Applications for the 2025 -2026 cohort are open
Join a 3-month journey to refine and scale your digital innovation for more trusted and sustainable value chains.
Deadline: 7 November 2025
What is this programme about?
Driving change in the way we address our economic, social and environmental challenges is high on everyone’s agenda. In a fast-moving and complex environment, organisations must consider their entire value chain if they want to take meaningful action, otherwise they risk greenwashing and losing trust with their partners, customers and other stakeholders. By building more trusted and sustainable value chains, organisations can enhance their resilience and reputations, while putting the well-being of people and the planet at the core of their operations.
BSI’s purpose is to deliver impact for a fair society and sustainable world. For over 120 years, BSI has helped business and society thrive together, fostering progress and increasing trust between consumers, governments and organisations. BSI’s Sustainability Innovation Lab was founded to deliver disruptive digital innovations, partnering across the sustainability innovation ecosystem to co-create and accelerate solutions that can deliver trust and best practice for the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges.
Launched in July 2023, the Trust in Sustainability programme is a partnership between BSI and CISL that provides access to training and expertise to accelerate the growth of startups – helping businesses to further develop their solutions, find their product-market fit, and explore mentorship and networking opportunities. After our successful inaugural programme (2023-2024 cohort), our second cohort focused on startups with digital solutions that can build trust, accountability and deliver best practice for carbon markets (2024-2025 cohort).
This year we are looking to showcase digital innovations that lead to more trusted and sustainable value chains, harnessing the joint experience and expertise of BSI and CISL to support the development and scaling of disruptive solutions.
Who should apply?
Startups joining this programme have access to training, expertise, mentoring, and networking opportunities designed to transform your digital solutions into robust product offerings. They will gain support from the University of Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and the British Standards Institution (BSI), putting them in the right position to create sustainable impact.
We’re looking for startups with digital solutions that create more trusted and sustainable value chains. This could be through, but is not limited to, solutions that:
- Enable transparency and data sharing
- Verify claims, certifications or identities
- Enhance accountability or resilience
- Manage environmental and social risks
- Measure and monitor sustainability impacts
- Enable more sustainable and circular business models
If you're building trust in global value chains, this programme is for you.
