The Founders Pledge Social Impact Award 2017

Start-up name: Bulb
Founders: Hayden Wood and Amit Gudka
Started in: August 2015 (launched April 2016)
Based in: London
Business description: 100% renewable energy supplier

Enabling you to go green without paying a premium, Bulb’s pioneering renewable energy offering made it an obvious finalist for The Founders Pledge Social Impact Award and, as it happens, an obvious winner in our judges’ eyes.

Celebrating new businesses tackling social and economic challenges, The Founders Pledge Social Impact Award recognises an exceptional business doing good in the local community – or wider world – with the potential to make an even greater social impact as it grows.

Bulb doesn’t just meet these criteria, it smashes them and then some.

A provider of 100% renewable electricity and 10% renewable gas at prices 20% cheaper than the Big Six, two-year-old Bulb saves its average member 1.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere – that’s the equivalent of every member taking 1.3 cars off the road!

This milestone, combined with its charitable work in creating urban jungles in schools through the Edible Playground programme, meant that Bulb was a no-brainer for the title.

Bulb’s customers will no doubt back its win; the start-up is rated the number one energy supplier on Trustpilot and has more than 15,000 followers on social media – an impressive feat for a business operating in a traditionally unsexy industry.

The judges were also thoroughly impressed by the work of The Founders Pledge Social Impact Award finalists Medshr and WeFarm, and their potential to bring about great social change.

Medshr, an app which enables medical professionals to discover and discuss clinical cases, was awarded Highly Commended in the category. WeFarm, a peer-to-peer network for small-scale and intendent farmers, was Commended by the judges.