Team for the Planet, the Lyon-based climate organization founded in 2020, has launched a global call for innovation that awards €1 million to each selected inventor, with the explicit mandate of pushing winning technologies to industrial scale. The program targets researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs operating anywhere in the world.
The Capital Allocation
Each winning innovation receives €1 million — not a grant spread across milestones or a prize for past work, but capital directed at the transition from proven concept to industrial-scale deployment. That framing matters: Team for the Planet is not buying intellectual property or equity stakes in the conventional sense; it is funding the scale-up phase, historically the most capital-intensive and least venture-friendly stretch of the climate-technology development curve. The organization's stated conviction is that decarbonization must be commercially sound, a positioning that distinguishes it from pure philanthropy and signals that viability criteria apply.
Who Is Eligible
The call is open globally. Researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs are all named as eligible categories, which broadens the funnel beyond pure startup plays to include academic spinouts and independent inventors. Team for the Planet does not publish sector exclusions in the source materials, leaving the domain scope open-ended beyond the overarching climate and decarbonization mandate.
The Organization Behind the Award
Team for the Planet was established in Lyon, France in 2020. Its core thesis — that decarbonization must be sound — reads as a direct argument against subsidized or economically marginal solutions. For a climate-focused fund-flow audience, the practical implication is that shortlisted submissions will presumably be evaluated on technical feasibility and a credible path to economic viability, not impact metrics alone.
What the Source Does Not Say
The announcement does not disclose how many winners will be selected in this cycle, the application deadline, the evaluation timeline, or the total capital committed across the full competition. Investors tracking climate-tech deal flow should treat the per-innovation figure — €1 million — as the unit size, not the program total, until Team for the Planet publishes fuller competition terms.