University of Utah’s Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy announced Build up Nepal as the winner of the 2025 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize on Sept. 24. The $250,000 award recognizes “top global ideas” addressing climate change and accelerates sustainable technology development.
The competition considers organizations worldwide, including early-stage startups, venture-funded companies and nonprofits. An international panel of experts selected Roca Water, Inc. and De Novo Foodlabs as runners-up.
Ross Chambless, community engagement manager at the Wilkes Center, said that in its first year, 2023, the prize was the largest university-based climate award in the world. This year, it has received a record number of applicants.
“[The difficult part is] just the ability to find various funders to support it, but there’s still opportunities to continue to increase it in the next few years,” Chambless said. “The word is out and there’s a lot of interest in this — we’ve been thrilled to have so many applicants and interested groups.”
Build up Nepal
Build up Nepal is a social enterprise that works to expand access to safe, affordable housing using only climate-friendly materials. The company trains and equips disadvantaged communities to launch and operate their own local construction businesses.
Björn Söderberg, the co-founder of Build up Nepal, said he and his wife Bina Shrestha founded the company after a 2015 earthquake in Nepal destroyed more than 800,000 homes. “It was shocking, the disaster was so big. It was also shocking how it always seemed to hit the poor families the hardest,” Söderberg said.
Söderberg said that many low-income communities couldn’t afford modern building materials, and homes made from stone and mud were unable to withstand earthquakes. After speaking with hundreds of families, his team found that brick houses would be far more resilient to natural disasters. However, that shift would risk harming both the environment and local communities.
“The problem with [brick houses] is that coal-fired bricks are responsible for a third of Nepal’s total CO2 emissions,” Söderberg said. “On top of that, there is air pollution. There are black carbon emissions. There are child laborers working in these brick kilns. It’s such a bad industry.”
Making progress
To start, Build up Nepal developed eco-friendly bricks that produce far less pollution than conventionally fired ones. But according to Söderberg, the process was not easy. “There was a lot of trialing, sitting down with people from the communities, talking with them about what they wanted. In the beginning, it was complete chaos,” he said.
Now, the nonprofit social enterprise has a 30-person team that trains entrepreneurs, ensures the quality of housing, collaborates with the government on policy improvements and more. Söderberg said it was an “amazing experience” to return to villages years later, where hundreds of homes incorporating Build up Nepal’s technology had seemingly “transformed” the communities.
“The point is that we helped them get started, but now they’re at a place where they don’t need us anymore,” he said. And that’s what I really find inspiring. That’s how we see it becomes something that’s bigger than ourselves. It continues growing and expanding even after we’re gone.”
Winning Wilkes
Build up Nepal has helped construct over 11,000 houses and create nearly 1,700 jobs in Nepal, moving the company closer to its goal of building 100,000 houses by 2030. Söderberg said the enterprise wants to expand both within and beyond the Himalayan region, one of the world’s most seismically active areas.
With the support of the Wilkes Launch Prize, Build up Nepal plans to cultivate international partnerships and achieve its goals.
“Our intention there is not to do everything ourselves, but we’re hoping to find partners who can replicate what we do in other countries,” Söderberg said. “I think the exposure from the climate prize makes a big difference because it’s a way for us to find those partners and get that international recognition.”
Chambless praised Söderberg’s work and the efforts of the other finalists, calling it “a really exciting story.” He said that Build up Nepal has already gained global support and is helping transform the building industry, not only in Nepal, but in other regions as well.
“We were really excited to be able to support his project,” Chambless said. “At the same time, we hope this program helps elevate all these ideas — even if they don’t win the Wilkes Prize — by giving them recognition and positive attention that could lead to other opportunities or awards.”
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