Federate
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February 23, 2023
TOWT: towards one billion tons of goods transported without CO2 emissions?
At the Universités de l'Economie de Demain in Rennes, 3 future impact unicorns were revealed: 3 companies from Brittany and the Greater West of France spearheading the economy of tomorrow. The Tech for Good France community's goal is to bring these nuggets to the forefront throughout France. This approach is accompanied by a vast study conducted with BCG to identify and accelerate these impactful unicorns.
Discover the portrait and testimonial of Diana Mesa, founder and director of TOWT.
TOWT is a company created in 2014 that performs freight transportation without using traditional energy which is very often fossil fuels. We therefore chose to use sail, which is an abundant, predictable and renewable energy. We therefore decided to use this energy which allows very good yields and therefore a reliable propulsion of our sailing boats.
We have already transported two tons of goods, and we plan to deploy a fleet that will grow over the next few years thanks to a fundraising campaign on LITA.co, support from ADEME and public schemes such as the PIA (future investment plan).
TOWT is also the ANEMOS label, which allows us to draw up a carbon footprint for the transport of goods.
In the consumer sector, it is clear that sobriety is becoming more and more important, with demands from all sides (producers and consumers) for 'less but better'. The only missing link in this sobriety was long-distance transport. Today, we know how to do last mile logistics in a sober way, the only thing missing was the solution for the first thousands of kilometers, which is now done with TOWT!
Sobriety was seen as a marginal doctrine on the periphery of the economy, today we are at the center of the game, the only possible way!
Most of the unicorns we see today are based on a bet, the bet of a future profitability that justifies building sandcastles in the short term. There are many examples of unicorns or startups that don't work, that's also the responsibility of investors.
What differentiates us from these companies is that behind TOWT, there are concrete assets, we have ships that support an activity in the real economy, our value creation is concrete, materializable. Moreover, we do not focus our valuation on financial criteria but on the concrete, whether it is the human aspect, whether it is the satisfaction of our customers, our economic model as well, but the main indicator is the tons of CO2 avoided.
Freight transport is the heart of the current capitalist system and globalization, advocating its renewal is an ambitious goal, but it is absolutely necessary. If in this sense we are an impact company, then yes, but this was not an objective in itself, we simply want to address an excessively polluting sector and propose an alternative solution. All of this with a value-sharing approach, vigilance over our subcontractors and renewal of our professions.
Talking about Unicorns with Impact and avoided costs allows us to make visible the real activity of our impact companies, to materialize the value we create all along the chain.
The main objective of a business model is to be economically profitable and environmentally and socially sustainable. It is on these elements that we should define what is a Unicorn or a successful business!
On October 17, 2024, the IMPACT 40/120 prizewinners reached a key milestone in their journey, joining the 3rd promotion of Impact Lab Acceleration. For five months, these impact structures benefited from tailor-made support to take up a major challenge: to become the impact unicorns of tomorrow.
The Impact Score measures your company's social and ecological impact at 360°.
6,000 organizations have already taken the plunge... Now it's your turn to reveal your Impact Score!
