Innovation in home decarbonisation is essential for meeting the UK’s climate goals, but innovators can face policy and regulatory hurdles that slow progress. These challenges – such as long approval processes, restrictive regulations, and unclear decision-making structures – can prevent promising solutions from reaching the market, or limit the growth of new start-ups. 

Despite their impact, these barriers often receive little attention, leaving small businesses to navigate them alone. Through this project, Nesta aimed to systematically identify and analyse these obstacles, working with affected companies to understand their impact. We worked with policymakers and regulators to propose clear, practical solutions, helping to ensure that the regulatory environment supports, rather than hinders, innovation in the sector.

Start-ups and innovators often lack the time, resources, or access to decision-makers needed to overcome policy challenges when they arise. Navigating approval processes and adapting to policy frameworks can be complex and time-consuming, particularly for smaller organisations focused on scaling their solutions.

As an organisation with strong connections across industry, government, and innovation networks, Nesta is well-placed to surface these challenges and push for change. We regularly engage with start-ups, investors, and policymakers, giving us a broad view of where systemic issues arise. By using our network to bring these problems to light and work towards solutions, we can help innovators focus on what they do best – developing and delivering the technologies needed for a low-carbon future.

This project mapped out the key policy and regulatory barriers that innovators in the sector face. We investigated each of these to understand their root causes and, where possible, we thought about potential solutions. Our approach included:

• engaging with innovators – to gather real-world experiences and identify common policy challenges.
• mapping the regulatory landscape – to understand why these barriers exist and how they impact different businesses.
• prioritising key issues – based on their impact and prevalence.
• developing and testing solutions – in collaboration with industry experts, policymakers, and other stakeholders.
• communicating insights and advocating for change – to influence policy and regulatory improvements.

We used design methodologies – such as user journey mapping and personas – to help communicate the barriers we identified.

This project update shows the set of fictionalised personas we created - composite profiles that represent common experiences and characteristics among the innovators we interviewed. This helped us to illustrate how different types of businesses encounter policy barriers in distinct ways. They reflect the diversity of roles, business models and stages of growth represented in our interviews, and they help show the real-world effects of current policy and regulation.

We hosted a panel event on this project theme at Nesta’s policy conference, Policy Live. This helped raise the profile of some of the challenges that innovators face, particularly when engaging with government to resolve any of these policy barriers.

We are continuing our work investigating home decarbonisation barriers, including our project looking specifically at barriers that consumers face when installing a heat pump.