Impact Stories from the EIT Community NEB: Innovation and Community Impact Across Europe

The Delivering the New European Bauhaus – EIT Community NEB Impact Report 2025 highlights how the EIT Community New European Bauhaus (NEB) is delivering real transformation across Europe.

The NEB is the European Union’s creative and cultural dimension of the European Green Deal, merging sustainability, inclusion, and beauty to reimagine how people live together. As one of its core implementation partners, the EIT Community NEB turns this vision into practice, empowering citizens, innovators, and cities to co-create more sustainable, inclusive, and beautiful places. 

Among the many initiatives showcased in the report, the following six stand out for their clear impact and replicability. These examples represent a selection of the many impact stories featured. 

Remonda (Spain): Turning Orange Peel Waste into Regenerative Biomaterials 

Remonda embodies the full NEB innovation pathway. Beginning as an Ignite NEB idea in Seville, the team moved through Grow NEB prototyping and ultimately registered their circular startup. The team transforms orange peel waste into regenerative biomaterials and recently showcased their work to President Ursula von der Leyen during the EU Joint Research Centre inauguration in Seville, demonstrating how citizen creativity, science, and design converge to turn local waste into European opportunity. 

Naviblind (Denmark): Enabling Inclusive Urban Mobility Through AI 

Naviblind is pioneering an AI-powered navigation system for blind and visually impaired citizens. With support from Catalyse NEB, the startup piloted its solution in Berlin in collaboration with the municipalityand regional transport authority, and presented its innovation at the 2025 EU Research & Innovation Days. Naviblind shows how accessible design can directly influence urban mobility systems.  

Ekotekt (Finland): Scaling Sustainable Construction with HempCon 3D Panels 

Ekotekt is revolutionising the construction industry with its HempCon 3D panels – a biocomposite solution offering exceptional thermal comfort, sound reduction, and fire resistance, while using 70 percent less concretetoring 14 kg of CO₂ pe and achieving up to 90 percent waste reduction. Through Catalyse NEB, the startup has expanded rapidly – opening a 3D printing facility in Estonia, securing patents in Finland and the United States, and earning multiple European awards. Ekotekt demonstrates how NEB values can guide industrial innovation at scale.  

Boldr (United Kingdom): Smarter Energy Use in Every Home 

Boldr is bringing user-friendly energy efficiency into households through intelligent home energy systems. Since joining Catalyse NEB, the company has raised $3.2 million in a seed round that exceeded investor demand, expanded into North America, and launched Boldr ProPack – the first smart thermostat designed for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning contractors working with ductless units. Its inclusion in the 250 list of Europe’s fastest-growing startups and the Sifted 100 for the UK & Ireland (2025), underscores its rapid growth.  

Mobilissimus (Hungary): Cooling Cities with Community-Led Design 

Born in Budapest’s Losonci neighbourhood, CoolCo’s began as a community-led intervention tackling urban heat. Through Co-create NEB, Mobilissimus co-designed a shaded cooling corner with residents – a modular space that reduced surface temperatures by up to 19°C. Building on its success, the project scaled through Enhance NEB, replicating the concept in Poland and showing how simple, low-cost design can deliver practical climate resilience. By engaging elderly residents, families, and marginalised groups, CoolCo’s strengthened trust, inclusion, and collaboration between communities and municipalities. 

FishArt (Italy): Revitalising a Coastal Harbour Through Art and Participation 

In Anzio, FishArt is transforming the city’s harbour into a vibrant, inclusive public space where art and sustainability meet. Led by the University of Turin under Co-create NEB, the project engaged fishermen, artists, schools, and residents to reimagine the harbour as a shared cultural and ecological landmark. Through participatory workshops and environmental education, the community co-created 22 artistic installations and hosted a public event celebrating marine conservation and local identity. FishArt strengthened social cohesion, fostered pride of place, and showed how creativity can anchor sustainable transformation. 

A Growing European Movement 

These initiatives are a glimpse of the wider impact detailed in the EIT Community NEB Impact Report 2025. Between 2021 and 2025, the EIT Community NEB deployed 227 activities across 35+ countries, with 60 percent in Regional Innovation Scheme regions, and €5.9 million sub-granted across seven programmes. A total of 92 NEB-aligned start-ups have been accelerated to market, and over half of all project leads are women, with most projects integrating inclusive design and accessibility principles. 

Together, these achievements reflect a vibrant, citizen-driven movement shaping sustainable, inclusive, and beautiful places across Europe – one project, one startup, and one community at a time.

Read the report