Julie Blane and Carmel Rafaeli are the Founding Partners of The Table, "a community of investors at the intersection of Climate and Diversity, focused on increasing the amount and frequency of investment into climate ventures where there is at least one woman on the co-founding team". Both have an extensive background in venture capital and early stage investing. They have used that to create a new kind of organisation, The Table, which "enables investors and founders to close funding r...

Hans Unkles is a boat builder and fisherman. He is responsible for the first (and so far only) fully electric fishing vessel in the UK, based out of Tayvallich on Scotland's West Coast. He converted a standard 2-person diesel 'workhorse' into the Lorna Jane, now powered by solar and grid electricity only.You can read the story here and I recommend the hour-long documentary here.Hans went from school to a boat-building apprenticeship. Over the next 40 years he continued building and refitting ...

Amy Wilson is a consultant on commercial marketing strategies to early-stage startups (or, as her LinkedIn page puts it: "Venture Lead/Portfolio CCO/CMO & Advisory Board Member for Startups & Scaleups 🚀 Fundraising Support 💰 Founder Mentor 🌱 Ethical Investor").This episode is a little different. The vast majority of the Innovation for Sustainability interviews are with someone who is working on sustainability directly and exclusively. Amy tries to bring her environmental and activist ...

Dr Anna Birney is CEO (Chief Executive / Enabling / Evolving Officer) of The School of System Change, which enables personal and collective agency to cultivate change in the world with a multi-method approach to systems change learning - with networks, organisations and individuals (Anna's LinkedIn, Medium and Twitter).This episode is a little unusual. We dive into the Multi-Level Perspective ('MLP'), one of the leading theories of system transition which we teach in the module (here for the ...

Molly Webb is Founder of Energy Unlocked, an energy market accelerator focused on new market entrants achieving a low cost, renewable, resilient energy system, and Co-Founder of PeerCo, a platform which boosts carbon impact for businesses through digital Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (Molly on LinkedIn).We cover (amongst many things!):-How the Energy Unlocked cam out of Molly's work at the Climate Group, and her diagnosis of the challenges for innovating in energy.-How Energy U...

Sarah Goodenough is Head of Policy at Climate Policy Radar (CPR), a "startup using data science and AI to build tools that unlock global climate law and policy data. Open data, open source, not-for-profit."CPR are right at the cutting edge of the application of AI to climate law and policy.We cover:-How CPR grew out of the Grantham Research institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE, building out from a project on the Climate Change Laws of the World. -The approach of CPR to build...

Paul Miller (LinkedIn, personal website) is Managing Partner and CEO of Bethnal Green Ventures, which is "Europe’s leading early-stage tech for good VC".Note that at about 33 minutes there are some pauses because our internet connection went down.Our conversation covers how to run a 'Tech for Good' VC, including having a selection process that works, and investing in ambitious, leading-edge companies.Some specifics:-Some of the Venture Capital (VC) jargon, like: 'early stage', 'managing...

Steve Waygood is Chief Responsible Investment Officer at Aviva Investors (Steve's corporate page and LinkedIn). He has been a crucial player in the rise of sustainable finance in the UK over the last 20 years.Our conversation covers:-The role of insurance companies in finance, and their particular interest and leverage on sustainability.-No one anywhere in the world understands the whole of finance.-Many ESG funds are trying to beat the market ('maximise alpha'), on the assumption that an ESG...

David Hunter is Senior Counsel at Bates Wells, a purpose-driven law firm (David's corporate page and LinkedIn). David has a specialism in purpose-led organisations, including on fiduciary duty, social impact bonds and governance. Bates Wells itself was the first UK law firm to become a B-Corp, the certification scheme on for-benefit organisations, and has long been an advocate for purpose-led organisations.Our conversation covers a lot of what Indy Johar of Dark Matter Labs calls the 'boring ...

Stuart Wilkinson is Assistant Director, Innovation & Engagement at the University of Oxford (his university page, LinkedIn), and a Fellow of Reuben College. He works across the university, trying to create impact from the research that academics do. That ranges from helping a new technology to be launched as a start-up, through to getting results from humanities research into policy.Our conversation covers:-The tensions between curiosity-led research (which can yield utterly unexpected us...

Innovating for Sustainability series is back after an unintentional summer break with a great interview.Adam Parr is an Oxford-based barrister researching law, enterprise, and the environment (website, wikipedia, academic bio). His 30-year career has encompassed finance, law, industry, and sport. Since 2012, Adam has helped build a number of companies as a VC investor and founder. He chairs Oxford Semantic Technologies (an AI technology business), Cheesecake Energy Limited (a heat stora...

Alison Ward (LinkedIn, Twitter) is the CEO of CottonConnect, which helps global brands source more fairly and sustainably by creating more robust, resilient and successful raw material supply chains.Our conversation covers:-Just how complex the cotton supply chain is, with cotton traded 10 times once it leaves the farmer.-How it takes time to turn an innovative concept into real impact. CottonConnect has a 10 year journey from working with just 1,251 female farmers to now reaching well over 3...

Mike Pitts is Deputy Challenge Director, Transforming Construction at Innovate UK (LinkedIn, Twitter). Innovate UK is the UK’s national innovation agency, supporting business-led innovation in all sectors, technologies and UK regions. Our conversation covers:- How a publicly-funded innovation agency tries to nurture innovation and contribute to economic success, especially on Net Zero, leveling up and increasing UK exports.- The importance of storytelling in innovation in particular, and in c...

Beverley Gower-Jones has two roles:(1) the Founder and Managing Partner of the Clean Growth Fund, which" invests in companies with products and services focussed on driving clean growth in the low carbon economy"; and (2) CEO of Carbon Limiting Technologies, which "works with industry and government to commercialise low carbon innovations and accelerate clean growth".Our conversation covers:-The need for a UK-based Venture Capital fund focused on early stage companies (pre-revenue or just abo...

Alyssa Gilbert is the Director of Innovation at Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment. She is the boss of the second speaker, Naveed Chaudhry who is Head of The Greenhouse at the Centre for Climate Change Innovation, now known as Undaunted, at Imperial College.Our conversation covers:-How the Grantham Institute at Imperial is trying to support climate-related innovation through 'Undaunted'.-How the Greenhouse operates as an incubator and accelerator of climate-relate...

Kyle Grant is Founder at Oxwash, an on-demand and laundry service made simple and sustainable (LinkedIn).Our conversation covers:-The role of a start-up CEO.-Transfering the skills of a NASA Life support systems engineer to laundry.-How Oxwash can be the operational back-end of many circular fashion companies, and so is (1) an example platform business and (2) a pocket of a possible 'access economy', where people don't own things but have access to them (as many people do with music and Spoti...

Jolyon Swinburn is a Senior Policy Analyst at The Treasury / Te Tai Ohanga in Aotearoa New Zealand (LinkedIn). The specific innovation which prompted the conversation was Jolyon working on Aotearoa New Zealand's first green bond.Our conversation covers:-Aotearoa New Zealand's approach to prosperity which cannot be captured by GDP through the Living Standards Framework and the Wellbeing Report.-The fundamentals of what are a bond and a green bond.-The steps they went through to investigate and...

Shama Skinner is an executive, entrepreneur, advisory Board Member and Edmund Hillary Fellow (LinkedIn). She was an early team member of Thinx Inc, the company with sustainable solutions to menstruation and incontinence. Shama had spells as Chief Product Officer, Chief Operating Officer and interim CEO.Our conversation covers:-Being a start-up with new innovations in a category (menstruation and incontinence) that had seen no new products for decades.-Growing a new product which was part of t...

Chris Bean is Serial Entrepreneur, Technology Developer, and Edmund Hillary Fellow (LinkedIn). He is the CEO and co-founder of REVOLUTION Turbine Technologies (RTT).RTT is "developing reliable, scalable, and green energy solutions for powering mission-critical equipment in remote locations" as part of "the world’s transition to a sustainable energy future".Our conversation covers:-How a niche new technology can be used to decarbonise energy use in gas networks.-What it is like to be the CEO o...

Chris Gagné is an Enterprise Agile Coach, Meditation Teacher, and Edmund Hillary Fellowship Fellow (LinkedIn). Chris operates through Approach Perfect, as the vehicle for coaching using the agile methods. Previously he has worked for or coached with many Silicon Valley start ups and Fortune 500 companies.Our conversation covers:-The similarities and differences of innovation in start ups and large corporates.-The use of Agile and Scrum techniques to deliver innovation.-The importance of learn...