Sharing insights

This report is about the future of proteins. To keep feeding our ever-growing population, we need to find good alternatives to animal protein. Thankfully, innovations in this area are cropping up thick and fast. The trends we see there are many. Download our report.

During Impact Nation, we match eight medium-sized companies with a sustainability challenge to an innovative solution provider, and support them for 100 days in running a successful pilot together. From this experience, we’ve identified common challenges that SMEs seek to tackle within the areas of circularity, climate, and social sustainability, as well as fresh innovators working to target key issues in these fields.

The sustainability challenges of our times call for collaboration that is authentic and generative in shifting behaviors in diverse systems to better embody the just and sustainable future we imagine. In pursuit of this, we have witnessed a growing movement in “ecosystem-building” whereby diverse stakeholders converge to make change happen. What is this work of ecosystem-building & how can ecosystem-builders better learn from each other? This reflection piece describes the lessons learnt from our own practice and the experiences of peers on these questions.

This paper offers insights into the Impact entrepreneurs field in Amsterdam and beyond. We share some emerging responses and recommendations for action to ensure the viability – and thriveability – of Amsterdam’s impact entrepreneurs and social innovators through the current Covid-19 situation and for the post-Covid-19 period of economic renewal.

The Investment Ready Program (IRP) is Impact Hub Amsterdam’s accelerator for growth-stage impact companies with scalable solutions to global problems. Each cohort of selected entrepreneurs engages in a systematic review of their business strategy, model, and team, before crafting a validated growth and investment plan. In 12 days of training sessions, peer- to-peer interaction, individual mentoring, and legal and financial coaching, the entrepreneurs grow their business from a startup into a mature company. The finale: a pitch on Demo Day for our network of purpose-driven impact investors and funds.

The City of Amsterdam employs about 15,500 people, making it Amsterdam’s biggest employer. Impact Hub Amsterdam has a community of nearly 500 social innovators. How do we enhance the collaboration between the municipality and these entrepreneurs? The answer lies in building an effective, city-wide ecosystem for impact.

Climate change. Loss of biodiversity. Famine and obesity. A national nitrogen crisis. Our current ways of food production and consumption are not sustainable. This report investigates two timely questions: how has Covid-19 impacted sustainable food entrepreneurs? And how should Impact Hb Amsterdam proceed to leverage its Food Ecosystem to accelerate the transition to a sustainable food system?

How much does co-working spaces actually contribute to the development of skills and social & work inclusion of young people? Through which mechanisms does co-working promote solidarity, protagonism, involvement and participation? Co(youth)working shapes guidelines to increase the social impact of co-working spaces on the reference territory. Download the booklet to build an open space to welcome young people and to foster the economic and social development of the host community.

We proudly present our map of the Sustainable Food Ecosystem in the Netherlands. With the people and organisations of our sustainable food ecosystem, we’ve created 4 publications, 12 events, and 7 growth programmes, and accelerated 51 food startups since 2019!

The ‘Mapping Refugee & Migrant Entrepreneurship Ecosystems in Europe’ is a study conducted between January and June 2020 in collaboration with The Human Safety Net. The research addresses the information gap on how entrepreneurial support organisations should effectively develop service offering to both refugees and migrants to equip them with the skills needed to start and grow their business.

Throughout the food chain – from soil to mouth – people and organisations are working on ways to make the food system healthier and more sustainable. They try to produce with less and less impact on the environment and climate, generating less waste and with more attention to animal welfare. Impact enterprises place this kind of issues at the center of their business operations.

We are proud to share the highlights from our community and offerings over the last 2 years. We also mention the initiatives dear to our Hub hearts that we delivered in response to the fallouts of Covid-19. In this report, you can read about how we live our purpose and values as an impact business, as well as the impact we have made with our community through our thematic ecosystems to entrepreneur change in food, circularity, fashion, and inclusion.

In this report, five cutting-edge pioneers of the short food supply chain discuss their drive and their mission. The founders of De Melkbrouwerij, Herenboeren, Boerschappen, Vokomokum & Atlantis Handelshuis use innovative, short-chain business models to build a fundamentally different system.

Our Impact Report is the perfect opportunity to understand how our network collaborates on solving societal issues in an entrepreneurial way. We are not only facilitating the emergence of a different world sometime in the future – we are living that world today, and challenging current socio-economic systems in the process. The challenge of doing the new in the context of traditional systems is not easy, but our community of impactmakers is learning every day about what works and what doesn’t, who is ready and who isn’t. We should celebrate these challenges more. They are evidence that we are testing the system and being tested by it.

We developed the wheel as part of our Inclusion ecosystem. You can reach out to supporting parties in all categories, from education to funding.