Spotlight FAQs – Spotlight

Clima Now Spotlight 2025 FAQs

Welcome to the Clima Now Spotlight Call for Proposals 2025. In this section, we aim to provide comprehensive answers to some frequently asked questions to assist you in your submission process.

What is Clima Now Spotlight?

With Clima Now Spotlight, we mobilize people to actively participate in thinking about climate solutions and support them in putting their climate ideas into action.

Once a year, we call for ideas on a specific topic. We give project initiators visibility and mobilize the society and their communities for the climate.

The winning projects will receive CHF 90’000 in total:

Prize: CHF 50’000
Prize: CHF 25’000
Prize: CHF 10’000

Audience prize: CHF 5’000

Additional Benefit for the 7 Finalists: Access to Expert Sessions:

In addition to developing their ideas further, the seven finalists will gain exclusive access to expert sessions through the BookYourExpert platform. This online service connects participants with verified experts in over 120 sustainability-related fields.

What do we mean by “ideas for a water-wise Switzerland”?

Worldwide, water demand is rising, while at the same time water is a limited resource, exposed to pollution and threatened by climate-related changes (see also: SDC). In Switzerland, this becomes visible in vanishing glaciers and shifting rivers. Water as a resource is under pressure.

By a “water-wise Switzerland,” we mean securing the long-term availability, quality, and equitable distribution of water, while protecting ecosystems and adapting to emerging challenges.

We are looking for innovative approaches and solutions that promote the resource-efficient, effective, and responsible use of water in Switzerland.

We broke the topic of water down into four key areas:

Water Protection & Biodiversity

Ideas that safeguard aquatic ecosystems, reduce pollution and restore rivers, wetlands, and natural water cycles.

Protecting and restoring water-related ecosystems
Preventing and reducing water pollution
Restoring natural water cycles
Examples: wetland restoration, bio-based riverbank filtration systems, monitoring water quality and ecosystem health, etc.

Balancing Water Use & Preservation

Solutions to balance the competing water demands across sectors — like agriculture, tourism, winter sports, and recreation — while protecting long-term water quality.

Promoting efficient water use in tourism, wintersports, agriculture and industry
Emphasizing water conservation and the adoption of water-saving technologies across all sectors
Improving water storage as a strategic resource
Examples: water footprint labeling for hotels and ski resorts, smart irrigation systems for alpine agriculture, storage tanks to capture rainwater, etc.

Smart Water Management & Circularity

Innovations that develop and increase intelligent, efficient use, reuse and circularity in water systems — to ensure water supply and treatment to close wastewater loops.

Developing and implementing innovative solutions for water treatment, purification, and infrastructure – including the use of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and remote sensing for real-time water monitoring
Reducing and managing wastewater sustainably
Encouraging participation in and ensuring of water management strategies that are robust, future-oriented and accepted. Ideas that can set an example and gain visibility through spotlight are also welcome
Examples: water flow monitoring for reservoir management, greywater management and recycling, etc.

Water Resilience & Climate Adaptation

Strategies to ensure water availability and reliability during extreme weather, while reducing risk and strengthen adaptive capacity.

Adapting to the impacts of climate change, such as glacier retreat and shifting water availability, through alternative storage solutions and advanced monitoring programs or other directions
Everything including reduction of risks and building resilience amid climate-driven challenges in availability and reliability of water amid droughts, floods and extreme weather.
Examples: additional reservoirs in drought-prone areas, flood risk mapping integrating local knowledge, early warning systems, etc.

What do you need to fill out / hand in to participate?

Project Title (max. 100 characters)
Project Team (Names & Functions, max. 200 characters)
Summary of your Project: Describe your project in 3-4 sentences (max. 500 characters).
What issue does your project address, and why do you want to tackle it? Tell us more about the problem you are tackling and how you got inspired to start a project that offers a solution (max. 500 characters).
What is your project about and how is it a water-wise solution for Switzerland? Tell us more about the solution you want to provide (max. 500 characters).
How do you measure your project’s success? Describe the goal of your project and how you will determine when it has been achieved (max. 500 characters).
Who are the people behind the project and what is your secret to a great collaboration? Introduce the people of the core team, your individual backgrounds and why you make a great team (max. 500 characters).
Required Budget in CHF
Upload Mission Model Canvas (PDF only)
Project Video Upload (max. 2 Mins, 16:9)
URL of your project – if available
Three Project pictures (up to five possible)
Social Media Profiles – if available
Name and Contact Information of the Project Lead

How are projects submitted?

Projects are submitted exclusively via the Clima Now Spotlight website. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Deadline for submission is June 30^th, 2025, 11:59 a.m. CEST (midday) the latest.

Who is eligible to apply?

Only legal entities, natural persons capable of acting or natural persons with limited capacity to act (who act with the consent of their legal representatives) are eligible as project initiators (individuals, groups, collaborations). Project initiators must be domiciled in Switzerland or their project must have a clear scope for the Swiss water cycle. The minimum age of project initiators is 18 years.

Spotlight is our community contest driving societal change towards more climate action. We strive to ensure diversity and inclusivity by welcoming projects from all segments of society, regardless of gender, race, or background. We account for that in our decision-making since we believe that diverse teams are stronger teams.

Formal criteria

Compliance: The project must not contain any discriminatory or illegal content.
Data: The application form must be filled out completely, and the video presentation should last no more than 2 minutes. The canvas template must be used and completed in full.

Content criteria

Impact Focus: The project impact must have a positive, significant and robust impact on the Swiss water cycle. Applications are also welcome for ideas that have been successful abroad and are now intended to be implemented in Switzerland.
Practicability: The project must be implemented in the following year.
Scalability: Due to our impact-oriented approach, we support projects that can be implemented or copied in various regions of Switzerland or have growth potential.
Entity-independent: Whether you are applying with a new idea using a bottom-up approach, or your association, startup, or company needs a kick-start, we encourage all types of organizations to apply.

The following projects are not supported:

Projects that contain discriminatory or illegal content.
Projects that engage in greenwashing, which means suggesting an environmentally friendly image without a factual basis.
We endorse startup concepts, but they must be in their early stages with no substantial external funding by external investors raised so far.
Our content focus is on ideas for water-related solutions in Switzerland. This does not include:
- Awareness campaigns with no tangible impact
- Solutions that do not regard the Swiss water cycle
- Hydropower

How does the selection process work?

Timeline
May 5: Start application period. We review applications continuously. Submissions are open until all spots are filled, at the latest until June 30, 2025 11:59 am (midday).
Project selection by Spotlight Jury for “Wall of Fame”
August 27th, 2025: Communication to project leaders regarding the “Wall of Fame” selection
September 8 – 22, 2025: Public Voting (closes at 11:59 am CEST)
Evaluation Public Voting
October 1: Announcement Spotlight Finalists
October, 2025: Rehearsal Pitch Presentations (online)
October 16, 2025: Submission of Slides for Pitch Night
October 23, 2025: Pitch Night at Kraftwerk, Zurich
Post-event: Signing grant agreement with Clima Now
Clima Now: Formal Criteria Check
After the submission deadline, Clima Now will verify if each application meets the formal criteria. These criteria are described in the “Who is eligible to apply? (Formal criteria)” section above.
Jury: Content Criteria Evaluation
All applications that meet the formal criteria will be evaluated by the jury based on the following content criteria:

Impact: How effective is the project for a climate-resilient water system?
Relevance & Practicability: Is the project necessary and feasible in Switzerland?
Scalability: How well can the impact unfold, scale, spread, or multiply?
Viability: What is the chance that the project will endure and persist after Clima Now funding?
Money impact: what does the prize money bring them?
NOW Factor: Does the solution develop its first impact in just one year?
Community: To what extent is a community actively involved and activated in the project?
Thematic fit: How well does the project fit into this year’s Spotlight focus on water?

The 20-30 projects with the highest rating from the jury will be showcased on the “Wall of Fame” on the Clima Now website. Your project will be displayed with the information you provided by filling out the form. All projects on the Wall of Fame are publicly evaluated during the two-weeks public voting period. The seven projects with the most votes will have the opportunity to present themselves on stage at the Spotlight Pitch Night and will have the chance to win prize money.

Disqualification

For Public voting, we expect fair competition. The votes must come from real people. If we find any discrepancies, we reserve the right to disqualify the project and exclude it from further participation in the competition.

What can I win?

The winning projects will receive CHF 90’000 in total:

Prize: CHF 50’000
Prize: CHF 25’000
Prize: CHF 10’000

Audience prize: CHF 5’000

Additional Benefit for the 7 Finalists: Access to Expert Sessions:

All projects on the Wall of Fame become part of the Spotlight Alumni Community.

During the support period, winning projects benefit from increased visibility through Clima Now’s communication channels and have the opportunity to share their progress and milestones with a broader audience as part of the Clima Now Spotlight.

Important Dates

5 May 2025	Go-Live Spotlight / Call for Proposals Applications are evaluated on a rolling basis.
30 June 2025	Deadline for Project Submission at 11:59 a.m. CEST (midday) We reserve the right to close earlier, if all spots are filled
27 August 2025	Communication to Project Leads of Jury Decision who is on the Wall of Fame
8 September – 22 September 2025	Public Voting online
1 October 2025	Results of Online Voting published
October 2025	Rehearsal Pitch Presentation of the 7 Finalists (online)
16 October 2025	Submission of final slides for Pitch Night
23 October 2025	Spotlight Pitch Night (Kraftwerk)