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Government urged to do more to support new breed of green innovator

17/07/2007

"When it is launched, we're confident our prize fund will inspire and galvanise communities to come up with new ways of reducing carbon."

'The Disrupters' report uses eight examples to illustrate the importance of innovation in the fight to reduce carbon levels. These stretch beyond the traditional expectation of new, energy-efficient technology to include new ways of owning energy assets, and new services to engage people in energy saving.

The report stresses the potential impact of these entrepreneurial approaches, showing how the eight it profiles alone promise savings equivalent to the carbon dioxide emitted by 1.6m homes. However, it argues that not enough is being done to ensure all this innovation has the widest possible effect.

With no obligation and limited encouragement for individuals to save energy at home, for example, innovative approaches like 'GREENHomes' - a service for time-poor, environmentally-conscious Londoners which arranges for their homes to be made more environmentally friendly - will simply not penetrate a wide enough market. Equally, without major energy system changes, '2ËšC', which has developed a way to use the pressure in gas pipelines to generate renewable electricity, cannot actually be adopted.

Measures must be put in place that ensure this new innovation is adopted by bigger players; that put other companies under pressure to change; and that persuade more people to take action on CO2 reduction. More broadly, the report shows how the Government's current focus on incentivising the creation of new technology in answer to climate change also makes it hard to develop both non-technological solutions or ones that focus on using existing technology differently.

Jonathan Kestenbaum, CEO of NESTA, said:

"In an area with the highest need for innovation, we also see some of the biggest barriers. If we are to overcome our dependence on carbon, it's vital we start to remove these barriers and encourage what begin as niche ideas to become more widespread".

Supporting the innovators

Highlighting the current challenges, the report calls for government to develop better ways of supporting these entrepreneurs and provide the right conditions and opportunities for them to flourish. Specifically, it recommends that Government:

re-direct some of its investment in innovation towards lower-carbon alternatives and include support for non-technological innovation, like that which drives behaviour change, within this;
provide local and regional decision-makers with the autonomy and funding to involve local households, communities, businesses and the public sector in carbon reduction. This might result in a community piloting a new technology or establishing a voluntary carbon-trading scheme;
reform the energy markets to create better incentives for innovation and extend the remit of Ofgem so that it is in a position to provide some of those incentives;

As well as the importance of encouraging the involvement of communities and consumers to ensure the widest possible number of ideas to reduce our carbon emissions, the report also stresses the role that a broader range of incentives can play in stimulating innovation.

Building on these aspects, NESTA is developing a £1m prize fund to inspire more innovative approaches to carbon reduction amongst community and third sector organisations. Full details of the initiative, which will reward imaginative, high impact solutions from not-for-profit organisations, will be announced in October.

Commenting on the Environment Challenge, Kestenbaum said:

"To say we 'need' innovation is one thing. What must follow is a commitment to actually stimulating it. When it is launched, we're confident our prize fund will inspire and galvanise communities to come up with new ways of reducing carbon. This promises to have a major impact not only at a local level but to our society more broadly".

NESTA spokespeople are available for comment and interview. Please contact our press office on 020 7438 9608.

NESTA
1. NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts. With endowed funds of over £300 million, our mission is to transform the UK's capacity for innovation. We do this in three main ways: by working to build a more pervasive culture of innovation in this country; by providing innovators with access to early stage capital; and by driving forward research into innovation, with a view to influencing policy.

2. The £1m prize fund is the first initiative in NESTA's Environment Challenge, part of its £20m Innovation Challenges programme, designed to stimulate innovation to address major social problems, from climate change to chronic disease.

3. The Disrupters was commissioned by NESTA and written by Rebecca Willis, Demos Associate and Vice-Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission; Molly Webb, a researcher at Demos; and James Wilsdon, Head of Science and Innovation at Demos.