TenU Hosts Climate Tech: key insights
Governments and companies across the world are aiming to achieve net-zero emissions targets. These will only be achieved with technological innovations. Reports suggest that climate tech investments are soaring, but climate tech is a broad field. Selecting the most promising technologies with the highest impact is key. How can we focus efforts and concentrate our resources?
TenU Hosts Climate Tech brought together an international panel of leading professionals in the field to discuss these and other questions. Chaired by Karin Immergluck, Associate Vice Provost of Stanford University, the exciting panel featured Alyssa Gilbert, Director of Innovation at Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London; Danijel Višević, Founding Partner at World Fund; Dovina Qu, Senior Licensing Officer at Columbia Technology Ventures, Columbia University; Jane Jin, Co-founder and COO at OXCCU Tech; and Kyle Teamey, Managing Partner at RA Capital’s Planetary Health.
The key insights of the lively and inspiring discussion are outlined below.
1. Climate tech is a broad field, so defining it is key
Climate tech is a broad field and almost everything can be linked to it. So drawing boundaries is imperative. In an attempt to define these boundaries, Karin Immergluck drew on a definition offered by venture capital firm Breakthrough Energy. This definition centres around ‘five grand challenges’: (1) electricity – how we plug in, (2) transportation – how we get around, (3) manufacturing – how we make things, (4) buildings – how we live, (5) agriculture – how we grow things.
According to Alyssa Gilbert, these challenges are based on the concept of mitigation, so she proposed thinking about adaptation as well. Resilience and adaptation to climate change will encourage us to support innovations that help us deal with the impacts of climate change not only with its mitigation. Danijel Višević agreed that mitigation together with adaptation will help us tackle climate change issues and build a regenerative world.
2. Climate tech faces a dual challenge in its pathway to market: the development of a new product and a new market
Immergluck posed that in contrast to the drug development industry, which has a relatively clear pathway to market, in climate tech there is greater complexity due to the many different types of potential technologies.
Gilbert observed, many innovators are facing a dual challenge. Firstly, they are creating a new product and business, and secondly, they are also trying to create a new market. This creates regulatory and supply chain challenges. The vision of building a zero-carbon climate resilient future is clear; however, the contextual drivers that will make up the market when the product is at its peak success are not in place now. Identifying and working with current market players is key to finding ways to ease the journey for some of these founders and their technologies.
Kyle Teamey added that, for those who are creating technologies that are replacing existing products, competing with the existing markets adds another layer to the problem. For example, industries responsible for CO2 emission are enormous and scaling up climate tech to that same level or higher is very challenging, but absolutely essential.
Nevertheless, various trends such as the increase of consumer demand for lower carbon emission products as well as the policy efforts associated with it, can facilitate the market entry and the upscaling of climate technologies. Moreover, the increasing appetite in corporate venture investors for climate tech can speed up the growth of these start-ups, as stressed by Jane Jin.
3. Talent development is key to unleashing the potential of the sector
Jin highlighted the need to create the right environment and a culture of entrepreneurs if we want the talent to remain in the innovation ecosystem and help tackle the climate crisis.
Dovina Qu and Immergluck reported that universities are taking action by creating climate-focused schools such as Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and Columbia Climate School, and working on the development of climate tech as well as climate policy. Investment firms have also developed programmes to help bridge the gap between first production and commercial product.
Qu agreed that by creating these opportunities, young scientists and engineers are encouraged to remain in the ecosystem and unleash their potential. They will be able to build businesses that will make the world better or become investors who understand the technology and hence make smarter decisions that lead to a better world, as emphasised by Višević.
4. Clear and consistent policy-making is crucial to fostering the healthy evolution of climate tech
Gilbert highlighted two policy sectors. On the one hand, innovation policy is about the government support that is available to help innovators at different stages. On the other, climate policy is about driving progress towards the climate market. A strong and clear signal that there is going to be direction of travel towards the market where climate tech products can succeed and thrive can have a massive impact. An example of this was the UK government’s announcement to phase out the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2030, shifting the production entirely where it didn't appear possible.
Teamey pointed out that simple and clear messaging is key, as it is very difficult for entrepreneurs to keep up with policy development. Predictability and durability are equally necessary as they provide certainty and time to adjust.
And finally, as Višević stressed, measuring the CO2 emission and putting a price on it would lead to major shifts in the market.
Examples of successful startups
The panelists spoke about some of their successful start-ups in climate tech:
Karin Immergluck (Stanford University): ClearFlame and Fervo Energy
Dovina Qu (Columbia University): Kelvin (fka Radiator Labs)
Alyssa Gilbert (Imperial College London): Upside Energy which was bought by Octopus Energy and Notpla
Jane Jin (OXCCU): Yasa Motors from University of Oxford
Danijel Višević (World Fund): Planet A Foods
Current trends include carbon capture, mycelium, materials for batteries, alternatives to fossil fuel-based products, synthetic biology, CO2 conversion and more. It is important that we try to foresee what will potentially engender a large market in the next 5-10 years and that we also keep in mind those technologies that may not sound as exciting but are key to reducing emmissions, e.g. housing materials for retro-fitting.
TenU is an international collaboration formed to capture effective practices in research commercialisation and share these with governments and higher education communities. Its members work together to increase the societal impact of research. TenU’s members are the technology transfer offices of the University of Cambridge, Columbia University, University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London, KU Leuven, University of Manchester, MIT, University of Oxford, Stanford University, and UCL.
TenU is funded by Research England and hosted by Cambridge Enterprise.
