Tracy O’Rourke, the founder and CEO of Vivid Edge, an Irish climate action impact company, has been presented with the 2025 Impact Award by the Cartier Women’s Initiative.
Tracy O’Rourke.
The Cartier Women's Initiative (CWI), founded by Cartier in 2006, is an international entrepreneurship programme that aims to drive change by empowering women impact entrepreneurs.
O'Rourke is one of nine international female entrepreneurs and business leaders and the only Irish entrepreneur, who were presented with their Impact Awards during an event held at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Kansai, Japan.
Extraordinary long-term impact
The CWI Impact Awards, presented only for the second time since 2020, are dedicated to former CWI fellows whose ventures have demonstrated extraordinary long-term impact aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
O'Rourke was one of three awardees in the Preserving the Planet category, which recognises innovations advancing climate action and environmental sustainability, aligned with UN SDGs 7, 12, 13, 14, and 15.
Vivid Edge is a recognised leader in the energy efficiency space, helping medium and large organisations transition to low-carbon operations through its distinctive 'efficiency-as-a-service' model.
The company provides fully funded, turnkey energy upgrades, removing traditional financial and operational barriers for customers. The company’s approach delivers fast-track carbon reductions without upfront capital investment.
Vivid Edge is headquartered at NexusUCD in Dublin and is supported by Enterprise Ireland as a client company.
'Inspirational female entrepreneurs'
Tracy O’Rourke, founder and CEO, Vivid Edge, said: “It’s a huge honour for me personally and on behalf of our incredible team at Vivid Edge to have been awarded a 2025 Impact Award by the Cartier Women’s Initiative. It is a great privilege to be included among this group of inspirational female entrepreneurs who are driving social and environmental change around the world through their companies.
“At Vivid Edge we are on a mission to make it easy and financially rewarding for large energy users to decarbonise, bringing energy expertise, delivery capability and capital. In terms of impact, we estimate that the projects we have delivered to date for clients have avoided more than 36,000 tonnes of carbon emissions, equivalent to planting more than 100,000 trees and saved over 119GWh of energy.
“Vivid Edge’s work is making measurable contributions to global climate goals, and we are proud to be delivering measurable impact contributing to a better future for people and the planet.”
Kristin Kagetsu, Saathi (India) and Kresse Wesling CBE, Elvis & Kresse (UK) also received Impact Awards in the Preserving the Planet category alongside O'Rourke. The other two award categories were Improving Lives and Creating Opportunities.
L-R: Kresse Wesling; Kristin Kagetsa; Namita Banka; Jackie Stenson; Mariam Torosyan; Yvette Ishimwe; Caitlin Dolkart; Tracy O’Rourke and Rama Kayyali.