutions that are good for the planet and good for business.
Thank you to all participants, partners and supporters, including Jean-Luc Crucke, Belgian Federal Minister of Mobility, Climate and Environment, and our partners BREITLING, Airbus, Syensqo, BNP Paribas, SLB, Schneider Electric, T-Mobile, ADEO, Bekaert, Région Ile de France, Région Grand Est, AXA, Fondation ENGIE, Bouygues Group.

See you in 2026 for the next edition in Switzerland!

Written by Olivia Mahaux on October 15, 2025

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