STARTUP AUTOBAHN - where Startups meet the industry
And the winner is...
With the Global Innovation Award, Plug and Play honours the work of STARTUP AUTOBAHN partners and startups who successfully come together and apply their knowledge, passion, and innovations, to solve challenges facing the industry today. Together with Porsche, Motherson and the startup CircularTree, BASF has been awarded the Global Innovation Award of Program 8.
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STARTUP AUTOBAHN is an innovative platform that connects startups of all development stages with industry-leading corporate partners to combine technical know-how with professional expertise.
The process starts with a global 100-day scouting phase where nearly 1,000 startups are screened, evaluated and clustered by experts from the automotive value chain. A group of 50 startups are then selected for presenting their projects. Finally, the 30 most promising startups are starting a partnerships of upcoming pilot projects.
In the next 100 days the startups will develop concepts and prototypes – always in close cooperation with the respective partners. The business partners give technical support and provide input. At the end of the project the corporate partners are deciding if they continue to invest in the startup.
During the Expo day, the startups are presenting the outcome of their projects. This event takes place twice a year for a broad audience of investors, researchers, developers and engineers.
The project: digital CO2 tracking
What is the outcome when blockchain, sustainability, innovative companies and a startup come together? A digital tool for calculating the carbon footprint of a complete car - CarbonBlock!
Porsche has committed itself to produce cars with low CO2 emissions and was looking for a digital solution to calculate the CO2 footprint for an entire car. For this purpose, a group of BASF Sustainability experts provided extensive data on standard polyamides and polyamides with a reduced carbon footprint based on sustainable raw materials. Additional data from the automotive supplier Motherson on the manufacturing process and the transport of the components were also included in the calculations. The start-up Circulartree developed the blockchain-based “CarbonBlock” solution, taking into account all standards, in which the figures are bundled and calculated.
Porsche is now able to calculate CO2 values for individual components or, in the future, for a complete vehicle in just a few steps. The possible effects of ChemCycling materials from BASF as an alternative material for further reducing the CO2 footprint are also assessed
Sustainability and digitization are not only in the focus of the BASF strategy, they are also becoming very important across the whole industry. "CarbonBlock" is a digital platform to securely exchange data, increase transparency in supply chains and support suppliers and car manufacturers in the construction of sustainable components.
Learn more about BASF sustainability projects
