ST. GALLEN, SWITZERLAND, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Investors and entrepreneurs gathering in the Swiss city of St. Gallen for the START Summit have highlighted the transition towards renewable energies.
Speaking at the Summit, one of Europe's leading student conferences for entrepreneurship and technology, the co-founder & group CEO of Swiss digital asset bank Sygnum Mathias Imbach told Xinhua the Russia-Ukraine conflict should serve as a trigger to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels.
"It certainly is another accelerator. This geopolitical event could be a trigger to push those who have not yet looked into it much more. Because we have to reduce dependencies," Imbach said.
Lubomila Jordanova, a climate advocate and the co-founder and CEO of Berlin-based green tech startup Plan A, an end-to-end platform that enables companies to measure, monitor and reduce their environmental footprint and improve their Environmental Social Governance (ESG), said: "I am hopeful that the events of the last three years including COVID-19 are going to allow us to see a future which is a lot more reliant on stable supply chains and on the sustainable model."
"There's no other way than the renewable energy one, the sustainable one. That means that we need to shift swiftly."
Jordanova emphasized that the momentum for the company's international expansion and businesses to go green must be captured. "This year is really important for us, our team is going to double. At the moment we're 80 people, we are expected to hit close to 200 by the end of the year. We're opening offices internationally."
She continued: "We already work with companies in Asia. We have clients in Hong Kong, in India, as well as in Latin America. We have some things in store for the end of the year where we are planning to kick off our activities officially in the U.S. and we will also have many more engagements in Asia."
Plan A helps companies build a decarbonized and sustainable economy, using data and science to accelerate the corporate transformation and ESG reporting, she said.
"We have been really impressed with some of the initiatives of the Chinese government," Jordanova also pointed out.
The two-day START Summit, which promotes innovation by connecting many startups, investors, corporates and young talents, ended on Friday. ■
