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Giving Bag is one our favorite new sustainability solutions. The nonprofit startup was one of the winners of Travel + Leisure‘s 2025 Global Vision Awards.
One of the many events within the umbrella SXSW event is its Pitch Competition, which took place March 8-9 at the Hilton Austin Downtown. The competition gives startups seeking to solve real-world problems the opportunity to pitch their companies as part of the Startups Track of the SXSW Conference each year. This year, a winner was named in each of nine categories, chosen from 45 startups who participated — among them were three sustainability solution startups, and another startup devoted to marine conservation received a special award. Here they are:
- Each year, more than $1 trillion worth of food is wasted around the world. Calgary, Canada–based Knead Technologies is a software company that has simplified food rescue operations, with an all-in-one platform to divert food waste from landfills.
- Xatoms, based in Toronto, Canada, uses AI and quantum chemistry to clean polluted waters across the globe.
- Helix Earth “advances the world through accelerated liquid-gas chemistry.” The Houston, Texas–based company’s capabilities drive environmental improvements, including conserving natural resources, saving 50 percent or more of the energy used to cool buildings, and improving access to cooling for emerging economies and vulnerable populations.
- Azul Biotechnologies, in Brooklyn, New York, received a special award for “Best Bootstrap Company.” Azul creates microbiome-based treatments from nature that give ocean life immunity to human impact, combating climate change, marine diseases, and pollution.
Each of the Pitch winners receive a cash prize and two badges for next year’s SXSW conference, but what is arguably more valuable is the exposure they receive to SXSW attendees and potential investors. Since the Pitch program launched in 2009, finalists have raised more than $23 billion in funding.
“As we watch industries change with the advent of AI and the leaps forward facilitated by new technologies,” said SXSW Pitch Event Producer Chris Valentine in a press release, “we are excited to showcase the companies and entrepreneurs that are leading innovation within their fields and give them a stage to highlight their work, which has the power to transform our world as we know it.”
Giving Bags
Meanwhile, Travel + Leisure has just announced its 2025 Global Vision Awards, which acknowledge individuals, products, destinations, and organizations across five categories that are pioneering sustainable and eco-friendly travel. “These visionaries are focused on the future of travel — and are dedicated to ensuring that we, as humans, can continue to explore the world without damaging it as we go along,” Travel + Leisure wrote in a release.
While the awards focus on leisure travel, this one caught our eye as an initiative that could be shared by the events industry: Giving Bag. In fact, the initiative was conceived in 2013 by Quinn Cox, cofounder and CEO, after attending a conference in Las Vegas. “There were too many conference giveaways and clothing to fit in the carry-on suitcase. We wanted to just leave the items in the room and hope that an employee would keep them,” Cox writes on Giving Bag’s website, adding he also realized that leaving unwanted items in the room would likely mean that they would languish in the lost and found for months.
Giving Bag was created as an easy-to-implement way for hotels to give travelers an option to leave behind gently used items for local communities in a bag placed in each guestroom. Travelers place items like books, shoes, and clothing in the Giving Bag and fill out a short form to share what they’ve donated. Giving Bag has grown from one hotel partner to a dedicated network of impact-driven hotels and brands — Impact Hotels, a curated selection of 350-plus sustainable hotels in 15 countries around the world.
Cox writes that partnering with Impact Hotels means that they share a “focus on making the world a better place through impactful sustainable, eco-friendly and human-centric initiatives.”
Bravo to all the winners at SXSW and Travel + Leisure doing the same.
Michelle Russell is Convene’s editor in chief.