Entrepreneurial thinking and action are part of our DNA. The new HSG Entrepreneurship Monitor 2025 documents this systematically for the first time: between 2014 and 2024, 845 start-ups were founded within the HSG ecosystem, many of them with a clear sustainability mission. Founders are active across various industries, such as health, energy, mobility, finance, and food.
An impressive example of circular entrepreneurship is UpGrain, a start-up from Appenzell. Co-founded by HSG graduates, the company extracts valuable proteins from beer brewing by-products – thereby transforming a previously unused waste material into a precious resource. Co-founder Vincent Vida sums up the approach: “We see waste as a resource – not as a problem”. In 2025, the start-up won the Swiss Sustainability Impact Award and was awarded the Startfeld Diamant Prize from the St.Galler Kantonalbank. UpGgrain now supplies its products to the Swiss Army, amongst others.
HSG has recently expanded its support network for founders: HSG Entrepreneurship introduces university members to various facets of entrepreneurship and promotes tech-driven, knowledge-intensive start-up and innovation projects. The University’s two key programmes, the HSG Best Founders and the HSG START Accelerator, support start-up talent from the initial idea to market entry through two funding streams: Entrepreneurial Talents and Entrepreneurial Champions. The extent of the appreciation for sustainability is demonstrated by the first two Entrepreneurial Champions, who were each awarded CHF 100,000 in autumn 2025:
Henry Müller, a PhD graduate from HSG and founder of fortyfour is developing fully electric systems that capture CO₂ directly on-site, which makes them usable for agricultural and industrial purposes – a cost-effective, clean alternative to fossil-based CO₂ sources and a direct contribution to climate protection.
HSG alumna Carmel Imhof founded ZoneIn, a digital health platform that connects people with ADHD to certified specialists. Here, the sustainability aspect lies in the social dimension: ZoneIn improves access to specialised care in a previously underserved area and is set to be available throughout the German-speaking region in future.
Dietmar Grichnik, HSG Professor of Entrepreneurship and Vice-President for Innovation and Quality, puts this into a broader context: HSG views “sustainable business models as an integral part of innovation” – entrepreneurial success should be not only economically viable but also relevant for the society.
Sustainable entrepreneurship is also part of the HSG curriculum and research projects. The Global Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (GCEI-HSG), for example, explores how sustainable innovation and responsible growth emerge and creates a link between research and practical start-up support. In courses such as Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation as well as in Business Model Innovation for Environmental Sustainability, students learn how to apply entrepreneurial tools to develop viable business models to address environmental and social challenges.
Our understanding of entrepreneurship as a lever for tackling global challenges extends beyond Switzerland. As the Leading House for the Latin American region, HSG’s Institute for Management in Latin America provides targeted support to start-ups looking to expand into Brazil, Colombia or Mexico – often with a focus on local environmental and social issues. The START Fellowship, a student-organised incubator and accelerator programme, supported young founders from Latin America and Africa by bringing them for four months to St.Gallen and providing them with workshops, mentoring and funding. This, too, demonstrates how HSG applies its entrepreneurial expertise specifically where it can contribute to sustainable development.
