Build up Nepal replaces polluting coal-fired bricks with eco-friendly ones while making safe housing affordable for poor communities. Their interlocking Compressed Stabilised Earth Bricks can be made using locally available materials, with minimal cement and they are compressed, not fired.
The annual Wilkes Climate Launch Prize was established to accelerate worldwide progress and encourage technological advances for combating climate change. The 2025 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize received over 1,100 submissions worldwide, more than five times the number received in 2024. (See an interactive map of applicant locations.)
Build up Nepal was selected from among six finalists that presented their ideas at the 2025 Wilkes Climate Summit in May. The finalists were evaluated by a team of independent expert judges for scalable impact, feasibility and potential for co-benefits to communities, economies or ecosystems. The runners-up for the prize are Roca Water, a company in Alameda, California, and De Novo Foodlabs, based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Read more about all the teams below.
Wilkes Center co-director Fielding Norton moderates a panel with Climate Launch Prize winner Björn Söderberg (in person), and representatives from runners-up De Novo Food Labs (cofounder Jean Louwrens, left screen) and Roca Water (Margaret Lumley, cofounder and CEO, right screen).
The winner: Build up Nepal
Build up Nepal’s eco-brick technology is empowering poor families in Nepal to rebuild their homes after a series of earthquakes in 2015, and again in 2023, caused widespread damage and impoverishment. Their building technology uses a process that is far less polluting than conventional building techniques and provides a model approach that local construction entrepreneurs can adopt across the world.
Björn Söderberg, co-founder of Build up Nepal, visited the U this week to accept the award. Söderberg said Nepal is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world, but until recently, poor families could not afford disaster-resilient homes, most of which are built with bricks. The coal-fired brick industry is responsible for 37% of CO2 emissions from combustion in Nepal, on top of dangerous air pollution and poor working conditions. Build up Nepal trains local entrepreneurs to make climate-friendly eco-bricks, build safe, affordable homes and create jobs in low-income communities.
According to Söderberg, their sustainable construction methods gained trust two years ago after another earthquake struck Nepal.
“When 90% of the buildings at the epicenter fell down, ours stood tall,” said Söderberg. “We believe this is the time to really introduce better, stronger, cheaper technology, not only to this place [that suffered earthquake damage] but demonstrating that this can become the standard for low-cost construction in all of Nepal.”
“Winning the Wilkes Climate Launch Prize is an honor, and a huge boost for our mission,” Söderberg noted. “It will help us scale up our construction projects and bring safe, affordable homes to marginalized families affected by climate change and natural disasters.”
Runner up: Roca Water
Roca Water uses electrochemistry to recover valuable materials from wastewater, reducing pollution and climate emissions while returning resources to productive use instead of losing them.
Their novel electrochemical process addresses two major climate challenges: reducing nitrogen pollution that leads to eutrophication and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions, and decarbonizing fertilizer production by replacing the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis with ammonia produced from wastewater.
Nitrous oxide emissions from wastewater plants are roughly 265 to 300 times more potent than CO2 over a 100-year period, which Roca Water aims to tackle.
“Longer term, we’re hoping that nitrous oxide gets more attention, which is happening. As there is more quantification happening around nitrous oxide emissions broadly, that will help us to tell our story,” said Margaret Lumley, cofounder and CEO of Roca Water.
Runner up: De Novo Foodlabs
De Novo Foodlabs is working to produce essential food proteins without needing animals for food using engineered microorganisms.
The company uses precision fermentation technology to create scarce, valuable nutrients and compounds that are difficult to source traditionally, developing next-generation nutritional solutions. Their goal is to produce a product that actively captures and removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making the process net carbon negative.
During a panel discussion with the three top finalists on Thursday, Sept. 25, Jean Louwrens, co-founder of De Novo Foodlabs, said his team’s concept originated from their goal to improve the food system and create healthy and accessible ingredients for people—with the climate solution piece being a secondary benefit.
“If it’s just a climate solution, and it doesn’t solve any real-world problems for your customers, you’re probably going to fail and it won’t be a climate solution because your company isn’t going to be around anyway.”
Watch video recordings of the prize announcement and the climate entrepreneurship panel.
The story originally appeared in @ The U.
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