A prize fund of £100,000 is up for grabs for budding innovators and entrepreneurs who contribute useful ways in which companies can utilise geography and geospatial data to help embed sustainability into their operations.

The GeoVation Challenge, run by mapping agency Ordnance Survey, is seeking ideas around helping businesses see value in their waste arisings and also new ways to collaborative, irrespective of geography and social demographics.

According to Dr Chris Parker from Ordnance Survey, there are huge opportunities for geography to be harnessed in a variety of ways, which could help ramp up corporate sustainability.

“There are companies who are extremely green and are reaping the benefits of improving their environmental performance, whilst there are a significant number of businesses that could do more,” he said.

“I am hopeful that this challenge will generate a range of innovative and scalable ideas, which can be implemented at both local and national levels.”

Ordnance Survey will be offering a slice of £100,000 in development funding for best use of its data, including OS OpenData and OS OpenSpace, together with other open data.

Mapping data is already widely used by organisations to improve community waste management, public transport routing, car sharing schemes and planning for greener towns and cities.

The challenge, which runs until 1 May, is being supported by the Environment Agency. All winning ideas will be developed into prototype ventures.

Maxine Perella

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