Backed by Future Tech Ventures and Rabobank, 50X Impact is a purpose-built platform designed to transform climate ambition into action, with AI, automation, and total transparency.
Miami, US / Groningen, NL — June 16, 2025 — Today, just after the close of the Green Sports Alliance Summit, Dutch startup 50X Labs officially exits stealth with the launch of 50X Impact, the first sustainability intelligence platform engineered specifically for the operational complexity of venues, sports organizations, and live events.
From football stadiums to music festivals and convention centers, professional sports teams, or city-wide cultural showcases, the live experience sector generates emissions on par with entire nations, yet remains underserved by legacy sustainability tools designed for static businesses or supply chains.
“Sustainability in this industry isn’t theoretical, it’s operational, chaotic, and public,” said Michael Wieler, Co-Founder and COO of 50X Labs. “We built 50X Impact not for ESG theorists, but for the people in the arena, the ones managing fan logistics, supplier chaos, sponsor demands, and Scope 3 blind spots in real time.”
The Urgency: Lost Headliners, Lost Millions
In today’s market, compliance isn’t just about avoiding risk, it’s about staying in the game. A growing number of global touring artists now include “green rider” clauses, refusing to perform at venues, festivals, and events that don’t meet verified sustainability standards. The cost of noncompliance is no longer abstract, it’s measured in canceled shows, lost ticket sales, and entire city economies missing out on millions in downstream tourism, hospitality, and visibility.
The same shift is happening in sports. From ISO-certified stadiums to climate reporting in global leagues and marathons, sustainability has become a ticket to participate, not just to impress. Meanwhile, sponsors, regulators, and fans are all demanding data they can trust, and the ability to prove progress, not just promise it.
A Platform Built for This Moment
Co-founded in the Netherlands, where half the country is built below sea level and sustainability is survival, 50X Labs fuses deep sector knowledge with technical precision. Its flagship platform, 50X Impact, automates the most painful parts of climate reporting: supplier outreach, data capture, verification, formatting, and compliance workflows, while surfacing actionable insights that make sustainability a revenue driver, not just a reporting task.
50X Impact was developed under the technical leadership of Skye Ewers, the company’s CTO, whose background in full-stack architecture and systems design enabled the team to engineer for speed, scale, and accuracy across thousands of data points.
The platform’s sustainability intelligence is grounded in proven climate logic and policy alignment, shaped with the expertise of Ian Tellam, a veteran sustainability strategist who has advised governments, companies, and NGOs on environmental impact, reporting standards, and materiality frameworks across five continents.
Every sustainability manager knows the pain of fragmented ESG and reporting requests, sponsors want one format, certifiers another, municipalities a third. 50X Impact solves this at the core. By creating a standardized digital twin of your venue or event’s sustainability footprint, across travel, infrastructure, vendors, and more, the platform lets AI instantly reformat your data for any stakeholder. What used to take days of duplicative work now takes just a few clicks and quick confirmations.
Every data point is independently verified using a human-in-the-loop AI model, then scored for confidence, so you know what’s solid and what needs support before anyone asks.
The result: insightful dashboards, benchmarking tools, audit-ready outputs, and a clear, guided path from measurement to reduction, all built to move at the speed of the live experience industry.
“We’re on a mission to make sustainability 50x easier to manage, 50x more transparent, and 50x more impactful, for the planet and for the bottom line,” said Jeroen Bakker, Co-Founder and CEO. “It’s a goal we may never fully reach, but one we fight for every day.”
Strategic Rollout: From Innovation Partners to Global Growth
While previewed privately at last week’s Green Sports Alliance Summit, 50X Labs will begin onboarding 15 innovation partners starting July 15, offering early access, influence over the roadmap, lifetime discounts, and a seat at the product development table. Organizations can apply to join the program starting July 15.
The next 15 organizations will be onboarded on September 1st, and general access opens on October 15.
To build momentum, the company will announce a new pilot partner or sector collaboration every week throughout the summer, a strategy designed to generate ongoing coverage and build credibility through real-world use.
Why It Matters
Today’s sustainability professionals in our verticals are stretched thin. From sponsor RFPs and ISO certification to grant and compliance reporting, each stakeholder demands different data, while teams juggle spreadsheets, supplier emails, and manual formatting.
50X Impact replaces that chaos with clarity.
What Makes 50X Impact Different
- Automated Scope 1,2,& 3 data collection with real-time supplier engagement tracking — eliminating weeks of manual outreach and follow-up
- AI-powered format conversion for any stakeholder request, turning days of reformatting work into minutes
- Independent confidence scoring and full data traceability, so you know exactly what data you can trust before stakeholders ask
- Integrated certification workflows (ISO, LEED, WELL), streamlining compliance processes that typically take months
- Industry-standard calculation engine (GHG Protocol, PCAF), ensuring your data meets any auditor's requirements
- Science-based reduction insights (SBTi framework), providing clear pathways from measurement to meaningful impact
- One-click regulatory reporting (CSRD, ISSB, CDP), automatically generating compliant reports for any jurisdiction
- Role-specific dashboards across departments, giving everyone the exact information they need, when they need it
With 50X Impact, the CFO sees ROI, the sponsor sees verified ESG impact, the artist sees green rider compliance, the league sees alignment with sustainability mandates, and the municipality sees measurable progress, all without duplicated effort.
Backed by Impact-Driven Capital
50X Labs closed its €500,000 pre-seed round in December 2024, led by Future Tech Ventures (€350K in convertible debt). Investment manager Kyra Weaver, who backed the company from the first call, introduced the team to Harjan van der Linde and the team at Rabobank, which contributed an additional €150K in the form of a Rabo Innovation Loan.
The company will open its Seed Round on July 15, aligned with the platform’s innovation partner launch.
In parallel, 50X Labs has been selected as one of the BEFuture companies — a European Union–supported initiative dedicated to transforming how the MICE industry, large-scale event operators, and convention centers approach sustainability. Alongside a €30,000 grant, the company now has access to a network of over 150 mentors, policymakers, and industry experts, giving 50X Labs a rare opportunity to crowdsource insights directly from the authorities shaping the future of this sector. The BEFuture program directly supports the development of 50X Labs’ dual materiality decision engine, which will be launched in November at IBTM in Barcelona.
A Platform. A Mission. A Movement.
“Let’s be clear, the organizations that lead on sustainability won’t just help the planet,” said Bakker. “They’ll win. With better partners, stronger talent, more engaged fans, and more resilient long-term value. We believe sustainability has a much greater chance of lasting impact when it’s not just a cost, but a driver of growth. When it pays to be sustainable, it stays.”
With 50X Impact, sustainability isn’t an add-on, it’s embedded at the core of every workflow, every metric, and every strategic move you make.
Request Early Access Review Now
Innovation partner access opens July 15, get on the waiting list now.
Request access today: www.50XLabs.com
Press Contact
Maria Boscan
Head of Marketing
maria@50xlabs.com
