Leigh Hudson (LinkedIn) is Sustainable Fuels & Carbon at International Airlines Group (IAG, which owns British Airways amongst others) and Board Member at Ikigai Capital, which aims to become a leading international, technology-neutral 'energy transition platform'.

She role is developing new technologies for sustainable aviation fuel, by supporting innovators and influencing policy. A themes I took to her answers:

• Innovation for sustainability is part of the corporate strategy function, which would have been unthinkable a decade or more ago.
• There is an accelerating pressure for, and pace of, innovation for sustainable aviation fuels.
• Progress takes time, and therefore resilience, patience and a strong sense of direction. Leigh talks about working with a company for 10 years before getting to demonstrator stage. Some of that time was about getting the technology ready, some was about the demand for sustainable aviation fuels rising.

Some people find aviation controversial, and see it as a symbol of our unsustainable situation, seeing it as an addiction to a destructive form of consumption which is highly unequally distributed. For them, there can be no sustainable form of aviation, and effort put into it is a waste of precious resources at this crucial time.

But if technological innovation can deliver, then could there be sustainable aviation, which is not highly damaging in each flight? It is a big 'if', with many things needing to go right for there to be truly sustainable aviation. But that was why we were comfortable having this interview. Such innovation efforts are a legitimate part of creating a sustainable world for all.

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters.  You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

Questions:
Here are the times of each of the questions.

PERSONAL AND ORGANISATIONAL INTRO

0:49 - Q1. What is your role and organisation? 

ORGANISATIONAL SETTING
1:39 - Q2. What role does your department / function have in the organisation? What is expected from you? How does that connect to the organisation’s strategy?

3:25 - Q3. How is ‘sustainability’ framed in your organisation? (For instance: are there specific key words or phrases? Is it only environmental?)

INNOVATION STORY

6:10 - Q4. Can you tell us the story of a good example of your work on innovation for sustainability?

INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

17:33 - Q5. What are the key methods and practices you use for innovation for sustainability?

24:35 - Q6. What are the biggest challenges you face, and how d

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters. You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

Pete Vale (LinkedIn) is Carbon & Circular Economy Architect at Severn Trent Water. I was very keen to get his perspective for 3 reasons:
1. Severn Trent is a utility with responsibility for a key natural resource cycle (water).
2. It is heavily regulated, which sets (as you will hear) important context for any innovation effort.
3. The role of innovation architect was new to me, and I wanted to know what it meant.

We had a very rich conversation, and I learnt a lot.

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters.  You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

SOME KEY POINTS
Role of 'innovation architect'.  Innovation architects are there to design the innovation programme, starting a tthe fuzzy front-end of the innovation process. -They scout the world for for new technologies, new developments, seeing how they line up against the organisation's innovation needs in the short-, medium- and long-term.
-They structure an on-going innovation programme.
-Once the innovation projects that have been validated, tested and very importantly funded, then handed over to the innovation delivery teams to actually run the projects.

Net Zero goal is very useful.  Peter says, “I've been working in innovation for sort of, for 20 years, in the water in industry, and a lot of the innovation, if I reflect back has been that incremental, you know, finding more efficient ways saving on chemical and energy. But but but absolutely just, you know, just small, incremental improvements, this is completely different. This is about, you know, paradigm shifts, really doing something very different. And therefore, you know, taking on much more risk.” (Transcription by Otter.)

In Pete's telling, this has shifted the companies, their trade body and also the regulator.


QUESTION TIMINGS
Normally I would put the timings of each question (see list here). But our conversation ranged widely, and not in a linear way. All the questions are answered, just not in an order which makes it useful to highlight them here!

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters. You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

James Corah (LinkedIn, Twitter) is Head of Sustainability at CCLA Investment Management, which exists to "help investors maximise their impact on society by harnessing the power of investment markets."

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters.  You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

Here are the times of each of the questions. 

PERSONAL AND ORGANISATIONAL INTRO

0:45 – Q1. What is your role and organisation? 

ORGANISATIONAL SETTING

3:02 – Q2. What role does your department / function have in the organisation? What is expected from you? How does that connect to the organisation’s strategy?

6:18 – Q3. How is ‘sustainability’ framed in your organisation? (For instance: are there specific key words or phrases? Is it only environmental?)

INNOVATION STORY

08:09 – Q4. Can you tell us the story of a good example of your work on innovation for sustainability?

INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

20:05 – Q5. What are the key methods and practices you use for innovation for sustainability?

21:59 – Q6. What are the biggest challenges you face, and how do you overcome them?

28:16 – Q7. If there was one thing policymakers could do which would make your work significantly easier, what would that be?

THE FUTURE

28:40 – Q8. What are your organisation’s priorities on innovation going forward and why?

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters. You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

Joel Hamilton (LinkedIn) is a civil servant in the UK Government Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ('BEIS'). He works in the Heat Networks Delivery Unit, which provides support and guidance for local authorities developing heat networks (also known as district heating). This is after industry experience and a PhD in the area.

A few insights to pull out from the interview:

The Net Zero target makes a difference. The narrative of getting to 80% did give people wiggle room to then say well, but we can carry on with this, which is a low carbon tech. The step up to a UK target of Net Zero means people are having to act more fundamentally and with greater urgency.

How you think about a situation drives what innovations are possible. From 14 mins, Joel tells the story of changing how a city thought about its heat networks, which changed what they deployed and when.

Team objectives and structure matter.  Joel says how a clear goal helps the team reorientate when circumstances change. Also, having a team of specialists, not generalists which is more usual in the British Civil Service.
 

Timings
PERSONAL AND ORGANISATIONAL INTRO
0:49 -  1. What is your role and organisation?

ORGANISATIONAL SETTING
3: 30 - 2. What role does your department / function have in the organisation? What is expected from you? How does that connect to the organisation’s strategy?
9:14 - 3. How is ‘sustainability’ framed in your organisation? (For instance: are there specific key words or phrases? Is it only environmental?)

INNOVATION STORY
14:06 4. Can you tell us the story of a good example of your work on innovation for sustainability?

INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
23:10 - 5. What are the key methods and practices you use for innovation for sustainability?
27:44 - 6. What are the biggest challenges you face, and how do you overcome them?
29:41 - 7. If there was one thing business people could do which would make your work as a policy maker significantly easier, what would that be?

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters. You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

Manoj Kumar (LinkedIn) is co-founder and CEO of Social Alpha, a "multistage innovation curation and venture development platform for science and technology start-ups that aim to address the most critical social, economic and environmental challenges".

The innovation system that works for industrial, and existing sectors, it works for those sectors, but it doesn't work for the unaddressed problems.

Therefore, Social Alpha is doing is itself an innovation at the level of a system by which innovation can happen. It's a system-level innovation, which then people with technical or other novelties can go from lab to marketplace, including creating a marketplace as they go along. 

Social Alpha is focused on India. Since its inception in 2016, Social Alpha has nurtured more than 200 start-ups including 60+ seed investments.

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters.  You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.


Here are the times of each of the questions. 

PERSONAL AND ORGANISATIONAL INTRO

0:53 - Q1. What is your role and organisation? 

ORGANISATIONAL SETTING

4:12 - Q3. How is ‘sustainability’ framed in your organisation? (For instance: are there specific key words or phrases? Is it only environmental?)

 6: 46 - Q2. What role does your department / function have in the organisation? What is expected from you? How does that connect to the organisation’s strategy?

INNOVATION STORY

12:00 - Q4. Can you tell us the story of a good example of your work on innovation for sustainability?

INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

20:50 - Q5. What are the key methods and practices you use for innovation for sustainability?

25:57 - Q6. What are the biggest challenges you face, and how do you overcome them?

27:34 - Q7. If there was one thing policymakers could do which would make your work significantly easier, what would that be?

THE FUTURE

28:45 - Q8. What are your organisation’s priorities on innovation going forward and why?

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters. You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.

Nicoletta Piccolrovazzi (LinkedIn) is co-founder of consultancy Applied Sustainability after many successful years at Dow Chemicals, including as Global Technology & Sustainability Director. Here she talks about innovation at Dow for sustainability, especially for the Olympics.

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters.  You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.


Here are the times of each of the questions. 

PERSONAL AND ORGANISATIONAL INTRO

0:50 - Q1. What is your role and organisation? 

ORGANISATIONAL SETTING

1:57 - Q2. What role does your department / function have in the organisation? What is expected from you? How does that connect to the organisation’s strategy?

3:48 - Q3. How is ‘sustainability’ framed in your organisation? (For instance: are there specific key words or phrases? Is it only environmental?)

INNOVATION STORY

08:37 - Q4. Can you tell us the story of a good example of your work on innovation for sustainability?

INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

17:41 - Q5. What are the key methods and practices you use for innovation for sustainability?

23:59 - Q6. What are the biggest challenges you face, and how do you overcome them?

26:02 - Q7. If there was one thing policymakers could do which would make your work significantly easier, what would that be?

THE FUTURE

27:35 - Q8. What are your organisation’s priorities on innovation going forward and why?

This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters. You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.