The Green Awards, hosted last night during the heart of the Green Tech Festival, celebrates the most innovative projects and minds in the sustainability sector.

cirplus secured the accolade of ‘Best Startup’ at the 15th annual ceremony, which is awarded to the most promising startup that contributes to environmental protection and resource conservation.

The judging panel, including senior figures from Audi, Antler, WWF Germany and Google, considered entries from a wide range of companies.

Founded in 2018 by Christian Schiller and Volkan Bilic, cirplus is the answer to the world’s plastic waste crisis. The Hamburg startup connects waste managers, recyclers and product manufacturers to buy and sell recycled plastics on its global digital B2B marketplace.

The platform provides a solution to the current complex market for waste and recylates by lowering the transactional costs of recylates and establishing a global supply chain through its digital platform.

cirplus has even gone one step further than others in the sector, developing and introducing a world-first industry standard for high-quality plastic recycling. The standard - DIN SPEC 91446 - presents plastic recylates as a viable product for companies, increasing the demand and stimulating confidence.

Shortlisted alongside Deep Branch and Recycleye, the digital marketplace took home the award on the night in front of a crowd of 850 guests. This comes after an extremely successful period of growth for cirplus.

Chrisitan Schiller, CEO and co-founder of cirplus, said: “Ever since I saw the plastic waste crisis with my own eyes off the coast of Colombia in 2018, the journey to build cirplus into a global platform has been magnificent. Five years later, cirplus is dedicated towards making plastic waste history.

“We’re delighted to be awarded best startup at the Green Awards. This provides us with the certification, that what we are building is truly making a difference to the environment around us. The future only holds more for cirplus.”

Since launching in March 2020, the global start-up has onboarded more than 1200 companies from 100 countries onto its platform, and has built an inventory of more than 1.3 million tons of recycled plastics listed for sale. For each ton of recylates sold, cirplus replaces 80% of CO2 emissions – meaning its platform not only stops plastic pollution but prevents the release of polluting CO2 emissions.

Born by UK Investor, Entrepreneur First, cirplus entered the UK marketplace recently in response to the UK’s Plastic Packaging Tax in a bid to digitalise the plastic and recycling industry.

Prior to the awards, cirplus attended the Green Tech Festival, which aims to empower changemakers and foster innovative green technologies for the future through its keynotes, panel discussions, bootcamps and deep dive talks.

Speakers at the Festival included singer songwriter, Billie Eilish, Executive Secretary for UNFCCC, Patricia Espinosa and CEO and Co-founder of Dance / Soundcloud, Eric Quidenus – Wahlforss.