Innovations in passive cooling and hydrogen storage win The Liveability Challenge 2025

Republished from Eco-Business: Original article here.

Ideas to passively cool cities as well as store and transport hydrogen more safely and cheaply have won the top prizes at the eighth edition of The Liveability Challenge (TLC), a global search for disruptive solutions to solve the world’s most pressing sustainability problems.

Singapore-based Krosslinker’s solution aims to deliver round-the-clock cooling to cities using a zero-energy aerogel coating. Buildings that utilise this solution, which works like normal paint, could reduce electricity power costs by at least 10 per cent, estimate the team. In addition to the top prize money, Krosslinker was awarded S$100,000 (US$77,000) by the Octave Well-being Economy Fund.

Ayrton, a Canadian startup, uses a proprietary process to bring down the cost of hydrogen storage and transportation, which currently makes up some 85 per cent of costs across the fuel’s entire value chain. Its founders estimate that their solution could help reduce this cost by up to 50 per cent. The startup received S$200,000 (US$155,000) in additional funding from venture capital firms Trirec and Valuence Ventures.

The two startups clinched S$1 million (US$0.77 million) each in funding at the competition, which was presented by Temasek Foundation and organised by Eco-Business.

Both startups emerged as winners from a shortlist of eight finalists selected from a record-breaking 1,200 submissions from 100 countries. This year, TLC looked for solutions across two themes – decarbonisation and cool earth, which tackles extreme heat-related weather conditions.

Gayahtri Natarajan, co-founder and chief executive of KrossLinker, said that the team wants to ensure equitable access to its solution. “With this win, we will be doing a few large-scale pilots for different applications, such as the rooftops of data centres, commercial buildings and residential shopping malls. We need to demonstrate that our paint works day and night, not just when the sun is out, to prove how much energy savings we could bring,” she told Eco-Business.

Brandy Kinkead, Ayrton’s co-founder and chief technology officer said that the win cements its position in Singapore and the wider Southeast Asia region. “Singapore as a trade hub is an ideal location for us to start doing validations for long-distance transport, understanding the economics and our ability to reuse existing infrastructures,” said Kinkead.

Ayrton is in also talks with Australian green hydrogen producer SunGreenH2 to further develop its solution and Eastern Pacific Shipping as an investor on the transportation side, she shared.

According to an audience poll, plasma-based carbon dioxide recycling startup D-CRBN was voted the most popular solution among the live TLC audience, with 31 per cent of votes. Australia’s CO2Tech and also won S$100,000 (US$77,000) grant from Enterprise Singapore.

Other shortlisted entries included US-based SXD, a startup which uses artificial intelligence to reduce emissions from garment production, as well as New Zealand’s Cetogenix, which produces green ammonia and other biogas from urban waste.

The winners were selected by a live panel of judges, who assessed the candidates based on the disruptive potential of their solutions as well as their ability to pitch those ideas to investors. The judging panel included Emily Liew, assistant chief executive officer, Enterprise Singapore, Andrew Hyung, general partner, Valuence Ventures, Axel Tan, venture partner, Octave Wellbeing Economy Fund, Andrew Wong, director, Trirec and Heng Li Lang, head, Climate and Liveability, Temasek Foundation.

Last year’s TLC winners were a Vietnamese startup that makes protein from crickets, and a Dutch firm that produces sustainable aviation fuel from fat and sugar. Past winners have included Equatic, formerly known as SeaChange, which got backing to build the world’s largest ocean-based carbon removal plant in Singapore last year, a social forestry project in Indonesia and an oral vaccine for farmed fish.