Venice chooses five champions of green innovation

It is an international competition that offers a prize of 3 million dollars, to revolutionize urban mobility in a sustainable way, and which has attracted over 120 proposals from all over the world, confirming the charm of the Serenissima as a testing ground for the challenges of future mobility.

The five finalist projects of the Sustainable Cities Challenge , selected by an international jury of experts, reflect a multifaceted approach to changing mobility habits.

It ranges from gamification to data analysis, from personalized incentives to integrated shared mobility platforms . Each finalist will receive immediate funding of 130 thousand dollars to develop and test their solution directly in the Venetian territory. Finally, in December 2025 the Challenge will award one to three winners, who will have a total of one and a half million to implement the solution.

The five projects will compete for the final prize in the coming months. BetterPoints focuses on gamification with an app designed specifically for the citizens of Venice: it will allow them to accumulate “ BeiPunti ”, points that can be converted into vouchers or donations to charities, simply by filling out a short initial survey and recording their movements. The prizes will be personalized, with extra incentives, for example, for those who travel certain itineraries, such as the city's cycle network. The app will also offer a series of mini challenges proposed by local partners, with prizes assigned directly through the platform.

Factual Consulting has created a digital platform that combines technology and behavioral psychology to promote sustainable mobility habits through micro-incentives: it analyzes travel, suggests sustainable alternatives, and offers personalized incentives, all through a user-friendly interface accessible via app and web.

Instant System offers a solution that integrates all available mobility services in a single app, combining intelligent route planning, emissions calculation and movement monitoring. The app suggests the greenest routes by integrating all available means: from the vaporetto to the bike, from the bus to walking, with real-time information and calculation of emissions saved.

Swedish startup Nudgd brings GoStrada to Venice, a platform that uses "digital nudging" - small, gentle pushes - to encourage the shift from private cars to sustainable and shared means of transport, with a special focus on those who still rely too much on four wheels.

Closing the list of finalists is UrbanTide Limited x Love to Ride : a scalable, data-driven solution that combines UrbanTide's expertise in the field of intelligent mobility, through its analytics platform, with Love to Ride 's consolidated experience in promoting behavioral change.

The peculiarity of Venice, a city suspended between water and land, makes it a unique case in the world panorama: on one side the historic center with its canals and its streets, on the other a densely populated mainland that requires innovative solutions to encourage the use of low or zero-emission means of transport.

In recent years, resources have been invested in the development of sustainable mobility, with cycle paths, a hybrid car sharing service, the introduction of electric and hydrogen buses, hybrid vaporetti. But the challenge is such that it pushes us to seek and propose creative and cutting-edge solutions.

Monica Perez Lobo, Director of Toyota Mobility Foundation Europe, explains that " changing mobility habits takes time, but even small changes, if adopted on a large scale, can generate a significant impact on air quality, traffic and urban liveability. With this challenge we want to offer concrete benefits to Venice and inspire similar transformations in cities around the world. It is through partnerships like this that bold ideas can become lasting solutions".

Kathy Nothstine , Director of Cities and Society at Challenge Works, agrees: "It's not just about introducing smart technologies," she says, "the real success lies in the ability of these solutions to reflect people's real needs and everyday choices. This challenge is a unique opportunity to test these insights in a real urban context and to promote meaningful and lasting change."

Ben Welle, Director of Integrated Transportation and Innovation at the World Resources Institute Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, argues that the real value of the Venetian experiment will be to “go beyond local impacts, but inspire replicable approaches at a global level, with valuable food for thought for all cities in the world committed to improving urban mobility in a sustainable way”.

The Venetian challenge is part of a broader program , which also involves Detroit in the United States and Varanasi in India, with a total investment of 9 million dollars. Three cities, three continents, three different challenges but united by the goal of rethinking urban mobility in a sustainable way. While Detroit focuses on the logistics of goods and Varanasi on the management of pilgrim flows, Venice aims to become a model of sustainable mobility for historic cities around the world.