Partners and Funders

The IKEA Foundation is co-funding ZE-Gen.

The IKEA Foundation is a strategic philanthropy that focuses its grant making efforts on tackling the two biggest threats to children’s futures: poverty and climate change. It currently grants more than €200 million per year to help improve family incomes and quality of life while protecting the planet from climate change. Since 2009, the IKEA Foundation has granted more than €1.5 billion to create a better future for children and their families. In 2021 the Board of the IKEA Foundation decided to make an additional €1 billion available over the next five years to accelerate the reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions.

The Climate Emergency Collaboration Group (CECG) has contributed funding to the ZE-Gen Circularity Challenge as part of its work to support the Energy Transition Council.

CECG is a philanthropic collaboration between some of the world’s largest climate philanthropies. Our mission is to support and build a diverse ecosystem of actors to drive just and ambitious multilateral climate action that is more responsive to the needs of the world’s most climate vulnerable. Ensuring the success of the annual UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COPs) is central to this mission, and we believe that each COP has the potential to be a catalysing moment for collective action, impactful organizing, and powerful storytelling.

The Energy Transition Council is a multilateral platform that brings together over forty (40) Governments and institutions offering global political, financial, and technical leadership in the energy sector. It supports collaboration with partner countries to find, coordinate, and implement solutions more rapidly, including technical assistance through the Council’s Rapid Response Facility (RRF). The Council focuses on a range of thematic areas to accelerate the clean energy transition, including integrated energy planning; distributed and large-scale renewables; green grids; energy efficiency, enabling clean energy investments (policy and instruments), – whilst ensuring a just transition and improving energy access for all.

The Carbon Trust co-convenes the ZE-Gen initiative with responsibility of bringing existing partners together and engaging with the private sector to identify new partnerships. The Carbon Trust is also a co-lead of the Circularity Challenge and ZE-Gen Innovation Fund.

The Carbon Trust is a global climate organisation driven by the mission to accelerate the move to a decarbonised future. We have been pioneering decarbonisation for more than 20 years for businesses, governments, and organisations. Drawing on a network of over 400 experts internationally, the Carbon Trust guides organisations through their journey to Net Zero. From strategic planning and target setting to delivery, activation, and communication – we provide smarter ways to turn intent into impact.

Innovate UK co-convenes the ZE-Gen initiative. Through the ZE-Gen initiative, Innovate UK is responsible for delivering grant funding through the ZE-Gen Innovation Fund which aims to accelerate technologies and business models to market.

With a strong business focus, Innovate UK drives growth by working with companies to de-risk, enable and support innovation. It connects businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth. Innovate UK funds business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drives business investment into research and development. Its support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions.

The Access to Energy Institute strives to become the collaborative and not- for-profit research & development Institute that will advance the solar revolution in developing countries. The A2EI primarily delivers solar powered solutions and appliances specifically for small businesses and smallholder farmers.

The focus is on replacing small fuel gensets with solar business systems that can power productive use appliances which will allow users to generate a stable income, generate jobs and create robust local economic networks. The A2EI also develops software and data solutions for the energy access sector.

Open Capital is a management consulting and financial advisory firm that drives growth, enables investment, and builds markets across Africa. We help businesses, investors, development partners, and the public sector to identify opportunities and deliver unique, impactful solutions. Our mission is to advance African economies and build future generations of business leaders.

Since 2010, we have completed over 1200 engagements across 27 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and raised over $1.2 billion in capital for impactful businesses across the continent. Our locally based team of over 150 full-time staff brings experience from the world’s top consultancies, private equity firms, investment banks, and development organisation. For more information, please visit www.opencapital.com.

Integrate to Zero is a global philanthropic initiative that provides insights, supports deployment and advocates for scaling consumer-generated energy systems, ‘on-site, on-road, on-grid’, so that integration happens more quickly and inclusively.

Integrate to Zero work collaboratively, linking global expertise with local implementors.

Intellecap – the impact consulting arm of the Aavishkaar Group – is a pioneer in providing innovative solutions that help build enabling ecosystems and channel capital to create and nurture a more sustainable, equitable society. We work with businesses, governments, funders and investors to shape the way markets work in service of, among other things, some of the leading climate challenges faced by especially the underserved.

Intellecap works across multiple thematic practices like climate change, energy, agriculture, gender & livelihoods, circularity, natural resources management, nutrition and WaSH and financial inclusion. Across 800+ engagements in Asia, Africa and beyond, we have helped search, seed, support and scale enterprises, develop value chains and business models and mobilize communities for creating social and environmental impact at scale. Under ZE-Gen, we are conducting the Asia and Pacific Country prioritization and market research. More details about Intellecap may be found here: www.intellecap.com.