I had the distinct honor and pleasure of serving as a judge on the Impact Panel for the Award, dubbed by Reuters as “The Nobel Prize for Sustainability.” I'm delighted to announce that (SHE28) is the 2017 Grand Prize winner for the 2017 . Congratulations, SHE28! SHE28 is a wonderful example of how all three aspects of the triple bottom line can be addressed successfully: using locally sourced, eco-friendly renewable materials (planet), they tackle the social stigma of menstruation and lack of sanitary pads that prevent young women in developing countries from attending school (people) by offering microfinance loans to female-run businesses (profit). Each such business creates roughly 100 jobs and gives 100,000 girls and women access to affordable sanitary pads. "We hope that our holistic model of local sourcing and local production with our SHE28 initiative will serve as a catalyst for new and sustainable approaches to tackling taboo and overlooked health problems across the world. The Katerva prize is global recognition that our innovative use of banana fiber into an essential health product is more than a novelty; it's a transformative solution that delivers real impact on communities globally." Watch this ~3 minute video for a primer on the why, what and how of SHE28: The competition's runner-up was (Materials, Resources & Water category), while (Environment category) came in third. These rankings were determined by our and involved a 2-part process: rating aspects including the innovations' potential, effectiveness, uniqueness and impact, followed by the allocation of an imaginary investment fund among the 10 finalists. As the Grand prize Winner, SHE28 has 'first right of refusal' to the pro-bono offerings of Katerva's Winners Circle, an amazing group of companies which includes , , and . However, as it is our aim to help accelerate as many radical sustainable innovations as we can, we are currently surveying all of our Finalists to find out what would really make a difference for the next part of their journey, and will then trawl our network to invite the most appropriate organizations to join the circle. Image courtesy of Categories Innovation & Entrepreneurship Published on May 08, 2017 Tags eco-career global innovation Katerva 51Ϲ sustainable design Sustainability sustainable design