Unilever Foundry has teamed up with crowdfunding site Indiegogo to give social entrepreneurs the chance to answer sustainability challenges faced by Unilever brands with innovative solutions.

“This new partnership with Indiegogo will allow us to apply our learnings from the Foundry’s Pitch-Pilot-Partner approach, which dramatically cuts the time it takes to get a new initiative to market, to the wider business while putting consumers at the heart of decision making,” said Aline Santos, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Unilever.

“The platform also supports our ambition to decouple our growth from our environmental footprint while increasing our positive social impact. By redefining business models and identifying new growth opportunities, we have the ability to change the way we do business at Unilever and reach our goal of making sustainable living commonplace.”

A panel of Unilever experts will cherry pick the best ideas submitted to the platform, which will then be launched as crowdfunding schemes through Indiegogo. The first innovation to cross over will the the BwareIT, a smart water meter that monitors water consumption as you shower.