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Global Call 2022

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Background

Initially launched in 2020 by the UNIDO Investment and Technology Promotion Office (ITPO) Italy in Rome, the UNIDO Global Call is a flagship event, which seeks to identify innovative technology solutions that address the adverse effects of climate change and that have the potential to be scaled up, and thus that ultimately contribute to inclusive and sustainable economic development.

Inspired by the previous 2020 and 2021 UNIDO Global Calls, the 2022 initiative aims at identifying “green and innovative technology solutions towards Net-Zero”. Its objective is therefore to identify readily applicable and scalable solutions for green technology promotion.

Led by the UNIDO Investment and Technology Promotion (ITP) Network, the 2022 UNIDO Global Call 2022 is steered by the UNIDO Investment and Technology Promotion Office in Shanghai (ITPO Shanghai) and supported by the other eight ITPOs.

In addition to being able to pool from the worldwide UNIDO expertise, the ITPOs will strengthen cooperation with other UN institutions towards sharing technical and expert resources, thereby making this Global Call a truly global initiative.

Furthermore, while pursuing ‘Net-Zero’ and ‘4IR’ alliances, enterprises should also strengthen their business and corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications, for example by:

  • Establishing a close partnership network
  • Driving emission reduction measures within their supply chains
  • Enhancing research and innovation capacity, and upgrading industrial institutions
  • Developing green technologies, increasing knowledge-sharing and engaging in multi-stakeholder collaborations
  • Addressing challenges and opportunities related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution
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Global Call 2022

Objectives

Within the overall framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and SDG17 in particular, the UNIDO Global Call 2022 aims at building and enhancing a global information and knowledge-sharing exchange network by integrating global resources; and assisting governments and enterprises in carrying out technical assistance and industrial cooperation to promote economic development and industrialization. In doing so, it aims to narrow the technological gap and solve related technical problems faced by small and medium-sized enterprises, thus accelerating the green industrialization process.

     

Technology and Solution Categories of Global Call 2022

To achieve its Zero-Net objective, the UNIDO Global Call 2022 focuses on identifying and promoting innovative green technologies in Medical & Health (MH), Green Growth (GG), Advanced Digital Production (ADP) and Agriculture & Food (AF), with a clear focus on international climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts as well as on green technology learning and development. Priority will be given to applications, including solutions for:

The manufacturing process usually results in a lot of emissions, therefore every action at any stage to tackle carbon emissions – from manufacturing of products, supply of raw materials (selection, transportation, and storage), to processing and use of finished goods –is critical. Solutions to reach carbon neutrality are thus sought to achieve resilient manufacturing, including in product manufacturing such as the full use of renewable energy to replace fuel combustion, improving energy efficiency and waste recycling, reducing carbon emissions in the supply chain of raw materials (such as greener raw materials and smart logistics), and producing green products.

The rapid development of the digital economy including through artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and blockchain can greatly reduce the overall energy emissions. However, digital economy-based net-zero energy systems entail trade-offs across economic, environmental, and social dimensions. As such, innovative solutions will be identified to establish affordable net-zero systems, including the relevant infrastructure and facilities such as big data centres, that can be implemented in developing countries.

Agriculture is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and especially of methane that stem from livestock farming and nitric oxide that result from fertilizers. Accordingly, the global climate’s deterioration brings great pressure to the global agricultural production; it is therefore of utmost importance to achieve low-carbon or even zero-carbon transformation in agriculture while maintaining or improving productivity; solutions are thus searched to reduce emissions including through synthetic fertilizers, crops cultivation, ruminant farming, efficient land utilization, increasing the output per unit area, innovative green food, etc.

During the pandemic, the worldwide prevention and control measures led to an exponential demand for medical waste treatment as medical and biological wastes are considered especially hazardous; they could directly or indirectly cause great environmental pollution. Traditionally, medical and biological waste is mainly incinerated at a high temperature; however, and since hydrocarbon organic compounds are the main components of medical and biological waste that emit massive amounts of CO2 and Dioxin, new solutions must be identified to sustainably manage medical and biological waste, including through cutting-edge technological applications such as microwave, steam treatment, dry heat treatment, encapsulation, etc.

Application link here.

Application deadline: 15 October 2022

The Award Ceremony will take place in Shanghai, China, on 16th of January 2023.

Contact email address: itpo.shanghai@unido.org

  • Submission of applications
  • Eligibility Criteria
  • Evaluation Criteria
  • Preliminary Timelines
  • Jury Members

  • The Call is open to private sector entities (micro, small, medium, and large companies as well as startups) in the below categories:

    1. Early-stage technological solutions that are at an advanced R&D and that are ready for implementation, with verified testing data

    2. Growth-stage technological solutions, which have already been piloted with verified data at a replicable scale and which have a demonstrated Proof Of Concept (POC)

    3. Mature technological solutions that are demonstrably established and that aim at expanding to new markets

    The participation in the UNIDO Global Call 2022 is free of charge.

    Each company can only submit two applications; all extra applications will be excluded (based on the chronological order in which they were received). Companies will be asked to provide personal and non-personal information, with personal data being used for internal audit purposes and communications related to the Global Call only. All data will not be made available to third parties without prior authorization of the applicant, except for the review of the application by jury members. Participants will be asked to accept the Global Call terms and conditions.

    Since women are disproportionately affected by climate change, due regards is to be given to submissions of women-led/owned businesses or companies offering products and services benefiting women and youth.

  • Submissions must meet the following eligibility criteria:

    1. In case of proposals related to early-stage technological solutions, the applicant should submit a clear timeline of activities up that are achievable within a given time frame.

    2 Each individual submission should clearly state the focus area by selecting the most applicable category in the application form.

    3. The description of the intervention should not be written in a promotional tone, but use neutral, factual language.

  • The eligible proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

    1. Innovative content (30% of weighted vote)

    2. Potential contribution to international climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts as well as to environmental sustainability (25% of weighted vote)

    3. Proven applicability, scalability and possibility of expansion to different geographical and socioeconomic contexts (20% of weighted vote)

    4. Economic and social long-term sustainability (15% of weighted vote)

    5. Expected occupational return, i.e. job creation and income generation potential (10% of weighted vote)

  • This year’s Call will last 6 months, from July onwards with several activities and events to be held, including:

    May: Conceptualization period

    June: Pre-launch of UNIDO Global Call 2022, Campaign of Carbon-neutral Technology China Session

    July: Category Pre-launch of UNIDO Global Call 2022 during the Global Industrial Internet Conference through two seminars and another Category Pre-launch during CCTV Science and Innovation Conference

    August: Collecting applications during China Session and evaluation

    Early September: Official Launch of UNIDO Global Call 2022

    September-October: Collecting of global applications and evaluation

    January 2023: Global Award Ceremony of UNIDO Global Call 2022

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