Leicester Business Wins £40,000 Climate Change Innovation Prize

2009-02-20 15:57:26

A Leicester based business with a big idea for tackling climate change has won a Shell Springboard award of £40,000, giving their business a valuable boost in a programme designed to promote the growth of the low carbon economy in the UK.

Walters Innovations Ltd received the award for its work in developing the MonVal Bicycle, a comfortable, electrically-assisted bike with a generous luggage capacity that might just be the answer for a low-carbon, low perspiration commute!

As well as being comfortable to ride, MonVal is also economical. Think of a 100 watt electric light bulb burning for an evening: that's enough energy to propel the MonVal for twenty to forty miles, and it costs just five to eight pence per mile to run, compared to fifty to eighty pence per mile for a car.  Andrew Walters, Managing Director of Walters Innovations Ltd, hopes that the MonVal will not only encourage more people to swap their cars for bikes, as they’ll be able to cycle for longer, but will also be used as a green transport alternative for businesses.

Shell Springboard gives a financial boost to innovative, commercially viable business ideas that tackle climate change.  The programme encourages a positive business response to the challenge of climate change by providing a no-strings financial boost to small ideas with innovative products and services that could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and really make a difference.

Paul Snaith, Andrew Walters and Paul Turner

Andrew Walters, Director of Walters Innovations Ltd, said: “This award means I can ramp up production and finally get our bike out there into the business community. I can actually make a difference now, it's actually going to happen."

Paul Snaith, Vice President Downstream Marketing, Shell Global Solutions said: “Congratulations to Andrew and Walters Innovations. The MonVal Bicycle not only has huge commercial potential but could have a significant impact on the UK’s carbon emissions. It’s this kind of cutting-edge innovation that has made the UK a world leader in low carbon technology investment. In a difficult economic climate, it has become more important than ever that we continue to foster such independent entrepreneurialism which is so crucial to the UK economy in the long term.”

According to Shell Springboard’s Race Against the Carbon Pound report the UK’s ‘green’ companies attracted over £1billion of venture capital and private equity investment in 2007: 41% of the EU total.  This makes the UK the European leader when it comes to attracting venture capital and private equity investment in low carbon technologies, second only to the United States worldwide.

Kate Radford of Cheshire and Warrington Economic Alliance and a judge on the night, said: “It is great to see a high standard of business ideas across all sectors in our region of the UK.”

Walters Innovations Ltd competed against eight businesses from across the region on February 19th 2009 in Manchester.

Other winners included Luminanz, with its energy efficient LED lighting ‘TorusLite’ and Connaught Engineering Ltd for developing Hybrid Plus, a versatile energy-saving bolt-on device for car engines.