Solutions Built to Last (and Loop)

Every year, Europe faces the consequences of a linear economy: chemical pesticides degrade soil, abandoned land fuels wildfires, and food systems quietly drive deforestation. It’s easy to feel these problems are too deeply embedded to fix.

But a new wave of European startups is proving otherwise, using science, local context, and a systems-change mindset to drive circular solutions that regenerate rather than deplete.

Three founders, part of the Sage Impact Entrepreneurship program by Village Capital with support from Sage Foundation, aren’t waiting for top-down shifts. They’re building scalable circular systems – one beneficial insect, one parcel of land, one satellite scan at a time.

Omma: Bugs that Beat Pesticides, not Farmers

In modern farming, beneficial insects can replace chemical pesticides, but doing this is harder than stating it. Farmers usually buy these insects from third-party suppliers, shipped in fragile conditions across long distances. Many insects arrive weakened or dead, pushing farmers back to the “fail-safe” option of pesticides when infestations spike.

“Farmers are stuck between fewer effective pesticides due to resistance and regulation on one side, and expensive, unreliable insect supply on the other,” Webb explains. While the UK Government encourages the “development and uptake of integrated pest management and alternative approaches,” regulatory changes, the most recent of which happened in 2025, can intimidate farmers, impact their wallets, and ultimately distract from environmental benefits.

Omma’s founder, James Webb, saw an opportunity to redesign the system from London, UK. By enabling on-farm insect rearing with smart, semi-automated systems, Omma helps polytunnel and glasshouse growers produce their own high-quality biological pest control. As a result, farmers gain control over supply, cost, and timing while reducing pesticide dependency. “We’re giving them a reliable, cheaper, and scalable way to manage pests sustainably.”

While growers want to rely on beneficial insects, uncertainty in supply and timing often pushes them back to pesticides. “Quite often, farmers don’t know when insects will arrive or in what condition,” Webb explains. “One West Sussex strawberry farm had to spray pesticides simply because their insect delivery came late and in smaller quantities than expected.”

Omma’s approach tackles these pain points by making biological control practical. “A lot of growers tried to rear insects themselves for instant access, but it’s hard to keep a stable production line,” Webb shares. Omma’s system automates tracking populations, harvesting, and reapplication, reducing the expertise barrier and giving farmers confidence to replace chemicals with biology.

Biological Control Can Be Practical, Reliable, and Scalable

Looking ahead, Omma sees its platform as part of a bigger shift in agricultural systems. “We want to give growers more control over their sustainable pest management,” Webb notes, “so they’re not at the mercy of expensive, unreliable shipments on one side or failing pesticides on the other.” 

By decentralizing insect rearing, Omma is creating a circular loop where farmers manage, apply, and sustain their own biological control methods, with minimal intervention, improving soil health and biodiversity in the process. This shift promises ripple effects: improved biodiversity, healthier soils that store more carbon, and reduced emissions from chemical production. 

Like Omma, another startup is also looking out for the land, on our behalf: LandOS.

LandOS: Matching Land with its Best Future

Decades of monoculture and policy-driven land exploitation have left parts of southern Europe degraded and abandoned. Meanwhile, climate change and rural depopulation add pressure to already fragile systems.

LandOS is tackling this from Coimbra, Portugal. Its platform identifies, analyses, and matches parcels of land with sustainable projects that can restore ecological and economic value. Agroforestry, regenerative grazing, and rewilding become viable options for landowners who might otherwise leave land idle or sell for extractive uses.

The startup prioritizes partners who share its regenerative principles, creating a controlled “app store” model for land use that avoids unsustainable monoculture reforestation and favors circular practices.

“When land provides economic value, owners care for it,” founder Alexander Griekspoor notes. By resolving barriers like fragmented ownership, legal issues, and lack of access to reliable data, LandOS helps landowners see land stewardship as both profitable and meaningful. The ripple effect? Improved soil health, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and revived rural economies.

Revolutionizing, from Wheat Depleting Soil to Flammable Forests

Portugal’s landscape shows the legacy of unsustainable land use, from monoculture wheat depleting the soil to flammable eucalyptus forests. “The way we define sustainable land use is simple: it’s using land in a way that doesn’t degrade it over time,” Griekspoor explains. “Ideally, land should retain more water, store more nutrients, and contribute to biodiversity.”

LandOS believes circular land use is about practicality and stewardship working together. “We’ve seen many landowners care about sustainability, but economic benefit remains key,” Griekspoor shares. “If your land provides stable income, you’re more likely to protect it from fire or degradation.” LandOS helps owners unlock value by resolving inheritance challenges, aggregating small parcels, and matching them to sustainable projects that improve ecological and financial outcomes.

The platform’s partner-first model ensures circularity is embedded in every project it hosts. “We want to set clear rules for what gets featured, similar to app store privacy standards,” Griekspoor says. By combining GIS data, legal layers, and on-the-ground partnerships, LandOS is building a regenerative model for land use that bridges rural and urban interests while restoring ecosystems. Meanwhile, another startup is protecting these ecosystems in a different way.

Coolx: Seeing Circularity From Space

Most sustainability monitoring tools end at data collection. From Valencia in Spain, Coolx goes further, using satellite imagery and AI to help companies in the agri-food sector not just track, but act.

Its software allows companies to evaluate suppliers for deforestation risk, emissions, and land-use impacts before contracts are signed. By flagging issues – like plots too close to protected areas – Coolx prompts buyers to shift sourcing or request corrective action, moving compliance from a checkbox exercise to a proactive procurement strategy, not to mention the welcome bottom-line savings.

“Our system helps companies lead, not just comply,” Bruno Dominguez, founder of Coolx, shares. Coolx is designed to evolve with regulatory shifts like EUDR, integrating new indicators as sustainability goals expand. By centralizing emissions, deforestation, and land-use data in one dashboard, Coolx makes it easier for companies to track, improve, and close the loop on circular practices across their supply chains.

Many sustainability tools stop at monitoring; Coolx goes further. “We help companies move from identifying deforestation risks to actually taking restorative steps,” Dominguez explains. For example, if a farm is near a protected area, Coolx would flag this issue and suggest mitigation measures, such as switching suppliers or verifying land tenure, so that companies can prevent rather than react to compliance issues.

For success, the platform’s early integration into procurement decisions is key. “Our insights influence sourcing before contracts are signed,” Dominguez notes. “That way, compliance isn’t an afterthought; it shapes how companies choose suppliers.” Coolx detects when suppliers improve practices, in order to reintegrate them, which creates a positive feedback loop that rewards circular and sustainable improvements.

Designed to evolve, Coolx can quickly adapt to shifting regulations, sustainability goals, and use cases. “We built Coolx to be modular,” Dominguez shares. “As expectations rise, we integrate new indicators, making the system more predictive, global, and circular.” By centralizing emissions, deforestation, and land-use data in one dashboard, Coolx makes it easier for companies to take meaningful action while keeping circular principles at the core of their sourcing strategies.

Blending Local Knowledge and Global Scale

Omma, LandOS, and Coolx each address different facets of circularity – pesticide reduction, land restoration, and supply chain accountability – but share a common thread: blending science with systems design to regenerate what the linear economy has eroded.

These startups, supported by Village Capital in partnership with Sage Foundation, exemplify how Europe’s circular transition is not just about reducing harm but about redesigning industries for resilience. They show that circularity isn’t a single product or intervention. They show that circularity is about creating loops – of materials, data, and value – that regenerate ecosystems while sustaining livelihoods.

As they scale, they remind us that building a circular economy starts with a simple question: What if we did this differently? It continues with the courage to follow through. As we move forward, we’ll likely see that solutions built to last are also built to loop.