Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based CEO’ operating in the Sustainability space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Michelle You
Co-founder and CEO of Supercritical
Michelle You is the co-founder and CEO of Supercritical, a software platform fighting the climate crisis by helping businesses get to net zero. A former venture partner at LocalGlobe, where she focused on climate investments, Michelle is a repeat entrepreneur with a proven track record. As co-founder of Songkick, she grew the company to over 20 million monthly unique users and raised capital from Y Combinator, Index Ventures and Sequoia before exiting to Warner Music Group in 2017. Contact us through Johrenk7@gmail.com
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About Subak, Supercritical: Supercritical is a software platform that helps businesses reach carbon net zero and tackle the climate crisis.
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Steven Novick
CEO & Founder of Farmstand
Previously built 2 billion-dollar businesses and climbed the 7 Summits including Everest. Beating cancer made him passionate about health + the environment and growing up working class has made him appreciate affordability + convenience.
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About Farmstand: Farmstand is the Earth’s first meal delivery service focused on the Future of Work. We feed your team in the office and at home.
Jessi Baker
Founder & CEO of Provenance
Jessi Baker is the founder of Provenance, building the future of supply chain transparency and product trust on the blockchain. She is an Art and Science hybrid, with Master’s degrees in Engineering from the University of Cambridge and Design from the Royal College of Art. She has worked with brands on technology strategy across the US and Europe, including Adidas, The Four Seasons, The Guggenheim Museum, British Airways and Will.I.Am. She is an associate researcher at the Intel Institute for Sustainable Cities and a regular speaker on technology and social business.
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About Intel, Provenance: Provenance is the leading software solution for sustainability communications
Antoine Argouges
Founder & CEO of tulipshare
Antoine Argouges is the Founder and CEO at Tulipshare.
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About tulipshare: Tulipshare is the first activist investment platform, with a focus on impactful project to make this planet better.
Hasna Kourda
Co-Founder & CEO of Save Your Wardrobe
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About Save Your Wardrobe: FashionTech startup using AI to make Fashion more digital and sustainable
Pierre Paslier
Cofounder & Co-CEO of Notpla
Pierre is a London-based Innovation Design Engineer. He started his career as a Packaging Engineer for L’Oréal in the daytime and hacking 3D-printers in his living room at night. He then decided to study design at the Royal College of Art and in 2013, he co-designed one of the first consumer delta 3D-printers. He loves DIY, especially if it involves drones lifting dangerous electronic components or street art robots redecorating the streets. This passion for innovation led him to co-found two startups, Gravity Sketch (3D creation in VR) and Notpla (edible packaging). Driven by the urge to act on our plastic crisis, he’s now 100% focused on Ooho, the edible water bottle as Co-CEO of Notpla. He has a Masters degree from the RCA’s Innovation Design Engineering programme (MA & MSci) and INSA de Lyon (MEng). He has written articles for Wired Magazine and given a number of conferences about his projects at TEDx conferences in Athens and Warwick.
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About Notpla, Skipping Rocks Lab: Sustainable packaging made from seaweed and plants.
Rodrigo García González
Cofounder, CoCEO of Notpla
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About Notpla, Skipping Rocks Lab: Sustainable packaging made from seaweed and plants.
Simón Torras
CEO of Bageera
Simón Torras is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bageera. He has previous experience as founder and CEO of an early stage venture he launched during his years at university, of which he successfully exited in 2016. After that, he worked as an analyst and associate in the Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley in London. He holds a BBA from ESADE Business School in Barcelona and an MSc from the Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method department from the London School of Economics.
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About Bageera: Unlocking investment opportunities to protect and restore nature
May Al-Karooni
Founder & CEO of Globechain
May Al-Karooni is the founder of Globechain – an award winning British reuse marketplace that connects corporates to charities and smes to redistribute free unwanted items, creating social impact data to its members. May previously worked within the investment banking and asset management industry, fundraising monies for venture capital, property and hedge funds for the last 10 years totaling over £120 million in funds raised. In 2013 May set up Globechain after seeing a demand for a new online circular economy within the waste management industry after her own employer expressed a need to reuse items in a more collaborative way. Globechain has gained huge momentum growing to 10,000 members with eBay as its mentors and securing contracts with some of the world’s largest brands as well as growing a large network of charities nationally and internationally. Globechain works within the retail, commercial and construction industry and last year diverted 5,100,000 kilos from landfill with items being re distributed within the UK as well as abroad as far as Sierra Leone, Guinea, Kenya, Libya and the Ukraine providing savings of over £1,500,000 to charitable causes.
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About Globechain: Globechain is a B2B reuse marketplace connecting businesses to charities, creating social impact data.
Matthew Scanlan
CEO & Co-Founder of Naadam
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About Naadam, Something Navy, Thakoon: Naadam is an American clothing company specializing in affordable, luxury cashmere products.
Duncan Grierson
CEO and Founder of Clim8 Invest
Duncan Grierson is a Entrepreneur with VC experience in Paris, London, Silicon Valley & Chicago. He is a Founder CEO of 2 ventures backed by over £50m from likes of Goldman Sachs, Fidelity et al.
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About Clim8 Invest, Lirica, Moixa Energy Holdings: Clim8 Invest provides an app that allows individuals to invest in industries that work towards fighting climate change.
Jon Bednall
CEO of Epwin Group
Jon has been with Epwin Group for six years, having joined in 2008 as Group Finance Director and then appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2013. Jon has been responsible for significant restructuring of Epwin in that time, as well as devising and managing the merger with Latium in 2012. Jon has a wealth of group managerial experience, including acquisitions and disposals, having previously spent 10 years at BI Group, a Kuwaiti owned engineering group, becoming Group Finance Director and then Chief Operating Officer.Prior to that Jon qualified as an ACA at KPMG in Birmingham where he spent six years in a number of roles.
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About Epwin Group: Epwin Group Plc is a leading supplier of low maintenance, sustainable and energy efficient products to the new build.
Jamie Cox
Co-Founder & CEO of TreeCard
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About Flare, TreeCard: Treecard is a fullstack green finance platform, allowing consumers to spend, save and invest responsibly.
Mankaran Ahluwalia
Co-Founder and CEO of YAYZY
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About YAYZY: Yayzy is an application for carbon footprint calculator.
Cristian Parrino
CEO and Co-Founder of Greengame
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About Greengame, OpenUK: Working with organisations to incentivise sustainable behaviour using automated activity detection, gamification and behavioural economics
David Craig
CEO of Iceotope
David Craig is the CEO at Iceotope.
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About Iceotope: Engineered to cool the whole IT stack, in every use case, from Hyperscale to the Extreme Edge
Stephanie Race
CEO of Crop Performance
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About Crop Performance: Crop Performance provides predictive analytics for sustainable agriculture to transition growers to regenerative practices.
Zac Gazit
Founder, CEO & Managing Director of ALVATECH
Zac Gazit is the founder, CEO & Managing Director of ALVATECH & he attended The College of Management Academic Studies in 1997.
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About ALVATECH: ALVATECH develops water treatment solutions and technology for effective farming productivity.
Alexander Patto
Chief Executive Officer of Waterscope
Alexander Patto and Tianheng Zhao founded Waterscope in 2015, since which Alexander has been serving as its chief executive officer.
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About Waterscope: Waterscope is a not-for-profit impact-defined company based in Cambridge.
Alison Wedgwood
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of eWATERservices
Alison Wedgwood is CEO and co-founder of eWATERservices, a tech start-up which is revolutionising the delivery of water in Sub-Saharan Africa. Under Alison’s leadership, a growing global team has developed and deployed a technology and service enabling 265,000 people to access affordable, reliable and clean water near their homes. 660,000,000 litres of water have been dispensed- increasing by the second.
eWATER harnesses the ‘Internet of Things’ to monitor the water systems it installs, and manages the revenue which is generated from users paying affordable fees. The team of locally recruited and trained engineers are then able to maintain the systems resulting in over 90% reliability.
This approach is a consequence of Alison’s years of experience as an economist in the water sector and her visionary leadership to deliver a credible solution which is genuinely game-changing. The service ensures that if a dispenser fails, there is the technical expertise and capital necessary to fix it quickly, making the system sustainable for the future. Using local engineers also provides employment and development.
eWATER’s 24/7 service means improved health, education and economic prosperity for the communities it serves. Young girls don’t miss out on education walking for hours to collect water, as taps are nearby. This drastically improves their prospects and earning potential for their whole lives. Families are sick less often, meaning children are in school more and parents are able to work regularly and earn more income, improving their living standards. Midwives have told us they can now deliver babies safely at any hour as taps aren’t locked at night.
eWATER is also delivering a real impact in the battle with climate change. As communities can access clean water, they no longer need to burn wood or charcoal to boil their water to clean it. This dramatically reduces emissions produced. Finally, when communities pay for their water, it also means that far less water is wasted than at free taps.
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About eWATERservices: Using mobile technology for the accountable collection of user fees to pay for the maintenance of water supply systems forever.
Pete Higgins
Chief Executive Officer of Growers Garden
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About Growers Garden: Growers Garden creates crispy snacks from leftover vegetables to eliminate food waste.
Aisling Byrne
Founder & CEO of Nuw (The Nu Wardrobe LTD)
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About Nuw (The Nu Wardrobe LTD): Nuw is the app to swap preloved fashion. ‘Spend your money anywhere, spend your clothes on Nuw’.
Kiran Bhagotra
CEO and Founder of ProtectBox
Kiran Bhagotra raised £30m for (East) London food village as COO, government chose to do themselves. As consultant helped raise inaugural 3i Indian Infrastructure Fund & Big Issue Social Investment Fund, both on 2nd funds of £20m+. Commercialisation of Nyrstar, securing 3x investment & Top20 country status. In the UK government’s National Archives she worked on machine learning & digital sensitivity review. For the Cabinet Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office in cyber-crime, operational engagement (public/private) and strategic bi-/multi-lateral partnerships. This included the #WeProtect (Children Online) Summit in which 50+ countries attended, committed to a Statement of Action, new legislation and a new fund led by Unicef were launched. As well as a Ministerial (Letwin) Review of critical infrastructure’s resilience to coastal flooding.
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About ProtectBox: NetZero cybersecurity marketplace
Chris Webb
CEO & Founder of GreenGrowth
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About GreenGrowth: GreenGrowth is a sustainable retail investments platform, bringing transparency and personalisation to retail investing
James Brown
Co-founder & CEO of Epic Impact
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About Epic Impact: A mobile app that helps users track their CO2, environmental & social footprint, and rewards them for buying ethical & sustainable products.
Revannth N Murugesan
CEO of Antonym
A visionary mobility entrepreneur, investor, speaker, engineer, former motorsport racer, and an ardent environmentalist. Currently heading an award-winning automotive tech company that is developing electric self-driving vehicles.
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About Antonym: Award-winning electric autonomous transportation addressing the £1.8 trillion road freight market.
Julie Chen
Chief Executive Officer & Director of The Cheeky Panda
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About The Cheeky Panda: Cheeky Panda is a sustainable bamboo tissue manufacturer.
Kaushal Shah
Founder and CEO of envoPAP
Trying to turn Ideas into Reality!
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About envoPAP, Inwius: envoPAP is a Sustainable Materials Company utilizing green technology to provide agricultural waste with a second life.
Douglas Heidergren
CEO and Founder of Hyber
Founder of Hyber.
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About Hyber: Hyber is Sweden’s largest subscription rental platform for clothes and baby products for parents and children.
Claire Melamed
Chief Executive Officer of Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data
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About Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, Overseas Development Institute (ODI): Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data is a network to improve lives, fighting inequality & environmental sustainability.
