We are proud to present to you valuable insights from The Single-Use Plastics (SUP) Challenge, supported by the PREVENT Waste Alliance and ECCA Family Foundation and run by The Incubation Network!

The SUP Challenge supported eight Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) and 76 startups across across India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. A total of 934.7 kg of plastics were avoided during the period of the pilots that were conducted with 60 foodservice businesses.

A wealth of insights and data to fuel the fight against plastic pollution was generated. From this, an insights report, life cycle assessment, and technical playbook have been developed by The Incubation Network with PXP Sustainability and The Circulate Initiative to shed light on the impact and potential for growth of these solutions:

• The SUP Challenge – 2022 Market Insights Report
• Technical Playbook: Accelerating Circular Solutions to Single-Use Plastics
• Life Cycle Assessment Report (alternative solutions vs. SUPs)
• The Single-Use Plastics Life Cycle Assessment Calculator 

The technical playbook and the life cycle assessment report were presented at the Circular Solutions Festival of the PREVENT Waste Alliance in September 2022. The recordings are available on our Youtube channel:

• Youtube | Playbook: Best Practices to Support Circularity Market Access
• YouTube | Impact and Environment Measurements of Upstream Solutions in the Food & Beverage Industry

An overview of the selected 76 startups can be found here.

The SUP Challenge was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the PREVENT Waste Alliance and by ECCA Familiy Foundation.

The aim was to accelerate startups in South and Southeast Asia and pilot their solutions with the Food & Beverage industry as a way to reduce single-use plastic waste. Following a kickoff session, each ESO received a funding amount of at least US$50,000 and technical assistance to support the pilot projects under their startups.