The Seed

Matthew works as Director of Research and Senior Lecturer at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, within the University of Strathclyde’s Business School. 

His research examines the policy and market conditions necessary to accelerate low-carbon energy technology and business model innovation in both new and old systems. He is a co-investigator on UKRI’s £10m EnergyREV consortium on smart, locally-led energy systems, and the UK Energy Research Centre’s Community Energy Finance project.

Matthew has published ‘Financial Times 50’ ranked journal papers, written a book on accelerating low-carbon innovation. His work has received international prizes, been referenced in Parliamentary reports and covered by mainstream media.

He also hosts the 'Local Zero' podcast where he explores the opportunity for having a sustainable impact in your own home or community. 

In today’s episode we cover:

• State of UKs Net-Zero Ambitions 
• Key Policy Challenges he Proceeds Emerging from Climate Crisis 
• New Business Models Led by Local Authorities & Communities 
• Bringing Power Back to the People 
• Important Trends he's Following  

Enjoy the show!

You can find us on; 

• twitter @Jwombwellpovey or @mhmiddle
• Instagram @venturingintosustainability and @_theconsciousleader
• email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

This podcast is kindly sponsored by Vala Capital. 

Episode recorded 12th January 2021

Today guest is Richard Templer Director of Innovation at the Grantham Institute

Richard holds a joint appointment with the Department of Chemistry and the Grantham Institute.  He is the Director of Development for Chemistry and the Director of Innovation at the Grantham Institute: Climate Change & Environment.  He has worked at the Imperial College of London for 32 years and is the current Hofmann Chair in Chemistry. He is a member of the London Sustainable Development Commission and advisory body to the Mayor of London. 

Richard has spent the last decade supporting students, innovators and entrepreneurs addressing the challenges and opportunities of climate change through the creation of cleantech businesses.  He co-founded the Climate-KIC in 2010 (stood down in 2015)  and more recently has been working on a plan to create a cleantech innovation cluster in London.

In today’s episode we cover:

• Training, Coaching & Funding of Start-Ups 
• Innovation = Ideas Easily Applied
• Broadness surrounding Innovation 
• Government Actions 
• How we can change the discourse 
• Buying Decarbonisation & Carbon Credits 

Enjoy the show!

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Episode recorded 24th April, 2021

Today's guest is Charlie Blair,  Managing Director @ Gravitricity

Charlie Blair has been an Innovator in Energy Systems for 15+ years.  He always works with technologies that are on their way to major market growth and disruption in the power and heat sectors. He now acts as Managing Director of Gravitricity Ltd, pioneer of underground grid-scale electricity storage. 

At Gravitricity they are developing a novel storage technology that offers some of the best characteristics of lithium batteries and pumped storage. Grid-Scale electricity storage spend is projected to grow from around $3 billion per year today to over $50 billion per year by 2040.  

The Gravitricity technology operates in the 1MW to 20 MW power range and enables existing grid infrastructure to go further in a renewable energy world and are currently building/built a 250Kw, 50 tonnes, Concept Demonstrator in Leith, Edinburgh. 

In today’s episode we cover:

• If this works in one place it works everywhere 
• Energy Storage in 10 years 
• Storage and moving electricity and fuel 
• Transition is on

Enjoy the show!

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Episode recorded 9th April, 2021

Today's guests are Olly Jones,  & Luke Gavin Co-Founders @ Elmo

Instagram - @elmodrive 

Twitter - @elmodrive

Elmo is led by founders Oliver Jones (Angel Investment Network; Startup Microdose Podcast) and Luke Gavin (Octopus Energy; Element Energy); and supported by a senior team including CTO Eamonn Gahan (VP Engineering at Acre & Drover) and performance marketer Rod Richmond (exited founder of CleanDigital marketing agency).

Elmo is the world’s first Net Zero electric vehicle subscription platform integrated with the energy ecosystem. Consumers and SMEs can access electric vehicles with no deposit, on flexible monthly contracts, including everything needed to run the car - from insurance to charging.

With Elmos flexible, convenient and digital-first platform, they are accelerating the transition to EVs and reimagining the €384BN EU leasing industry to align with the needs of modern consumers. 

After an exciting 2020, they are beginning to scale in 2021, and capitalise on a golden market opportunity to become Europe’s leading electric vehicle subscription service.

In today’s episode we cover:

• We always go back to our mission 
• The mission is to get 10,000 people into an electric car 
• The Green Dream 
• Why Cars are actually an expensive way of reducing carbon 
• How we have to radically change how we live 
• Making people act on Climate change 

Enjoy the show!

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Episode recorded 2nd April, 2021

Today's guest is Chris Goodall,  Author of 'What We Need To Do Now'. Former chair at ChargePoint Servs, bought by Engie and Investor in cleantech.

Chris Goodall is a businessman, author and climate change and new energies expert. He is the author of different publications;  Articles and Analysis, Sustainability: All that Matters, How to Live a Low-carbon Life (2nd Edition), Ten Technologies to Fix Energy and Climate, Green Guide for Business, The Switch and most recently What We Need to do Now (Jan 2020) 

A consultant and adviser to investors and companies across the fields of low-carbon energy and the circular economy - Chris works with big NGOs and companies and gives his best advice on how they can become more energy efficient. He had advised Marks and Spencers on community energy and even Helped green peace with the possibility of a 100% switch to LED in the UK. He now invests in young companies in the low carbon world. 

He publishes Carbon Commentary, a website and newsletter on energy efficiency and advances in renewables. His most recent publication ‘What we need to Do Now’ offers a clear plan for getting the UK economy to Net Zero within a few decades and looks in turn at each of the main challenges. 

 Goodall is a strong believer in research and is an optimist about the energy future.

In today’s episode we cover:

• The progress we’ve made on convincing people of the urgency of climate change 
• The Sense of Importance of Climate Change 
• What Needs to Change to Tackle the Climate Emergency 
• Policy Changes - Including Carbon tax 
• The switch to renewable hydrogen by traditional industries 

Enjoy the show!

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Episode recorded 30th March 2021

Today's guest is Naveed Chaudhry, Co-Founder and Head of The Greenhouse at the Centre for Climate Change Innovation 

Naveed Chaudhry is an Investor, Venture Accelerator and has a wide background in the Academic Space. He has made a number of impactful initiatives in the venture and Impacts Investing Space. He now works at the Centre for Climate Change Innovation. Where he co-founded and heads the greenhouse project a climate-focused accelerator, leads climate launchpad, is an advisor to tech nation, A trustee at National energy foundation and is an expert advisor to EU innovation fund and now a partner at Global Accelerator Ventures. 

Recently, Naveed co-founded and now runs The Greenhouse, an early-stage (pre-seed) climate-focused innovation programme.  At its core, The Greenhouse is a 12-month innovation programme for climate positive technology startups that offers early-stage ("pre-seed") entrepreneurs access to business coaching with experienced professionals, a range of masterclasses, free workspace at our new headquarters in Mayfair, and up to £40,000 in equity-free grant funding.

In today’s episode we cover:

• OXGAV 
• The Greenhouse
• Taking Conservation out of Academy into the Commercial Space 
• Chris Davies 
• MEP 
• Commercial Opportunities in Conservation & BioDiversity 

Enjoy the show!

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Episode recorded 25th March, 2021

Today's guest is Will Wells, Founder & CEO @ Hummingbird Technologies

Follow 

• Facebook - @TechnologiesHummingbird
• Instagram - @hummingbird_technologies
• Twitter - @TechHummingbird

Will Wells a previous investment analyst had a vision during a two-year fight with cancer. Now happily recovered, Will is realising that vision through his company Hummingbird Technologies. 

Hummingbird Technologies is an artificial intelligence business using drone and satellite technology with the most advanced machine learning and computer vision techniques to deliver actionable insights on crop health. The technology detects and learns changes in crop health, by taking aerial images from drones mounted with custom-made multi-spectral sensors. Resulting in actionable insights into crop health being sent to farmers via an app. 

The company is backed by investors including James Dyson and Horizons Ventures and has won numerous awards including the CogX Best AI AgTech Product and the 2019 KPMG Best British Startup. 

Enjoy the show!

In today’s episode we cover:

• Measuring sustainability from space 
• Core customer is big business with exposure to farms 
• Trying to solve huge macro-supply chain problem 
• Advances in space technology 
• Monetising sustainability - 4 Years ago 
• How to raise more money than you need 

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Episode recorded 21 March 2021

Today's guest is Jevan Nagarajah, Co-founder and CEO @ Better Dairy

Jevan Nagarajah has experience across banking and tech. Studying at Imperial College he holds a Mathematics BSc (1st Class Honours) and he has executed retail partnerships at Rocket Internet, building European ops for Ritual.co.  He is now the Co-Founder and CEO at Better Dairy a London based start-up developing animal-free dairy products which has recently secured GBP £1.6m (US $2.1m) in seed financing toward RTD costs ahead of its commercial launch planned for early 2022. 

Better Dairy uses synthetic biology and yeast fermentation to produce dairy products following a similar process to brewing beer. Their products, make the move to replace traditional dairy products in existing recipes and supply chains seamless.  They have taken to the lab and already produced their first results.

Enjoy the show!

In today’s episode we cover: 

• Dairy isn’t inherently flawed - it's the production process 
• Dairy 2.0 
• Opening up the world 
• How dairy can complement plant-based mylks 
• VC Sustainability appetites 

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Episode recorded March 19th, 2021

Today's guest is Jack Wrangham, Founder of Drone Ag
(@dronesforag)

With more than 10 years of drone experience, Jack founded Drone Ag on his family farm in 2015 with the aim of looking at how drone technology could help farming.

Drone Ag enables more productive and sustainable farming through practical drone automation and AI systems.

Drone Ag delivers the Skippy Scout drone-based scouting programme. Fast, efficient, automated scouting & reporting - Skippy Scout uses farmer’s smartphones to fly a drone and collect data at key points in their fields. Then it creates field reports on crop health, problems and progress in minutes.

We're going to be exploring Jack’s journey towards becoming a sustainability leader, dig into the world of agtech and drone-enabled business models, and learn about Drone Ag’s own unique value proposition.

Enjoy the show!

Episode recorded 12th March 2021

In today’s episode we cover:

• How measuring soil and plant health is key to modern agriculture.
• What Farming will look like in 5 / 10 years
• Why we need farmers and scientists to come together on AgTech innovation.
• The changing value proposition on farms and the challenge of getting farmers to engage with them
• RTK  GPS
• More info + better decision making
• Profit and sustainability
• Employment in agriculture
• Rewilding

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Today's guest is Juan Pablo Cerda, CEO & Founder @ Zeigo  

• Twitter @zeigoenergy
• Instagram @zeigoenergy 

Juan Pablo is the founder of Zeigo, a London-based technology company at the forefront of renewable energy. He has 15 years of experience working within the energy and environmental sector.

Juan Pablo believes in disrupting the corporate procurement of renewable energy to accelerate the green revolution and contribute to a sustainable future. As an entrepreneur and business founder, he has the vision to achieve a fully decarbonised energy system around the world sooner than 2050.

Zeigo, is a renewable energy platform powered by data & smart technology. It provides companies across the world with a one-stop-shop for all their renewable energy needs from PPAs to short term contracts.

Working to improve efficiency through automation to create liquidity in the market, Zeigo has built an extensive network of renewable energy generators and suppliers.  By focusing on scale, they aim to democratise the renewable energy market for companies of all sizes and bring simplicity and transparency to the market.
 
Zeigo raised £800,000 in its Seed Funding Round led by Naruhisa Nakagawa, founder of Caygan Capital. Zeigo also attracted a second round of investment from new and existing angel investors.
 
In today’s episode we cover:

• The current state of the UK electricity generation market
• What are Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) and how can they help the UK decarbonise electricity generation
• How Zeigo is revolutionising the PPA market
• What the future of electricity generation might look like

Enjoy the show!

Contact Jake
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Episode recorded  February 18th, 2021