The DCCI Irish Business Design Challenge seeks to reward and promote sustainable Irish businesses.

The winners received €20,000 each and runners-up won €5,000 each, as well as free publicity and promotion, in recognition of the innovative and imaginative ways they are meeting the sustainability challenge.

Sampla: Redefining Footwear with Sustainable Innovation

Meet Finbarr Power, founder of Sampla. Winner in the IBDC micro category 2024 and a pioneer in sustainable Irish fashion.

Based in Waterford, Sampla crafts stylish, eco-conscious footwear using innovative materials like apple leather, a vegan alternative made from repurposed juice industry waste.

Hear Finbarr’s story as he shares how Sampla merges ethics with design through low impact manufacturing and their commitment to reducing fashion’s environmental impact. From sketch to shoe, discover how one brand is stepping boldly into the future of footwear.

Brookfield Farm: Cultivating Creativity & Sustainability

Meet Ailbhe Gerrard of Brookfield Farm, last year’s micro business runner-up.

Nestled on the shores of Lough Derg in Tipperary, her organic farm champions sustainability – blending creativity and environmental awareness to rethink modern farming.

Each summer, Ailbhe hosts ‘Field Exchange’ festival on the farm, bringing together farmers, artists, and technical experts to explore regenerative agriculture.

This documentary captures the spirit of Brookfield farm – sheep pastures and working beehives, candle making workshops, and a vision to make farming both sustainable and joyful.

Discover how their €5,000 prize will fuel this vital work, and why design thinking is transforming Ireland’s farms

BiaSol: Giving Grains a Second Life

Siblings Niamh and Ruairi Dooley founded BiaSol during the pandemic from different continents, united by a goal to transform food waste into nutrition.

Their work earned them the 2024 IBDC Small Business Category winner.

Today, their Offaly-based startup rescues spent grains from local breweries, transforming them into award-winning baking mixes, granola, and oat bars -proving sustainability can be delicious.

Listen to how BiaSol combats two problems at once: giving breweries’ malted barley a second life while creating accessible, nutrient-packed foods. With global demand for food set to rise 60% by 2050, their work isn’t just innovative, it’s essential.

BladeBridge: Turning Wind Turbines into Sustainable Infrastructure

Angie Nagle and her Cork-based company BladeBridge, runner-up in the 2024 IBDC Small Business category, tackle two urgent challenges. They divert wind turbine blades from landfill while supplying councils with low-carbon infrastructure.

With EU landfill bans looming, their innovative approach repurposes retired blades into bridges, greenway furniture, and e-bike hubs, offering wind farms a sustainable end-of-life solution.

Filmed at their Bottlehill Co. Cork workshop, hear Angie explain how BladeBridge turns industrial ‘waste’ into community assets that put circular principles into practice.