The Irish Business Design Challenge is proud to announce that the public voting is now open for the 2025 finalists.

The Irish Business Design Challenge celebrates and honours innovation, creativity, and sustainability initiatives by Irish businesses that benefit both the environment and society.

From a wide range of outstanding entries, our jurors have selected finalists in two categories (Micro-Sized & Small-Sized) based on their exceptional design-led solutions to modern challenges.

We have now entered the next phase of the competition where the public will help decide which companies will be the 2025 winners.

The 2025 Irish Business Design Challenge winners will be announced during DCCI Irish Design Week on Thursday – 20th November – 2025. Tickets for the IBDC awards ceremony are now available — book your tickets here.

2025 Micro-Sized Business Finalists 

Gemell is solving a huge problem for the textile industry…. Unnecessary sample waste.

Gemell builds software that allows yarn & fabric manufacturers to create photorealistic digital twins (digital replicas of the physical item) of their yarns & fabrics, without ever making a physical sample. Using existing manufacturing data (yarn recipe and fabric design files), its system virtually spins yarn and weaves/knits fabric detailed all the way to fiber level. The industry standard for creating digital twins is by manufacturing a sample and scanning it. By removing the need to physically manufacture, ship or scan samples, Gemell cuts 70% of waste and reduces the time from design to product by up to 11 weeks. It’s replacing a wasteful, 100-year-old workflow with real-time 3D design tools that save time, money, and materials. The solution is fully procedural, requires no hardware, and works within the design tools mills already use. No samples, No scanning, No waste.

Ecoroots is Ireland’s first mycelium (aka mushroom roots) packaging company.

With a manufacturing facility in Cork, it transforms agricultural and industrial by-products into high-performance, compostable packaging. Combining biotechnology with digital-twin infrastructure, its protective bio-foam is 90% lower in carbon emissions than polystyrene and home-compostable within 30–60 days. Ecoroots’ mission is to eliminate single-use plastics by embedding circular, locally sourced materials into new industrial value chains. Working with partners in cosmetics, food and beverage, and pharmaceuticals, the company provides custom packaging that is sustainable, cost-effective, and traceable. As a female-founded deep-tech startup, featured in the Irish Sunday Times, Ecoroots is pioneering a new era of packaging designed around regeneration, resilience, and responsibility, proving that Irish innovation can protect both fragile products and the planet.

Change Clothes is a community-based clothing reuse hub in Dublin 8.

It transforms textile waste into opportunity by making second-hand clothing affordable, accessible, and social for all. From clothing swaps, resale, and rentals to repair cafés, workshops, and upcycling programmes, it offers creative reuse solutions for clothes at every stage of their life. Its new production studio creates innovative products from scrap textiles and fulfils small-batch production contracts for designers, community groups, and businesses. The addition of a scrap store makes affordable materials available to makers, artists, and crafters, keeping textiles in use and out of landfill. Alongside this, Change Clothes runs training and skills programmes for young people and long-term unemployed adults, turning repairs and reuse into real pathways to confidence, community, and employment. Its mission is simple: to show that second-hand can mean second chances — for people as well as clothes.

Refillz is Kildare and Laois’ first zero waste stores, selling wholefoods, cleaning, personal care, and eco-friendly products.

Refillz aims to become a community hub for zero waste shoppers and eco-conscious consumers in both its locations. Its goal is to help people reduce their plastic and packaging waste, leading to a cleaner environment. The company aims to reduce food waste by offering food by weight, allowing consumers to decide the amount they want to purchase. It also aspires to become a ‘one stop shop’ for a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. One of Refillz’s main objectives is to seek out sustainable, local suppliers who are also trying to build their business with a “green” focus. Refillz is delighted to work with so many local Irish suppliers who share its goal of making the supply chain “greener” while providing customers with high-quality, locally produced food and eco-friendly products.

2025 Small-Sized Business Finalists

Rezero transforms waste cigarette filters into premium sunglasses frames.

Each year, billions of confiscated cigarettes are incinerated, releasing harmful emissions and wasting the cellulose acetate (CA) inside their filters — the same material used in eyewear. Meanwhile, traditional eyewear brands rely on virgin CA from felled trees, driving deforestation and carbon emissions. Rezero flips this model. We rescue unused filters before they’re destroyed, recycle the CA, and craft durable, high-quality frames. We also reprocess our own production waste, creating a circular system that maximizes sustainability.

McWilliam Bags is a Cork-based company making durable, handmade bags since 1971.

Using near zero-waste cutting, plant-based materials, and 100% renewable energy, it creates products built to last a lifetime. With in-house Irish manufacturing, a repair service, and strong community ties, the company puts people and planet at the heart of everything it does. McWilliam Bags has developed a resource-conserving approach, recognised as its Impact Business Model in its B Corp submission and certified in August 2025.

The Rediscovery Centre is the National Centre for the Circular Economy in Ireland.

Located in the heart of Ballymun, Dublin, the Rediscovery Centre’s mission is to lead Ireland’s transition to a circular economy and a sustainable future, by creating a fair and inclusive society that thrives within the boundaries of our natural resources. Originally established in 2004 as an initiative of the Ballymun Social Regeneration Project, the work of the Rediscovery Centre (RDC) was and continues to be a direct response to local social, economic and environmental issues, as well as to the growing national and international concern in relation to the management of natural resources and waste. Social enterprises in furniture, fashion, cycling and paint have been established at the RDC to contribute to the development of environmentally sustainable businesses, and to provide training and employment opportunities in green skill areas.

Easydry, founded in Dundalk in 2003, is the global pioneer of the 100% compostable salon towel.

For 20 years, it has transformed how salons, barbers, and professional industries manage textiles, replacing cotton and microfibre with a smarter, certified sustainable alternative. Every Easydry towel is made from FSC-certified eucalyptus fibres, requires 95% less water to produce than cotton, and fully composts in 12 weeks. With B Corp, OK Compost, Seedling, and FSC certifications, Easydry proves accountability and purpose in action. Operating in over 25 countries, the company helps businesses save money, time, and resources while guaranteeing fresh hygiene standards for every client. To date, its innovation has saved 11.7 billion litres of water and avoided over 48,600 tonnes of CO₂ emissions.