April 15th, 2014 by Derek Markham

Originally published on Ecopreneurist.

Calling all sustainable entrepreneurs, eco-entrepreneurs, green business startups, and innovative inventors!

Here’s your chance to be in the running for $680,000 in funding to develop and bring to market your product or service that reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Instead of relying solely on policy and governmental regulations to address greenhouse gas emissions, entrepreneurs and innovators are also in need, in order to come up with and implement market solutions to mitigating climate change.

The Postcode Lottery Green Challenge offers one possible method of getting funding behind ideas that deserve to be developed and deployed into green businesses.

“People aren’t going to stop consuming. Instead, we must offer the consumer a green alternative to bring climate change to a halt. The Postcode Lottery Green Challenge is about stimulating the development of these alternatives.” – Sir Richard Branson

The eighth annual Postcode Lottery Green Challenge is now open for entries, and accepting submissions for green business plans that can reduce CO2 emissions and are developed enough to bring to market in the next two years. The winner will receive €500.000 ($680,000 USD) toward their plan, and one or two runners-up will be awarded €200.000 ($272,000 USD) toward theirs.

The criteria for green business plans to be entered into the Green Challenge include:

having the potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by an amount you can roughly estimate

be developed enough to execute

be realizable as a usable product or service within the next two years

preferably have integrated Cradle2Cradle principles in their designs

Entries to the Green Challenge will be accepted through June 3 at 5:59 am ET, and all of the details can be found at Green Challenge.