This briefing looks at how to encourage the disruptive innovation needed to meet the climate change challenge. 

Key findings:

• Disruptive innovation will be needed in order to meet the challenges of climate change.
• The UK is developing disruptive innovations, but many face resistance. Disruptive innovations are often locked out of existing markets.
• Government policy should encourage low-carbon innovation, for example, focussing more on helping solutions with potentially high impact, whether high-technology or not.

The UK needs to make a transition to a low-carbon economy. This will require increased levels of innovation – in new technologies, but also new services, new forms of organisation and in the delivery of public services.

But policies in the UK are currently only harnessing a narrow band of this possible innovation. Efforts to reduce carbon emissions could benefit from disruptive forms of innovation – cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives to existing products or services which are often developed by non-traditional players, and which target previously ignored customers. 

However, currently the UK is not set up to encourage these innovations and the entrepreneurs that drive them – in fact, they are frequently thwarted. 

This report looks at how, with an innovation policy that allows them to flourish, a new breed of green innovator could make a vital contribution to the UK’s strategy for carbon reduction.

Author: 

Nesta