IMS Luxembourg's Christian Scharff with the Ouni team and Chamber of Commerce president Carlo Thelen at the People's Vote awards on Tuesday Delano

IMS Luxembourg's Christian Scharff with the Ouni team and Chamber of Commerce president Carlo Thelen at the People's Vote awards on Tuesday Delano

The cooperative, which opened in rue Glesener in December 2016 and sells 800 package-free products, received 80% of the votes in the food category at the awards, hosted at the Luxembourg Congrès on Tuesday afternoon.

Creos was awarded in the energy category for its deployment of 800 public charging stations in Luxembourg by 2020. The charge stations can be used by electric cars and plug-in hybrids, and are powered by 100% sustainable energy sources.

PwC’s carpooling application for employees scooped the mobility prize. It incentivises co-workers to travel together by offering a free parking space at work and has been used by 11,228 people since the beginning of 2017.

The building prize went to Coeba, Dave Lefèvre and Associates for the construction of the Transition House in Angelsberg, a positive energy house which used biodegradable, reusable and recyclable natural materials.

Ama Mundu Technologies was awarded the industry prize for its innovative solution which extracts water and fertilizer from liquid manure and digestat production.

Luxembourg microfinance institution Microlux won the prize in the finance category.

All prizes were awarded based on real-time voting at IMS Luxembourg’s ten-year anniversary event on Tuesday. Altogether, the contest received 48 submissions, which were whittled down to 18 for the vote during which each finalist had 100 seconds to talk about their project.

A number of inspiring speakers also gave talks at the event, including climatologist Jean Jouzel, endurance swimmer and patron of the oceans Lewis Pugh and Arts 2030 ambassador Natasha Tsakos.

American economist Jeremy Rifkin’s Third Industrial Revolution for a sustainable future is in the early stages of being implemented in Luxembourg based on a preliminary report published in November 2016. On Tuesday, Chamber of Commerce president Carlo Thelen described the road map as an opportunity for society and future generations. “Companies are architects of the future and intermediaries for the consumer and worker,” he said, adding that for companies to bring change it required investment in innovation, training and CSR.