Nurturing the Precious Seeds of Green Tech

In an exclusive thought leadership piece, Al Baird of Wanted Studio asks, ‘why aren’t we seeing more Green Tech scale-ups?’

The dormant human lifeline that is secured deep in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway is a warning to us all about the need for continuous innovation. The Seed Vault provides long-term storage security for the world’s food supply against the loss of seeds due to man-made or natural disasters. It’s a last resort, so let’s hope we never use it.

As the climate clock is ticking, we put our faith in science. But if Green Tech is the medicine, then what are we waiting for? Like the space race did in the 70s, Green Tech could also be the answer to low productivity and growth. But only if we break through barriers that are holding back investment.

Growing pains

Despite the urgent need, the UK is not an attractive environment to some investors. We take more time to produce less than our rivals, leading to low growth and productivity. The government expects the public sector to do the heavy lifting in terms of investment, which isn’t happening at the frequency that our climate targets need. The Green Tech markets are complex, have not fully developed, and will take time to do so. There is still debate among investors who question if you can have profit and purpose, with many delaying investments due to green premiums, slow speed to market, and scalability.

Against this backdrop, Green Tech founders still contend with several challenges: bureaucratic hurdles, navigating regulatory landscapes, securing funding for new projects, managing a rapidly growing company, and staying ahead of technological advancements.

Green shoots

However, investment in 2024 is ramping up, with investment in UK Green Tech at the end of Q1 valued at £408m (Source: Beauhurst). While this is not nearly as much as the £9bn in 2021, it makes us number three in the world for capital investment, way behind the US but with more deals than any other European country (Source: Pitchbook).

The Breakthrough Energy Summit in London recently showcased companies addressing the five biggest challenges behind the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions: manufacturing, electricity, agriculture, transportation, and buildings. Bill Gates described it in a recent post as “A portfolio of climate technologies that aren’t just theoretical or promising anymore, but proven and ready for the market today.”

Looking at the breakdown overall, investment in renewables vastly outstrips other technologies because the market is more mature, the technology is proven, and returns are being seen. But newer, radical technologies are still nascent and flying under the radar. While we are making progress, there are not enough market-ready Green Tech businesses to meet our emissions targets.

The UK has the ingredients

When you look at the UK’s strengths, there is a lot to be optimistic about. We have the financial clout of the City, world-renowned universities, technological prowess, a deep heritage of engineering and manufacturing, proximity to Europe, and good relations with the US. So, what are we missing?

Green Tech needs more support and investment to get ideas from lab to market without the risk of failure. Investors are seeking risk mitigation, so this is all about building confidence and belief through a bold approach.

Global talent magnet

Our UK universities attract the international crème de la crème of student academic potential. They are magnets for talent. So, there is no brain drain at this early stage. That might come later as founders try to scale, hit the barriers, and take their fledgling businesses to the US due to better conditions for investors. We must do more to keep them here, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Oxford and Cambridge University spinouts get the lion’s share of VC investment in the UK. Their academic reputations allow them to attract the world’s brightest minds and the boldest investors.

These exciting spinouts have a major advantage over many businesses, with the potential to build strong brands from the very inception, but only if they can prove to investors they are market-ready and backed by due diligence conducted by business experts outside campus.

What’s the big idea?

A brand is what someone says about you when you’re not in the room. So, brand building is an activity that positions yourself in the minds of your intended audience. To build successful businesses, Green Tech founders must also capture the imagination. To do this, they must leverage their genius and embrace the power of storytelling.

Take ‘First Light Fusion’, a spinout from the University of Oxford. Inspired by nature, with the story of the pistol shrimp that sends shockwaves from its claw to knock out its prey. The resulting bubbles fascinated the founder Dr. Nick Hawker and led him to his revolutionary theory about harnessing nuclear fusion, and the company was born.

Another spinout, ‘Materials Nexus’ from the University of Cambridge, is using AI to accelerate research into new ground-breaking materials, reducing the time from decades to months. One notable discovery is the creation of a radical new magnet without rare-earth metals, which will have staggering implications for applications such as new electric motors.

One thing is for sure, we are not short of ideas in the UK. Do not underestimate the power of stories to not only inspire invention but also to attract new audiences.

“In the UK alone, there are almost 11,500 wind turbines and more than 810,000 fully electric cars on the roads. Globally, there are currently 314,000 turbines and an additional one million are needed to meet our energy needs. But the mining and processing of rare-earth materials to build them emits over eight million tonnes of CO2 plus other greenhouse gases in addition to using lots of water and toxic chemicals – and this will naturally increase as more of us switch over to green technologies. Our mission is simple – to discover more sustainable materials which governments and companies can use to build green technologies, in a way that’s commercially viable.”

Jonathan Bean, CEO,
Materials Nexus

“Our universities are a national strategic asset. We need to connect the City a lot better with universities, make capital flow better to founders who are coming out of universities, and make university culture more open to business. It’s all on our doorstep.”

Gerard Grech, Chief Executive,
Founders of Cambridge, 

‘How Britain could become Silicon Valley’
The Sunday Times, March 10

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“It’s huge claw makes a shockwave which stuns its prey, and it also produces bubbles. As the shockwave passes over the bubbles, it makes them collapse. When they collapse, you get these bright flashes of light. It’s called shrimpoluminescence.”

Dr. Nick Hawker,
First Light Fusion

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Fame means fortune

Most university spinouts operate in an academic bubble on campus and are relatively unknown beyond that. We need a better interface with the public (ultimately the end user) to raise awareness by promoting the ingenuity that is coming out of the UK.

To do that, we need to make Green Tech brands household names by making them accessible and famous through building emotional connections. That’s where storytelling comes in. Remember Brit Pop? The feel-good factor of the Olympics 2012? That led to the moniker Cool Britannia. It’s all about brand positioning and creating appeal in the hearts and minds of a broader audience. Why can’t we create UK Green Tech brands that are just as well-known as Dyson?

Build a community

By telling a consistent and compelling story, you create a fan base of interested stakeholders who want your products to succeed. These communities are vital in growing your brand, so engaging with them frequently through events and social media is critical. This community becomes your lifeblood as you grow. These fans can become your future employees, business partners, investors and advocates. They can help to remove the barriers to your success, such as attracting young talent into the industry and potentially solving the tech skills gap in the long run.

Don’t just focus your narrative on investors. Think about your workforce and the end user and make sure your narrative and messaging to them are consistent. You might have different touchpoints and messages tailored to different audiences but remember that the customer experience and employee experience are interconnected. When employees understand their role in the brand, they will deliver a better customer experience, which ultimately leads to growth.

It’s all about balance

A heavy technical narrative can risk alienating certain types of decision-makers, especially those swayed by human stories. So, when you’re communicating, don’t just push the functional aspects of your products.

Most business leaders in B2B are obsessed with product features and short-term sales. When your marketing is focused on the bottom of the funnel, you are talking to a very narrow audience.

Potentially just 5% are ready to buy from you right now. To capture the other 95%, you need to build brand awareness at the top of the funnel using emotion. So, your story needs to work across the full funnel, using a 50:50 combination of emotional and rational messaging.

This is known as emotional branding, and it combines art and science, with a blend of storytelling, analytics backed up by data, and genuine customer understanding and empathy. It is essential for sectors such as Green Tech, where products and services benefit the lives of people.

Magic + Logic = Business Growth

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Building any successful business is about getting the balance right between emotion and logic. Successful Silicon Valley tech founders such as Jobs and Gates managed to blend brilliant marketing with operational efficiency, which allowed them to scale exponentially. They had creative genius and money genius. This is supported by brand guru, Marty Neumeier, when he says that every successful brand has a combination of what he refers to as ‘Magic + Logic.’

Like the big tech brands, it pays to think about your business model as a platform rather than a product. This allows the business to scale, with more room for market segments and products which future-proofs the business.

Investors are looking to mitigate risk and get the best risk-return profile possible. So, the business model needs to be stress-tested from all angles, which is where an expert support network comes in.

Getting a holistic left + right brain assessment with expert partners mitigates risk and builds confidence with investors.

How many times have you heard Steven Bartlett on ‘Dragons Den’ criticising the strength of the brand execution? Then on the other side of the room, you have Deborah Meaden scrutinising the numbers.

Your brand and your business model are inextricably linked and should be perceived as two sides of the same coin. Therefore, branding should be high on any business agenda, given that it is fundamental to a robust, long-term business strategy.

Bringing together diverse minds mitigates risk

The green wave is inevitable, but we need to do more to remove the scale blockers by ensuring that businesses are embracing both creativity and logic.

On one side, it’s about being inventive. Creating exciting new brands that become famous, are accessible, and get the support of a wider community. On the other side, it’s about being rigorous. Bringing diverse experts together to mitigate the risk of failure that will give VCs the confidence to invest.

It’s in all our interests to make sure these ground-breaking seeds of Green Tech businesses are given the best chance of success. By bringing the two hemispheres together, made up of the brilliant minds of founders, businesses, universities, lawyers, bankers, investors, and manufacturers, we will build confidence in market-ready brands that remove the barriers to bolder investment.

Al Baird

Al is founder of Wanted Studio, experienced in brand, employer brand, communications and culture, connecting the often misaligned business functions of HR and Marketing.

Empowering leaders by clarifying brand, fostering investor confidence, and uniting business functions.

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