Insight
After developing the Gatekeeper model and mapping key solutions for low-carbon lifestyles, we launched Peloton – a multi-year program to ideate, incubate, and co-create startups and ecosystems that could make those solutions real.
From 2012 to 2019, Peloton played a pioneering role in shaping what later became known as consumer cleantech, climate business, cleanweb, smartups, and circular models. It gave visibility to emerging startups, showcased their products and services, synthesised the key concepts and trends, and helped weave together some of the very first networks in this space.
Process
Peloton was first the name we gave to our gatekeeper training program for established companies and public organisations. But soon the idea expanded: Why not also support entirely new businesses that could build low-carbon lifestyles into food, housing, and mobility? That’s how Peloton evolved into a startup boot camp, then into longer pre-incubator programs, and eventually into the Peloton Club, a monthly gathering in Helsinki’s best pizzeria that became a must-attend event for anyone interested in climate and business.
The later programs matched early-stage startups with bigger partners – cities, public organisations, and established companies. The aim was threefold: Give startups real-world testbeds and customers, offer them scale-up opportunities through partnerships, and expose incumbents to fresh ideas that could accelerate their own transitions. The first Nordic-wide program attracted startups mainly from Finland and Sweden and brought in heavyweight partners: Sweden’s leading rental housing company, Finland’s second-largest grocery chain, the biggest construction company in the country, a Nordic shopping centre operator, and numerous municipal and regional organisations. Together they ran experiments in Stockholm and Lahti.
Between 2013 and 2019 Peloton became part of a wider wave. Climate and cleantech startups were multiplying, incubators were springing up, and business events on climate and tech went mainstream through stages like the start-up event Slush and Flow festival. Peloton helped shape this new ecosystem, convening conferences, workshops, and communities – and feeding the momentum with research and publications. We analysed the drivers behind consumer cleantech, tracked demand, mapped business models, and distilled lessons on how to grow successful ecosystems.
Peloton was both a program and a catalyst: A place where ideas turned into startups, where startups met incumbents, and where a whole new field of climate business began to take shape.: Smart Retro – A Novel Way to Develop Cities, Smartup Manifesto, Cleantech takes over consumer markets, Nordic Cities Beyond Digital Disruption, Bees and Trees – Unique Partnerships to Co-create Sustainable Business, A Handbook for the Experiment Co-Creation Platform and Futures Brief: The Consumer Business Models of the Future.
Outcomes
Peloton managed to support dozens of startups in their pre-incubation phase and then provide a long-standing platform through which they formed partnerships, recruited team members and gained visibility.
One of the most successful, Sharetribe, is still in business and has set a remarkable benchmark on how to democratize platform ownership.
Several founders and team members continued their journey with consumer cleantech to other startups, incubators and ecosystem builders.
We published ten reports, handbooks and manifestos that increased visibility and credibility of consumer-facing low-carbon biz.
Examples and lessons of and reports on Peloton encouraged and advised Sitra and Business Finland to launch their funding programs on cleanweb, circular economy. Some of this legacy continues in incubators like Urban Tech Helsinki by Aalto University and City of Helsinki
Partners
Sitra: Vesa-Matti Lahti, Jukka Noponen, Tuula Sjöstedt, Kari Herlevi, Jyri Arponen, Mari Pantsar)
Ministry of Environment of Finland: Taina Nikula
Flow festival: Suvi Kallio, Tuomas Kallio
Putte’s Bar and Pizza, Nordic Innovation, Business Finland, Granlund, YIT, Kesko, Citycon, KTH, Bonava, Stockholmshem, SXSWEco, Rockstart, Tommi Rimpiläinen, Jonne Hellgren, Konsta Sirvio, Markku Makkonen Demos Helsinki: Outi Kuittinen, Roope Mokka, Tuuli Kaskinen, Juha Leppänen, Satu Lähteenoja, Maria Ritola, Mikko Annala, Johannes Mikkonen, Mikael Sokero, Johannes Koponen
Reflection
By the mid-2020s, the bright promise of purpose-driven startups as disruptors of consumer behaviour had largely faded – if not soured. What began as the “sharing economy” and collaborative consumption soon morphed into platform capitalism: Worsening labour conditions, deepening housing crises, fuelling material consumption, and accelerating the unequal accumulation of wealth. The digital age played out as a tragedy where startups and their brave founders, once hailed as liberators and magicians, gradually re-emerged as betrayers and villains.
Today, few would seriously argue that consumer-facing startups can, on their own, stop climate change. And yet, back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, it made sense to try. If the internet, mobile technology, and social media had already transformed how people communicate, work, and spend their time, why couldn’t digital innovation also transform how we live, move, and consume in ways that cut emissions?
We imagined real-time sharing of spaces, reducing the need for new housing or offices. Peer-to-peer ridesharing, reducing the need to own cars. Renting and borrowing systems for tools and appliances, reducing the volume of stuff in circulation. Smart meters and algorithms optimising the energy use of old building stock. A wider range of tasty, affordable plant-based food on grocery store shelves. Glimpses of this future appeared – but never broke through. The big consumer categories, housing, mobility, food, remained stubbornly unchanged. Startups didn’t disrupt incumbents here the way they had in print, photography, or music.
Why not? Because the old solutions were simply too cheap. Energy and materials were cheap. Market failures left unaddressed kept climate-smart solutions uncompetitive. And venture capital focused on blitzscaling and exits, rather than nurturing radical models that could disrupt the things that truly matter.
Still, the vision remains alive. One day, with wider systemic changes in markets and policy, new technologies and fast-growing companies could yet help redefine what “normal everyday life” looks like – making it more sustainable, more resilient, and still affordable. That bet is still worth making.
Peloton
