Calling All Ecopreneurs: Salesforce, Partners Seek Sustainability Solutions for the City of San Francisco

Salesforce, along with Deloitte and the World Economic Forum, today announced the Yes San Francisco, Urban Sustainability Challenge — an UpLink initiative that invites ecopreneurs from around the world to submit innovative solutions to help shape the city of San Francisco’s sustainable future.

Significance: The challenge aims to further position San Francisco as a leading city where people can live and work in a sustainable environment that will benefit the city and its residents.

Go deeper: Proposals for the challenge must demonstrate an ability to have a positive impact on the community through sustainable solutions that revitalize spaces across San Francisco. Challenge innovations may include solutions such as: 

• Redesigned indoor and outdoor spaces that bring residents, visitors, and new businesses to the area while utilizing sustainable materials that minimize the city’s carbon footprint.
• Reimagined ideas for urban food production to provide healthy, reliable nutrition to the community.
• Innovative approaches to water conservation and reuse that stimulate equitable job creation. 
• Submissions will be accepted from June 8 until August 11, 2023, and top innovators will be announced in September. 

Fast facts: 

• The challenge is hosted on UpLink, a global hub for innovation launched by the World Economic Forum, with support from Deloitte, Salesforce, at Davos in 2020. 
• The platform hosts challenges to source ideas from entrepreneurs and experts to address the most pressing global issues.
• UpLink has run more than 48 challenges and selected over 400 “Top Innovators” with innovative solutions across critical areas of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, including health, food, freshwater, ocean, plastics, education, climate, and more. 

Soundbites:

• “The challenge provides an opportunity for Deloitte, Salesforce, and the World Economic Forum to enable the ambition and creativity of innovators to build solutions that are driven by the community, for the community. This type of effort is foundational to our organization’s purpose and commitment to social impact in the communities where we live and work. We hope it will catalyze systemic change by creating a more sustainable future for this city.” –Kwasi Mitchell, chief purpose and DEI officer at Deloitte
• “At Salesforce, we believe that collective action is essential to address the complex challenges facing our communities. That’s why we’re proud to support the Yes San Francisco, Urban Sustainability Challenge, which will harness new innovations from ecopreneurs. By working together, we can bring the power of technology to create a more equitable, sustainable, and vibrant San Francisco for all.” – Suzanne DiBianca, EVP and Chief Impact Officer at Salesforce
• “UpLink helps scale world-class innovations that are crucial to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The Yes San Francisco, Urban Sustainability Challenge offers a unique opportunity to connect local solutions to the resources, expertise, and funding they need to scale and to create transformational change for the city and its residents.” – Olivier Schwab, Managing Director, World Economic Forum

More information:

• Learn how local innovators tackle global challenges with technology and  collaboration
• Read more Salesforce sustainability news here