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Hello and welcome to another Strathclyde Inspire podcast.
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Today's recording is for our Let's Talk Entrepreneurship series.
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Now, this series allows us to delve deep into conversation and really debate with key leaders on a variety of different topics.
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So today's topic we're going to explore how to make climate entrepreneurship work for climate action.
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Now we've seen some outcomes and discussions around the recent COP27, which was held earlier this month in Egypt.
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And whilst we can't necessarily talk too much around the action just yet, we can certainly look at this in the wider context of climate change and climate action and how entrepreneurs can impact on these challenges and opportunities.
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So we have two fantastic guests today with us, and one whom incidentally have their own podcast.
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So a shout out to Local Zero Podcast with Matt and his colleagues.
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Now, if the topic of climate action and a zero carbon future is your thing, which I think it's it's everybody's thing at the moment, and it's definitely at the forefront of many discussions, and then I highly recommend that podcast for a little change of scene.
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So without further ado, I think it'd be good to just get stuck in.
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We'll maybe do a little bit of a round table discussion on who's who and what you do.
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So I'll kickstart.
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My name's Ellie and I work within the University of Strathclyde within the outreach and impact team.
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And really my responsibility is to implement the university's entrepreneurship strategy, which is Strathclyde Inspire.
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So I'm really here from a kind of innovators and entrepreneurs' perspective, as well as kind of just general higher education, how we can make some kind of practical changes around what we're delivering in order to enable these entrepreneurs and innovators to make significant um changes around climate action.
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And I also have my co-host here, Manish.
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Manish, would you want to give a wee bit of an intro to yourself?
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Hi, thanks, Ellie.
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Hi, Manish Joshi.
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I'm the chief executive at Strathclyde Students Union, uh long-time climate activist, and uh also have a broad interest in entrepreneurship and exploring these things, and I'm very excited to get stuck in today uh with our very own Roddy Yarr and Matt Hannon.
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So, Roddy, can you do a quick intro to yourself, please?
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Yeah, good morning.
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I'm Roddy Yarr.
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I'm the uh executive lead for sustainability at the University of Strathclyde.
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And my responsibility is to deliver the university's sustainability targets, in particular KPI 16 net zero by 2040 or sooner, and the milestones that sit within that.
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And by net zero, we don't just mean emissions, we also mean climate resilience, we mean social inclusion, just transition uh and so forth.
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And I'm involved in various city and region initiatives.
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Um, so yeah, glad to be here.
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Brilliant.
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Thank you very much, Roddy.
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Um, and Matt, do you want to give a wee intro to yourself?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So my name is Professor Matt Hannon.
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I'm a professor of sustainable energy business and policy at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship.
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So we work within sustain uh within Strathclyde's business school and work quite closely with yourselves on Inspire and trying to support entrepreneurship and innovation.
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Um, outside of uh the university, you've already mentioned that I'm I'm uh co-host and founder of the Local Zero podcast, where we attempt to uh inform people, educate people about how they can best support and take local climate action.
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Uh, but also I'm kind of getting my hands dirty as uh chair and trustee of South Seed.
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So work uh for an environmental uh community charity in the South Side of Glasgow, amongst various other things, trying to sort of support and engage with industry and policy.
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So very much uh like Roddy, working with practitioners and policymakers to make net zero happen in a just and equitable fashion.
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Fantastic.
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Well, that's the intros out of the way.
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I think we get stuck into the conversation.
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So I think maybe before we dive in, it's probably to uh understand what we mean by climate entrepreneurship and climate action.
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And I guess climate entrepreneurship is a relatively new term.
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Uh essentially it's climate and environmental entrepreneurs or change agents who see the creation of ventures as a way to address urgent climate and environmental challenges.
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You know, I guess we'd also look at it as social good, as social innovation as well.
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But Roddy, Matt, whoever wants to jump in first, have you heard the term kind of climate entrepreneurship used before?
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Um, and where are you seeing that taking place, I guess, in and around the university and in and around Glasgow?
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Maybe if I can just jump in quickly as a professor in a in a department for entrepreneurship, is it's something that we we hear quite a lot.
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Uh, I guess traditionally, you know, this has been framed as environmental entrepreneurship or sustainability entrepreneurship.
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Um, I mean, my experience of this is you tended to have kind of three separate strands until a few years ago where somebody was doing something that was uh financially or economically focused.
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The bottom line was the big prize there, and trying to identify a market niche somewhere.
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Alongside that, um, we saw social entrepreneurship uh arise where you were doing something that generated uh a revenue, but that was recycled for wider social benefit.
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And then alongside that, you then had environmental entrepreneurship, which is as this net zero debate and climate change uh action has risen up the agenda, um that that third plinth has become even stronger.
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And I think it's fair to say that these three are now starting to align.
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Um, or at least in my mind, some of the most promising business models and market solutions are triple bottom line.
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So there's an economic, there's a social, and there's an environmental, often termed kind of ESG, environmental, social, you know, sustainability governance, where you have these three elements align.
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So, and I think that's in my mind, that's where business is is heading now.
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And as an investor, I think more often than not, and you know, I engage with with various investors on this.
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A good example would be the Green Angel Syndicate, um, who are explicitly looking to fund these types of ventures because ultimately that they're doing kind of three in one, not easy to do, but if you can, if you can successfully execute that, then it's a it's a real promising uh future in my mind.
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That's great.
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And Roddy, where are you seeing this in action?
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Um I think when I think of the word entrepreneurship, I think of the university.
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Um, I don't know if it's at work here, but I think it's new ideas, new ways of doing things, um, and trying to make those sustainable economically, socially, and yeah, financially, I suppose that's economically.
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But where I'm seeing the changes is is starting to see a shift in the investment on renewables, for instance, um, being something that's more not yet happening at scale, but I think more public-private relationships were instead of it being a you know a private investment, it's now being thought of as something that actually has to benefit communities, benefit businesses, benefit organisations in the wider sense, rather than a group of investors whom may have no vested interest in the geography of that investment.
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Um so um and that's the area I'm working on really more and more is to how to bring I suppose it's like a cooperative model that you would have be familiar with in the Nordics, you know, where you have communities basically buying and investing in their own assets for their own benefit, and that benefit being financial sustainability, but also I guess back in the 70s it was climate sustainability, but it probably wasn't called that then.
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It was just how they thought about upskilling and getting themselves into a better position to be more sustainable across all of those different areas.
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So I think we're catching up in many of these respects.
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Perhaps we need to think in a new way.
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Do you think that the motivations of people have changed over the years?
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And I say people, I maybe mean corporations.
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Obviously, it kind of links to your point, Matt, about um earlier the there was kind of the three strands.
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You almost had corporate social responsibility as a new wave of oh, well, we can be a little bit more green, a little bit more kind of social responsible, but there wasn't there wasn't the regulations as they are now.
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Um maybe, Roddy, you could maybe talk around that shift between from a kind of corporate social responsibility right through to really working around regulations and introductions to more regulations around you know climate action and actually almost forcing companies to do something rather than it just being a nice to have.
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I could certainly have a go at this.
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I mean, I think there's there's a couple of things to say here.
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You know, who is the entrepreneur, who is undertaking that, that, that phase of entrepreneurship and innovation?
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So your point there around the sort of big corporates, I think is an important one.
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And obviously, you know, these are these are entities who are very much you know innovating in this space, or some more than others, um, and but but they're not the sort of only that other entrepreneurs are available.
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And I think what Roddy is pointing to there is that this can this can come out of uh communities, out of you know, local uh interest groups.
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Um I think typically when we think of an entrepreneur, you know, it's kind of the Elon Musk's Steve Jobs of this world.
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Um I think more and more, you know, I I don't think the climate solution is going to is going to fall out of just two or three people, as much as Mr.
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Musk might think he is.
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And obviously some of the some of the solutions in companies he's set up are going to be very important to that, such as Tesla.
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But actually, I think this does does come down to who's gonna drive this, who's gonna put this over the line.
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So maybe if we just take the the point there and you know the big corporates, my sense of the last few years, particularly in the run-up to COP26, is a lot of these companies were just wanting uh not just a single state, but these supranational um bodies, UNF, CCC, and the the other supporting bodies around that, to point them in a direction and say, look, this is where we're going.
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And you can see just in in the UK more broadly, the the economic um chaos that unfolded during the autumn and and the way that that spent the that sent the markets into a tailspin, was because industry likes a direction.
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And once they have that, I think it's almost like thinking it kind of you know as a juggernaut on the rails that they they can move in that direction.
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Um and you know, the signals that we we we send out around COP26, COP27 really do matter because industry listens, and in some respects, some respects, I think industry has actually been itching to move faster than some of the nation states.
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Not all industry, um a massive generalization there.
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But just going back to communities, um, I think this really matters too, uh, sort of in two different respects.
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One is that communities can can you know undertake their own work and projects, and much of this we profile with Local Zero.
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Some fantastic enterprises out there which have been set up by the community for the community, but also as communities, we are consumers and we send signals to industry who then in turn send signals to government.
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And there's this kind of circular, you know, uh circularity, this positive feedback mechanism where you know you then start to reinforce that message and action then really truly starts to happen.
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Yeah, I think that disruption thing is really important.
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Somebody has to disrupt the norm, uh, whether that's communities or individuals or small clusters of people.
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Um you know, veganism, if you think about veganism, that's that's just like a completely new market.
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So you know, we can work with um uh industry, private sector, public sector, uh and and you know, we kind of see where the the levers are and you and that helps to deliver change um in a disruptive way.
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That's positive.
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Um but then you've got a disruptive way that's perhaps almost a bit of a confrontational relationship to start with until you know.
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So we look at FinTree, renewable energy enterprise out in Stirlingshire, you know, uh back to renewables again.
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But that that community group had some very switched-on people within it who were able to challenge that private developer and to say, look, we we need a different model here.
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And the model was very much about how you can help us to help ourselves.
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And that became a really sustainable model where they were able to generate revenue directly into the community, not just as a gift, you know, uh in that in that sense around community benefits, it was a direct revenue because they took a stake in an asset.
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So it was back to that sort of Danage cooperative model.
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So there are different ways to disrupt.
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Um I think what we have to try and do is find a way that challenges the norm that actually started to deliver skills, opportunities, benefits for communities, whether they be communities of practice like a university or communities at all sorts of different scales, be it city scale, national scale, regional scale.
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It's it's interesting, Roddy, as well, to sort of see communities of interest form.
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And this is why, I mean, you know, I'm a I'm an avid user of Twitter, um, uh, rightly or wrongly, and I see many of its you know most positive elements against its weaknesses.
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But one of the real positive uh elements that's emerged for me over the last few years has been these communities of interest around these types of activities, the sharing of knowledge, sharing of of insights.
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And one I've started to really see formulate around a company, Ellie, that is trying to do, in my opinion, the right thing in terms of delivering net zero through exciting um forms of entrepreneurship and business model innovation is Octopus.
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So they're big savings sessions uh that happened just this past week.
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And you see these, I mean they're basically, and I say this in the in a loving way because I guess I'm one as well, these energy geeks who are well into this, who love this stuff, and they're you know, this kind of one-upmanship, but also, you know, friendly kind of support for one another about getting this done.
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So communities can happen out with the local area, out with the parish church or the local football team.
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Communities can be whatever you want them to be, and they're really powerful things once you start, once they start to coalesce and start to move en masse in a certain direction.
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I mean, Octopus had over 200,000 people signed on to that saving session, saved the equivalent of a small gas power plant in terms of turning down.
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And and I think Twitter and that social network and that community building has been critical to building that that uh direction of travel and that that critical mass.
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And I think what's really great about both those examples, both the Fintree one and the Octopus one, is it's empowering people, you know.
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And when I think when you look at big multinational processes like the UNFCC and COP27, you feel very disengaged, very disempowered.
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You're not there, you're not in the room, there's lots of business interests that are there who are lobbying against climate action.
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But actually, the stories of everyday people kind of rolling up their sleeves and getting involved and getting engaged.
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I think we need to do more of that.
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I think that's one of the things that we probably need to do more of, even with our students, to try and uh tell them those things.
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So is that something that kind of permeates now into the curriculum, Matt, when you're teaching uh students about these things?
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Are you using some of these examples to I guess galvanize climate action from them and to kind of inspire them?
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Yeah, I I think people need to be able to see what that coordination can achieve.
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And and all too often I think we've been conditioned, you know, particularly I think post-war there was an element of this kind of social contract, and this, you know, we're all in this together.
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The the scale of having to kind of you know mop up the um um the the chaos of post-war, both in terms of that built vernacular, but also a lot of the social institutions that had had kind of unraveled as a result of that.
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There was a sort of in the 50s and 60s this big focus on rebuilding and and standing shoulder to shoulder and getting that done.
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Um, I think what we've lost sight of in the intervening decades post-that, uh and and this kind of oil boom and this this rise of consumerism is that we start to act as individuals.
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We are individual consumers, that we're framed as economically rational consumers who think primarily in value proposition and economic terms.
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That won't get us through the climate crisis.
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That will not solve the problem.
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So, what we need are different types of offerings that will elicit different types of solutions.
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And I think community coordination, this sense of social contract and shared problems, but also shared solutions, is what gets us there.
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The problem is we're not used to doing that.
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And Roddy says, you know, quite rightly on the continent, they they've been doing this for quite a while.
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I think in the UK we're way, way, way behind on that.
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Yeah, it's a social norm, isn't it?
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Or not.
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You know, I think there is a much more owner ownership of property, you know, that whole piece.
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Oh, it that seems to be a legacy that's really hard to shift.
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In Europe, there isn't that same legacy necessarily.
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There isn't that same ownership of your house you you rent or you lease or you're part of a community um or you're or you're offered a house through the state.
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Um so the these interventions are are quite often welded into our thinking, into our media, into our exposure to commerce.
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You know, these are hard to shift sometimes, but I think we're moving more and more towards that, right?
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COVID, right.
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We maybe need to work a bit more together here.
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That's my hope, anyway, in terms of climate, is that we have we we start to reflect how we can work more closely together, public-private individuals who get together and formulate ideas, maybe businesses, whatever um they might they might generate.
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I I I completely agree.
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This notion of collective entrepreneurship, you know, working together to solve a joint problem which will elicit a you know a shared benefit.
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And and the types of legal models, how you legally institution this action is really important.
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You mentioned managed before about cooperatives.
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Um again, something that was very popular for a time in the UK, uh less so in the intervening maybe couple of decades.
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I think we're starting to see a rise again.
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And what I've really noted actually is as local authorities have really struggled for funding, it's something that came up again in the autumn statement, and we saw additional powers for councils now to raise that tax because basically many of them are broke.
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Um, and it's something that we're actually covering for the local zero pod in the next episode is how communities have moved in social, environmental entrepreneurs, not just one, but many, working together to fill those gaps by providing something that is revenue generating to the community to solve those problems.
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They've essentially, I mean, I've I've made this point in previous sessions.
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You go back to the formation of the coalition government in the UK 2010, one of the big, big um policies of the time, which was derided, um, was uh David Cameron's big society and kind of fell away after various critique from all sides, all political sides.
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But actually, it's ended up happening almost by default, because if you cut the state, something still needs to fill that gap.
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Um, there's cases up in the Highlands which we'll be profiling on the pod, which is communities are building affordable housing.
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They're building medical centers with community funds.
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And and this without that notion of community and collective entrepreneurship with a really strong triple bottom line focus, this stuff wouldn't be there, and the communities wouldn't have somewhere to be homed, to be you know provided medical care or to be educated.
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And so it's I guess it's a needs-must element here as well.
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I'm a farmer's son, right?
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Um and my brother still farms up in the northeast of Scotland.
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There's a thing in Scotland called machinery rings.
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I don't know if you've if you're not a farmer, you you won't know about this, but to Matt's point about you know, a group of people nationally but locally um forming themselves into little clusters of businesses that have like-minded interests.
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And that could be clusters of communities who have the same interests, who want to be sustainable financially, economically, locally.
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Circular economy, we talk about circular economy, the machinery rings, I think, are a great example of a commercial model that's focused on a community of practitioners, farmers, right, who need to buy or access services to farm, right?
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So if you're an arable farmer, you have to buy a combine harvester.
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Well, maybe you form a cluster where you all share the c the combine harvester and you have an asset a you know, a percentage share in that asset.
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This is just an economic model, but it's more community focused.
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It delivers Value because you get your crops out of the ground, you know, you fertilize whatever you do, and it's all based around that sharing, like a tool share in a local.
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Yeah, I was just gonna sound seeds do the same thing, Roddy, but obviously not combine harvesters, but you know, yeah, but it's just the scale.
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So you think of the scale that we need to act on.
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Well, why don't we think about these just as what are the outcomes that we're seeking here?
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How do we pivot more towards those and use a private investment model or whatever the investment model might be to deliver social value, deliver economic value, and to deliver climate benefits, whatever that might be.
00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:35.200
That's just the same thing.
00:22:35.279 --> 00:22:38.400
You could do it all sorts of different skills, but look up machinery rings.
00:22:38.559 --> 00:22:40.160
Yeah, I know it sounds sounds great.
00:22:40.319 --> 00:22:44.240
Ellie, I'm gonna uh pass over to you to to come in here with your question.
00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:51.279
Yeah, it actually links quite closely to what both um Matt and Roddy have just mentioned.
00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:58.160
I mean, we're talking quite a lot around almost, you know, who's who's driving this change?
00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:07.519
Is it communities, is it the consumers, is it the innovators, is it the people that are within the large corporate organisations, is it the government?
00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:10.559
Is it a combination of all of them?
00:23:10.799 --> 00:23:12.319
Is it the times?
00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:20.559
So this links quite closely to this in in terms of is the timing a key element to this?
00:23:20.720 --> 00:23:22.799
Is it is the timing a key element to this?
00:23:22.960 --> 00:23:34.960
So, you know, this is such a vast topic, and it's it's almost a bit overwhelming to think about it as an individual, you know, maybe as a small business or a single entrepreneur, how they can really make an impact.
00:23:35.200 --> 00:23:45.599
But entrepreneurs have, as you've mentioned, Matt, driven, you know, main major global, I mean, if you think about it, maybe major global warming issues for centuries.
00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:59.119
If you think about the Industrial Revolution, you know, we that caused major carbon emissions throughout the last few centuries, and that was driven by entrepreneurs such as Henry Ford and you know others.
00:23:59.200 --> 00:24:09.200
Um, and whilst that definitely transformed millions of lives for the better, also pioneered industries that became driving forces behind climate change.
00:24:09.440 --> 00:24:19.759
So if entrepreneurs can transform industries for the worse of the environment, do you think that they should be the ones that are fighting the climate change on their own?
00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:21.599
Do you think it's it's the timing?
00:24:21.759 --> 00:24:23.839
You know, what are your thoughts on that?
00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:30.480
So, I mean, yes, in short, uh we need entrepreneurship, we need innovation to get us out of this mess.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:35.440
Um, there's a big question about uh what type.
00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:48.720
I mean, I I think many of the key technologies we require, people will contest this, and if you uh rightly so, because some of the some of the hardest to reach emissions reductions will require uh significant technological innovation.
00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:58.240
But in general, the bulk of the emissions that we we need to reduce can be reduced through existing mature technologies.
00:24:58.400 --> 00:25:07.759
It's about how you then package those in business models, in in market structures, how you finance those, the types of policy innovations that you need to bring those to market.
00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:13.920
So I'm a big advocate of um almost just looking in the tool shed and saying, well, what text do we already have?
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:15.519
Right, what can we do?
00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:16.720
What can we do with those?
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:19.279
You know, how can we make more with that?
00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:30.480
Um your point there about you know who is responsible for this, uh, I think kind of began to lead into is this a private sector kind of you know drive here?
00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:33.839
Um I mean, it we're at that point now.
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:46.000
This is a bit of a cop, I'm afraid, Eddie, but we're at that point where it's all hands on deck, so it's all sectors, you know, and yeah, Roddy's point there, it's these public-private partnerships, but with a very healthy dose of third sector and community action.
00:25:46.400 --> 00:25:48.799
The question is, what do those partnerships look like?
00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:52.799
What do they what do they galvanize around?
00:25:52.880 --> 00:26:02.559
What's the um the governance structure that allows that collaboration and shared ownership of the problem and then shared benefit from providing that solution?
00:26:02.799 --> 00:26:10.400
And again, I think we're still very much at the early stages of what that might look like in the UK because as I said before, we're just not used to doing it.
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:18.559
So I think there's a strong emphasis about trying to trying to engage people on their own terms.
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:20.079
So I often think about this.
00:26:20.240 --> 00:26:24.640
Some people are just not remotely interested by the environment or climate.
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:28.400
I mean, I can't relate to that, but I accept these people exist.
00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:32.880
Many people on the call here might be saying, that's fine, that's me, great, and I respect that.
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:37.839
But how do we get you if you're that person engaged?
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:39.440
And so it needs to be on your terms.
00:26:39.519 --> 00:26:54.559
So often, oftentimes, you know, some of the stuff we're doing with South Seeds, actually, if you really dig into it, environment, ecological, climate elements may become, and somebody wouldn't necessarily admit this out loud, but maybe come for fourth or fifth down that list.
00:26:54.799 --> 00:27:14.319
The first reason they're doing that is about the community and about reaching out, connecting with other folk, because we've seen this demise of the third place, you know, the kind of the the churches, the pubs, the the you know, these these spaces where we would normally coalesce and connect with one another.
00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:23.359
And actually, that's a really powerful thing to sell that just somebody to come down for an hour or two and to engage, it it's it's more time and it's more effort.
00:27:23.680 --> 00:27:32.559
But there's also this element that if you provide a solution, you start to bring that money back into the community, maybe that's a new playground, maybe it's a new football kit for the for the under-elevens.
00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:39.039
And actually, you're going down the list before you start to look at emissions and and what have you for some folk.
00:27:39.200 --> 00:27:40.720
And that's what we need to think about.
00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:45.200
How do we engage the disengaged to be part of this collective entrepreneurship?
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:48.240
Yeah, I I think it's about values as well.
00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:52.640
Like I think what you just said, Matt, is about how do we value place?
00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:58.400
How do we evaluate our the people that live next door or live above us or below us to the left and right?
00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:01.279
And and um what are our values around that?
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:16.640
And and then you can start to think, well, how can you then how should the public sector, which is this you know, the sector I work in, we all we work in, is how can we think about enabling that place, those values to be able to be um realized?
00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:41.200
So the taxation you know, we've seen now uh the budget announcement last week, like it or loath it, you know, it does have a bit of an emphasis now on on taxation of of energy to start to release that funding to do something good that that maybe reflects values around you know, being able to heat your your space that you up that you live in.
00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:59.519
So you know, is that some uh a way that we start to signal a pipeline of entrepreneur real uh ideas and innovations around using that taxation to help to stimulate that economic, social, climate-related investment?
00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:02.160
You say maybe not it's not top of this for some people.
00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:04.240
I think it's not top of this for most people.
00:29:05.119 --> 00:29:11.759
People think about the money in their pockets, what they're gonna do at the weekend, you know, how they're gonna sustain their lives and their families.
00:29:11.839 --> 00:29:16.960
But so I think the taxation and the private sector investment opportunities have to come together.
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:19.039
And I think we're starting to see that.
00:29:19.359 --> 00:29:22.640
I hope that evolves at this at at a speed and at scale.
00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:30.880
You know, EVs, yeah, you know, the the market was signalled to the to the the car producers um a number of years ago.
00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:37.839
So EVs are now a thing, a growing part of that that model because you because the European Union started to legislate.
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:42.319
So you have to have a bit of carrot, you have to sort of have some stick that starts to stimulate a market.
00:29:43.119 --> 00:29:47.279
And you you know, I think wind energy absolutely should be much more of that heat network.
00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:53.759
There's a signal around heat where if you if there's a heat network in a dense urban environment, you will have to connect.
00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:58.720
So you're starting to see we have to change how do we do it in a way that's that's palatable.
00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:14.720
And it's worth saying, Brother, just in the context of COP27, which you know, as we're recording just been and gone, it's we're too, I think I'm very guilty of this, thinking very much within international or national boundaries, or even sort of city and regional boundaries.
00:30:14.960 --> 00:30:22.079
When when Ellie, your original question was who should be driving this entrepreneurship and innovation, well, we've got to think globally, right?
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:30.079
There are there are innovations that we will require, there are skills that we will require in the UK to get this done, and vice versa.
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:31.680
We can help other countries.
00:30:31.839 --> 00:30:44.799
This whole developed, developing world dichotomy, I have a tremendous problem with, but you know, if we take that that kind of that framing, that there needs to be that transfer of solutions across boundaries.
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:50.799
If we start trying to do this at a kind of very nation-state level, we are doomed to fail.
00:30:50.880 --> 00:30:58.880
So, how do we transfer that technology, those ideas and those skills in the in the most frictionless way possible?
00:30:59.039 --> 00:31:06.559
Um, obviously, there's a whole discussion around what the UK looks like post-Brexit here, which we may not have time to get into, but but it's for another podcast.
00:31:06.799 --> 00:31:07.839
It's for another podcast.
00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:32.319
But it it's very much there because it's about how do we support developing countries to leapfrog, to leapfrog that that extremely carbon-intensive industrial revolution that we went through, but can still benefit from the you know the welfare um uh you know advantages of living a cleaner, greener um lifestyle predicated on renewables and storage and EVs, as Rod Roddy says.
00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:33.119
How do we do that?
00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:57.759
And and I guess we at universities we are uniquely placed globally to be able to do some of that work in a fairly frictionless environment by cultural exchange, by academics visiting, by you know, we've we've all got colleagues here who uh are in Malawi right now, you know, doing just that, like you know, working with local communities on sustainability issues, they'll bring back things here as well, which hopefully we'll benefit from.
00:31:57.920 --> 00:32:05.680
And actually, you know, Brexit I think has had an impact on our sector, quite a significant impact, and you know, things like Erasmus programmes and others.
00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:13.039
And you know, I know we have new programs that are going to replace some of those things, but they're certainly not uh up and running and providing the benefits that we need right now.
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:16.960
But I do think our sector's well placed to actually be a big contributor.
00:32:17.039 --> 00:32:21.759
Um, and obviously there would have been we had colleagues who were at COP from Strathclyde.
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:33.440
Um and I think since COP26, the university itself has definitely raised its gaze and its ambition around both the international processes but also the role it plays in the city.
00:32:33.599 --> 00:32:40.240
I guess my question was you know, working with students, and we all you know, we all have the privilege of engaging with our student body.
00:32:40.880 --> 00:32:54.160
There are multiple challenges facing them at the moment, whether it's the cost of living, um, you know, finding housing, suitable housing in the city, um the the job market when they come out from university.
00:32:54.720 --> 00:33:02.160
How do you how do you think they overcome some of these challenges and how do we focus the minds on this element of collective entrepreneurship?
00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:03.200
I really like that term, Matt.
00:33:03.359 --> 00:33:04.240
I feel it.
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:09.039
Um because I do think it speaks to the multiple crises and multiple challenges that we face.
00:33:09.279 --> 00:33:10.319
But what do you think?
00:33:10.480 --> 00:33:18.720
What would you say to our students right now who are kind of sitting there just trying to figure out what they do um in amongst the context of all these challenges?
00:33:19.200 --> 00:33:24.079
Well, I I think we should be um we should be working.
00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:25.920
I'm in delivery mode, right?
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:28.720
And that that's my DNA, and that's just getting stuff done.
00:33:28.880 --> 00:33:33.519
And I can see from the work I do at region level, let's just think about that.
00:33:33.599 --> 00:33:38.640
Um there is a huge appetite to get students to or knowledge.
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:41.440
Let's let's not start with students, but knowledge, right?
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:44.000
We need can you tell us how to do X, Y, and Z?
00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:52.240
That that's just a common opening gambit from a community group or um stratified passenger transport.
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:58.799
There's you know, can you help us as a university to do what we need to do to respond to the climate emergency?
00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:00.720
That's just a common ask, no.
00:34:01.200 --> 00:34:02.720
I get asked that all the time.
00:34:03.359 --> 00:34:07.839
And I I think we have to think, well, how can we place our students in a position where they can respond to that?
00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:13.360
And our staff that can sit in behind that as a support mechanism, professional and academic.
00:34:14.079 --> 00:34:19.039
That is absolutely what we should be doing, I think, uh, in that area of of our work.
00:34:19.360 --> 00:34:26.320
Um when I go and speak to, I was at Helensborough, um uh happened to be invited to Helensborough.
00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:33.039
You know, a community in Argyll and Butte, who um it's the end of a commuter route.
00:34:33.119 --> 00:34:41.199
Uh very you know knowledgeable people, it would appear in in that room who who spoke I spoke to and spoke back to me and tell told me what their concerns were.
00:34:41.760 --> 00:34:55.519
And I can see exactly where our students can embed themselves in humanities, science, engineering, business to help that community to think about how to you know rise to this challenge.
00:34:55.920 --> 00:35:15.760
And I think that's if if we did nothing else, that would be brilliant to get our because you know, ideas will come from that engagement, solutions will be deployed, you know, people people can start to realize how to respond and work with to collectively together, but we have to allow some space to have that happen.
00:35:16.079 --> 00:35:24.079
Yeah, I I echo everything Roddy said, and I think just maybe picking up on his his former point, and I'm afraid I completely forget which university's just done it.
00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:35.760
Um, but I I think just last week I saw an announcement that one of the major unis is looking to initiate a sustainable development module, which is compulsory, I think, for all undergraduates.
00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:37.440
I need to I'll need to fact-check myself.
00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:40.400
No, no, it was in it was in Barcelona, it was one of the universities in Barcelona.
00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:41.039
There we go.
00:35:41.119 --> 00:35:41.440
Yeah.
00:35:41.679 --> 00:35:43.519
So um I think this is fantastic.
00:35:43.599 --> 00:36:04.079
You know, and Strathclyde, in my humble opinion, would be very well placed to do this, um, and would be a wonderful COP26 legacy, actually, to say 10 credits, undergraduate, maybe not first year, get the fundamentals laid down, but particularly in that third year, when you're starting to think, how do I translate what I've learned into actual useful learning?
00:36:04.239 --> 00:36:07.920
Okay, so that'll that'll ring all the Strathclyde bells there.
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:10.079
Um, so I think that's necessary.
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:14.079
Um, two, I think we need to inspire students.
00:36:14.239 --> 00:36:22.000
Um, no pun intended on the podcast name, but inspire students with former successes, but also don't be afraid to learn from failures.
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:29.599
We're we're pretty bad in the UK about talking about this, we'd sort of stiff up a lip, crack on, let's not really talk too much about the bad stuff.
00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:45.199
Um, in terms of past ventures into environmental uh and and social entrepreneurship, um, you know, alumna, I think, are really well placed to do this because the student can immediately see themselves reflected in that individual.
00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:46.559
They went through that same journey.
00:36:46.639 --> 00:36:52.400
So we've got colleagues, you know, the longer I'm at Strathclyde, the more individuals I see moving on and doing great things.
00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:56.880
Great example would be um uh Yannick Nijberg, who's just set up seawater solutions.
00:36:56.960 --> 00:37:07.920
We're hoping to get him heading involved, which is doing some fantastic work around reclaiming coastal landscapes to sequester carbon and improve biodiversity, uh, as well as providing sort of floodwater defenses.
00:37:08.159 --> 00:37:14.719
To get somebody like Yannick along to say, This is what I did and this is what you could do, is really, really powerful.
00:37:15.039 --> 00:37:27.519
And the final point I would say is that we need to educate our students around the entrepreneurial ecosystem, which is yet another buzzword, um, that they're they're part of.
00:37:27.679 --> 00:37:30.880
The university is part of this ecosystem.
00:37:31.119 --> 00:37:40.079
This ecosystem moves, has connections with the private sector, with other public sector bodies, particularly Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, um, but also the third sector.
00:37:40.239 --> 00:37:45.119
And to say, look, you are a living, breathing, active member of this ecosystem right now.
00:37:45.280 --> 00:37:48.800
And this is what you can do, and this is the support that's available.
00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:51.679
Um, but actually, you know, look at look at this.
00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:56.000
Look how look how active this is, particularly in the central belt of Scotland.
00:37:56.079 --> 00:37:58.480
We're very much, I don't think we make enough of this.
00:37:58.719 --> 00:38:04.079
We're very, very much at the forefront of of some of the most exciting innovation that's happening in this space.
00:38:04.239 --> 00:38:08.239
And I think just pointing students to that is a really powerful first step.
00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:09.199
Definitely.
00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:13.519
I mean, I I've got a final question, but I think you've more or less covered that, Matt.
00:38:13.599 --> 00:38:15.920
Um, and I also love the fact that you're on message.
00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:21.760
You've got everything inspire university, and and you've even used a Strathclyde Inspire.
00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:35.679
I've been brainwashed in So Seawater Solutions is a great example of somebody that has gone through kind of the support of Strathclyde Inspire can certainly inspire others in kind of going down that that kind of route.
00:38:35.920 --> 00:38:42.960
I guess um just kind of a quick follow-up, um, maybe more around maybe the policies and funding that's available.
00:38:43.199 --> 00:38:52.320
Roddy, maybe there's something within the climate plan, for example, that encourages innovators to have this topic front and centre within their business strategies.
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:57.760
I think that well, uh we deal with lots of different um stakeholders, don't we?
00:38:57.920 --> 00:38:58.800
Um deal with.
00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:02.960
We work with um and engage with um Glasgow Chamber, good example.
00:39:03.199 --> 00:39:10.719
Lots of SMEs in the city um developing their own climate solutions because they think that's the right thing to do, which is great to see.
00:39:11.199 --> 00:39:18.079
And I think if we can pivot more towards these, what's happening, knowing what's going on, horizon gazing, seeing the opportunities.
00:39:18.559 --> 00:39:21.360
But we need a policy piece, I think, to support this, as you say.
00:39:21.440 --> 00:39:32.400
And if you know I I'm staggered that there isn't a much greater focus on communities of practice to really cluster support into those communities of practice.
00:39:32.880 --> 00:39:44.800
So when there's a willingness amongst a community and a signal sent out to government or to you know institutions like Scottish Enterprise, should there not be a mission-based approach to that community?
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:47.119
You know, to to really think, well, how can we help you?
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:48.159
What's it what do you need?
00:39:48.800 --> 00:39:50.480
What ideas do you not have?
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:52.000
What do you not know yet?
00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:54.079
So and that's our response.
00:39:55.519 --> 00:39:57.760
So you don't know what you don't know until someone tells you.
00:39:58.400 --> 00:40:03.280
We should be that's our responsibility, isn't it, to really think and seek out these opportunities.
00:40:03.360 --> 00:40:13.599
And then you start to get investments, pipelines of infrastructure, pipelines of ideas, pipelines of of knowledge, and then you can seek the funding to come in on the back of that.
00:40:13.760 --> 00:40:17.440
So just you know, why are we not doing more of that question?
00:40:18.079 --> 00:40:19.519
You've just launched it.
00:40:21.039 --> 00:40:25.599
You've put the action of entrepreneurship uh community of practice right there.
00:40:26.239 --> 00:40:26.960
Well, there you go.
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:28.400
We should do it, we should do it.
00:40:28.480 --> 00:40:29.440
I think we should do it.
00:40:29.599 --> 00:40:38.880
I think yeah, I think well, I've said I said this to Scottish Government, I think Matt was at the meeting where I met that practitioner, was I don't care last year a COP.
00:40:39.119 --> 00:40:42.480
Why doesn't every community have a climate audit done?
00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:44.800
Access to that.
00:40:44.960 --> 00:40:48.239
There are something like twelve twelve hundred community councils in Scotland.
00:40:48.400 --> 00:40:59.360
Yeah, 1,200 climate audits, 1,200 you know, placements of embedded students who are on a formal embedding, they're mentored, they're they're given the help.
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:07.440
You know, this is a theoretical idea, but what if you did that as an experiment and you it's okay to fail?
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:08.880
It's a mission-based approach.
00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:10.480
Mariana Matsucato.
00:41:10.800 --> 00:41:13.440
Why don't we do that for uh two years, right?
00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:14.960
What would that cost?
00:41:15.199 --> 00:41:16.639
Yeah, whatever that might be.
00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:20.400
That's an investment in people, it's an investment in companies.
00:41:20.559 --> 00:41:25.519
It starts to think about challenging the norm, and maybe you get some really good outputs from that.
00:41:25.679 --> 00:41:28.480
Maybe you don't, but you'll learn, our students will be deployed.
00:41:28.719 --> 00:41:39.119
So, you know, you start to have that conversation almost from a bottom-up approach, as well as you know, companies coming in the middle, policy over the top.
00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:40.000
Yeah.
00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:44.000
If if I can add to that, I completely agree with everything Roddy's said there.
00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:53.199
I think, particularly in higher education, but I think this we're guilty of this across the piece in terms of funding stuff.
00:41:53.280 --> 00:41:56.480
We want we want to fund oven-ready ideas.
00:41:57.039 --> 00:41:59.679
Problem is, have we got the right recipes?
00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:10.239
No, it's a terrible analogy, but you you need time to formulate these ideas and you need the right people around the table at the right time, and they need to be galvanized around a shared, we go back to the shared problem, shared solution.
00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:17.119
What I really worry about, and I particularly higher education sector, but I say this is a common problem.
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:21.679
We want to do stuff very cheaply, very quickly.
00:42:22.079 --> 00:42:27.280
Um, we want to have it of the highest quality, but delivered in the quickest fashion.
00:42:27.760 --> 00:42:30.079
With limited resources with limited resources.
00:42:30.400 --> 00:42:35.679
Now, that's all well and good if you've got the right, you know, the right people, right skill sets, right ideas.
00:42:35.760 --> 00:42:43.840
And I think Roddy's point around actually putting together some of the foundational architecture that will bring these people around and to patient.
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:46.320
I know, I know we don't have lots of time in this climate crisis.
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:47.599
I understand that.
00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:55.119
But sometimes you need these sheltered spaces for new ideas to form, new partnerships.
00:42:55.360 --> 00:42:57.679
You need the partnerships before you have the ideas.
00:42:58.159 --> 00:43:04.079
And once you have the ideas, you've got you've got a kernel that, you know, a nugget that you can build around and do something fantastic with.
00:43:04.159 --> 00:43:06.480
And I fear that we're missing that first step.
00:43:06.719 --> 00:43:09.119
So there's a lot of work that needs to be done here.
00:43:09.360 --> 00:43:21.199
Fantastic work just out last week from my colleague Jen Roberts, who was looking at um, you know, inclusivity and engagement around having basically bringing the right people, particularly those who've been marginalized from these kind of discussions in the past.
00:43:21.360 --> 00:43:24.159
How do you get the right people around the right table at the right time?
00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:29.519
Now, if we can't do that, again, you know, don't want to misquote uh Mr.
00:43:29.679 --> 00:43:33.280
Mannering here, but you know, we we're sort of doomed, you know, dad's army style.
00:43:33.360 --> 00:43:36.559
It we you need you need these foundations.
00:43:36.719 --> 00:43:45.920
And I think Strathclyde has all the right bits and pieces there, but there needs to be a platform because I can see the will and I see the brains, yeah.
00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:50.639
Um, but you'd need to bring them around, you need you need you need something to galvanize them.
00:43:50.719 --> 00:43:53.679
And I feel that last piece is is missing currently.
00:43:53.920 --> 00:43:56.320
I think that I mean that links quite closely, Manish.
00:43:56.480 --> 00:43:58.000
Maybe you can kind of talk to this as well.
00:43:58.079 --> 00:44:06.000
But um, you know, the Inspire Strategy is a whole the the kind of first pillar, so to speak, is around entrepreneurship for all.
00:44:06.079 --> 00:44:21.679
So it's encouraging anybody and everybody to look at entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ideas and and behaviours within themselves to develop themselves as well as ideas.
00:44:21.840 --> 00:44:33.039
So if you think about you're talking about um almost building a foundation before you even start to think about how you can create a solution to a problem.
00:44:33.280 --> 00:44:58.320
It's building the foundations, building the network, and building who you are as a person before you then go on to creating the solution, because actually the solution will be better thought out, it will have better connections, it will, you know, form that almost that community that you're talking about, which will enable it to kind of propel and move forward.
00:44:58.800 --> 00:45:01.920
Um I'd I'd I completely agree with it.
00:45:02.239 --> 00:45:13.599
I think I think we're actually pretty good as a human race, but I mean I see it particularly, you know, in because I mean obviously lived in but I've seen it, you know, you put the right people in the right room at the right time, they tend to come up with a solution, right?
00:45:13.920 --> 00:45:16.960
It's that's the but but to get to that point is the tricky bit.
00:45:17.039 --> 00:45:17.280
Yeah.
00:45:17.440 --> 00:45:20.000
So so and then universities, manage, you made that point.
00:45:20.159 --> 00:45:25.039
Universities, what a fantastic, you know, asset that we have in the UK.
00:45:25.280 --> 00:45:26.480
The higher education.
00:45:26.559 --> 00:45:43.519
I mean, I I you know, I I I I I moan and grumble around some of the, but to what we have, these are the some of the crown jewel institutions globally, and we need to build around these, and they need to be open to the public and open to industry and open to government to provide that platform for engagement.
00:45:43.599 --> 00:45:50.320
And if we can do that, I I genuinely hand on heart believe we can have this wrapped up, but we're not quite doing that at the moment.
00:45:51.119 --> 00:46:00.800
Well, I think it's been a great discussion, and uh, you know, I'm gonna advocate that instead of meetings we just have podcasts because I think it may be more productive at uh getting things forward.
00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:09.440
But I've certainly taken away collective entrepreneurship, collaboration, and I think those two things will actually lead to meaningful climate action, you know.
00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:26.639
And you know, I would invite students, uh staff, fellow academics, those that are in around Glasgow to get in touch, get in touch with uh Inspire, get in touch with the Centre for Sustainable Development, get in touch with university because it is going to take all of us to meet the challenges that are before us.
00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:29.440
And uh but I think we have you know I'm kind of with you, Matt.
00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:31.280
I'm with the optimism for a Monday.
00:46:31.440 --> 00:46:34.800
I think that's a great bit of optimism to kind of leave us with the actually tomorrow.
00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:39.760
If we get it the right people around the table at the right time, we'll get this all thrown up.
00:46:39.840 --> 00:46:41.840
And uh, you know, I think we've got to get started.
00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:45.360
So big thanks to both of you for joining us today.
00:46:45.519 --> 00:46:49.360
Um, it's been great, and I'm sure we'll pick up this conversation again.
00:46:49.519 --> 00:46:51.360
Um, and thank you to our listeners.
00:46:51.519 --> 00:46:56.480
That's uh it for this uh week's uh or this month's series.
00:46:56.639 --> 00:47:02.000
And remember to hit the subscribe button or follow whatever platform you listen to uh or podcast on.
00:47:02.239 --> 00:47:10.400
And you can find out more about StrafClides Inspire on our Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, or just search ScraftClides Inspire on the University of StraftGoods website.
00:47:10.559 --> 00:47:11.599
Thank you very much.
00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:12.800
Excellent.
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:14.800
Thanks, folks.
00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:22.480
Hello and welcome to another Strathclyde Inspire podcast.
00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:26.719
Today's recording is for our Let's Talk Entrepreneurship series.
00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:33.920
Now, this series allows us to delve deep into conversation and really debate with key leaders on a variety of different topics.
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So today's topic we're going to explore how to make climate entrepreneurship work for climate action.
00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:47.280
Now we've seen some outcomes and discussions around the recent COP27, which was held earlier this month in Egypt.
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And whilst we can't necessarily talk too much around the action just yet, we can certainly look at this in the wider context of climate change and climate action and how entrepreneurs can impact on these challenges and opportunities.
00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:09.120
So we have two fantastic guests today with us, and one whom incidentally have their own podcast.
00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:14.159
So a shout out to Local Zero Podcast with Matt and his colleagues.
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Now, if the topic of climate action and a zero carbon future is your thing, which I think it's it's everybody's thing at the moment, and it's definitely at the forefront of many discussions, and then I highly recommend that podcast for a little change of scene.
00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:33.840
So without further ado, I think it'd be good to just get stuck in.
00:01:33.920 --> 00:01:38.799
We'll maybe do a little bit of a round table discussion on who's who and what you do.
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So I'll kickstart.
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My name's Ellie and I work within the University of Strathclyde within the outreach and impact team.
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And really my responsibility is to implement the university's entrepreneurship strategy, which is Strathclyde Inspire.
00:01:53.680 --> 00:02:13.919
So I'm really here from a kind of innovators and entrepreneurs' perspective, as well as kind of just general higher education, how we can make some kind of practical changes around what we're delivering in order to enable these entrepreneurs and innovators to make significant um changes around climate action.
00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:17.280
And I also have my co-host here, Manish.
00:02:17.599 --> 00:02:20.560
Manish, would you want to give a wee bit of an intro to yourself?
00:02:21.039 --> 00:02:22.000
Hi, thanks, Ellie.
00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:23.439
Hi, Manish Joshi.
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I'm the chief executive at Strathclyde Students Union, uh long-time climate activist, and uh also have a broad interest in entrepreneurship and exploring these things, and I'm very excited to get stuck in today uh with our very own Roddy Yarr and Matt Hannon.
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So, Roddy, can you do a quick intro to yourself, please?
00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:43.919
Yeah, good morning.
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I'm Roddy Yarr.
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I'm the uh executive lead for sustainability at the University of Strathclyde.
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And my responsibility is to deliver the university's sustainability targets, in particular KPI 16 net zero by 2040 or sooner, and the milestones that sit within that.
00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:10.800
And by net zero, we don't just mean emissions, we also mean climate resilience, we mean social inclusion, just transition uh and so forth.
00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:14.080
And I'm involved in various city and region initiatives.
00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:16.719
Um, so yeah, glad to be here.
00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:17.599
Brilliant.
00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:18.800
Thank you very much, Roddy.
00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:22.159
Um, and Matt, do you want to give a wee intro to yourself?
00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:23.280
Yeah, absolutely.
00:03:23.439 --> 00:03:25.360
So my name is Professor Matt Hannon.
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I'm a professor of sustainable energy business and policy at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship.
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So we work within sustain uh within Strathclyde's business school and work quite closely with yourselves on Inspire and trying to support entrepreneurship and innovation.
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Um, outside of uh the university, you've already mentioned that I'm I'm uh co-host and founder of the Local Zero podcast, where we attempt to uh inform people, educate people about how they can best support and take local climate action.
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Uh, but also I'm kind of getting my hands dirty as uh chair and trustee of South Seed.
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So work uh for an environmental uh community charity in the South Side of Glasgow, amongst various other things, trying to sort of support and engage with industry and policy.
00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:11.120
So very much uh like Roddy, working with practitioners and policymakers to make net zero happen in a just and equitable fashion.
00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:12.159
Fantastic.
00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:13.919
Well, that's the intros out of the way.
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I think we get stuck into the conversation.
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So I think maybe before we dive in, it's probably to uh understand what we mean by climate entrepreneurship and climate action.
00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:26.240
And I guess climate entrepreneurship is a relatively new term.
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Uh essentially it's climate and environmental entrepreneurs or change agents who see the creation of ventures as a way to address urgent climate and environmental challenges.
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You know, I guess we'd also look at it as social good, as social innovation as well.
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But Roddy, Matt, whoever wants to jump in first, have you heard the term kind of climate entrepreneurship used before?
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Um, and where are you seeing that taking place, I guess, in and around the university and in and around Glasgow?
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Maybe if I can just jump in quickly as a professor in a in a department for entrepreneurship, is it's something that we we hear quite a lot.
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Uh, I guess traditionally, you know, this has been framed as environmental entrepreneurship or sustainability entrepreneurship.
00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:19.519
Um, I mean, my experience of this is you tended to have kind of three separate strands until a few years ago where somebody was doing something that was uh financially or economically focused.
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The bottom line was the big prize there, and trying to identify a market niche somewhere.
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Alongside that, um, we saw social entrepreneurship uh arise where you were doing something that generated uh a revenue, but that was recycled for wider social benefit.
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And then alongside that, you then had environmental entrepreneurship, which is as this net zero debate and climate change uh action has risen up the agenda, um that that third plinth has become even stronger.
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And I think it's fair to say that these three are now starting to align.
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Um, or at least in my mind, some of the most promising business models and market solutions are triple bottom line.
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So there's an economic, there's a social, and there's an environmental, often termed kind of ESG, environmental, social, you know, sustainability governance, where you have these three elements align.
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So, and I think that's in my mind, that's where business is is heading now.
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And as an investor, I think more often than not, and you know, I engage with with various investors on this.
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A good example would be the Green Angel Syndicate, um, who are explicitly looking to fund these types of ventures because ultimately that they're doing kind of three in one, not easy to do, but if you can, if you can successfully execute that, then it's a it's a real promising uh future in my mind.
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That's great.
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And Roddy, where are you seeing this in action?
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Um I think when I think of the word entrepreneurship, I think of the university.
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Um, I don't know if it's at work here, but I think it's new ideas, new ways of doing things, um, and trying to make those sustainable economically, socially, and yeah, financially, I suppose that's economically.
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But where I'm seeing the changes is is starting to see a shift in the investment on renewables, for instance, um, being something that's more not yet happening at scale, but I think more public-private relationships were instead of it being a you know a private investment, it's now being thought of as something that actually has to benefit communities, benefit businesses, benefit organisations in the wider sense, rather than a group of investors whom may have no vested interest in the geography of that investment.
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Um so um and that's the area I'm working on really more and more is to how to bring I suppose it's like a cooperative model that you would have be familiar with in the Nordics, you know, where you have communities basically buying and investing in their own assets for their own benefit, and that benefit being financial sustainability, but also I guess back in the 70s it was climate sustainability, but it probably wasn't called that then.
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It was just how they thought about upskilling and getting themselves into a better position to be more sustainable across all of those different areas.
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So I think we're catching up in many of these respects.
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Perhaps we need to think in a new way.
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Do you think that the motivations of people have changed over the years?
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And I say people, I maybe mean corporations.
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Obviously, it kind of links to your point, Matt, about um earlier the there was kind of the three strands.
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You almost had corporate social responsibility as a new wave of oh, well, we can be a little bit more green, a little bit more kind of social responsible, but there wasn't there wasn't the regulations as they are now.
00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:25.840
Um maybe, Roddy, you could maybe talk around that shift between from a kind of corporate social responsibility right through to really working around regulations and introductions to more regulations around you know climate action and actually almost forcing companies to do something rather than it just being a nice to have.
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I could certainly have a go at this.
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I mean, I think there's there's a couple of things to say here.
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You know, who is the entrepreneur, who is undertaking that, that, that phase of entrepreneurship and innovation?
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So your point there around the sort of big corporates, I think is an important one.
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And obviously, you know, these are these are entities who are very much you know innovating in this space, or some more than others, um, and but but they're not the sort of only that other entrepreneurs are available.
00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:57.440
And I think what Roddy is pointing to there is that this can this can come out of uh communities, out of you know, local uh interest groups.
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Um I think typically when we think of an entrepreneur, you know, it's kind of the Elon Musk's Steve Jobs of this world.
00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:13.919
Um I think more and more, you know, I I don't think the climate solution is going to is going to fall out of just two or three people, as much as Mr.
00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:15.360
Musk might think he is.
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And obviously some of the some of the solutions in companies he's set up are going to be very important to that, such as Tesla.
00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:27.120
But actually, I think this does does come down to who's gonna drive this, who's gonna put this over the line.
00:10:27.360 --> 00:10:50.399
So maybe if we just take the the point there and you know the big corporates, my sense of the last few years, particularly in the run-up to COP26, is a lot of these companies were just wanting uh not just a single state, but these supranational um bodies, UNF, CCC, and the the other supporting bodies around that, to point them in a direction and say, look, this is where we're going.
00:10:50.639 --> 00:11:04.879
And you can see just in in the UK more broadly, the the economic um chaos that unfolded during the autumn and and the way that that spent the that sent the markets into a tailspin, was because industry likes a direction.
00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:12.480
And once they have that, I think it's almost like thinking it kind of you know as a juggernaut on the rails that they they can move in that direction.
00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:25.440
Um and you know, the signals that we we we send out around COP26, COP27 really do matter because industry listens, and in some respects, some respects, I think industry has actually been itching to move faster than some of the nation states.
00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:28.159
Not all industry, um a massive generalization there.
00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:36.080
But just going back to communities, um, I think this really matters too, uh, sort of in two different respects.
00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:43.120
One is that communities can can you know undertake their own work and projects, and much of this we profile with Local Zero.
00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:54.879
Some fantastic enterprises out there which have been set up by the community for the community, but also as communities, we are consumers and we send signals to industry who then in turn send signals to government.
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And there's this kind of circular, you know, uh circularity, this positive feedback mechanism where you know you then start to reinforce that message and action then really truly starts to happen.
00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:08.720
Yeah, I think that disruption thing is really important.
00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:16.000
Somebody has to disrupt the norm, uh, whether that's communities or individuals or small clusters of people.
00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:22.720
Um you know, veganism, if you think about veganism, that's that's just like a completely new market.
00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:38.720
So you know, we can work with um uh industry, private sector, public sector, uh and and you know, we kind of see where the the levers are and you and that helps to deliver change um in a disruptive way.
00:12:38.879 --> 00:12:39.679
That's positive.
00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:48.000
Um but then you've got a disruptive way that's perhaps almost a bit of a confrontational relationship to start with until you know.
00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:55.120
So we look at FinTree, renewable energy enterprise out in Stirlingshire, you know, uh back to renewables again.
00:12:55.200 --> 00:13:04.799
But that that community group had some very switched-on people within it who were able to challenge that private developer and to say, look, we we need a different model here.
00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:08.879
And the model was very much about how you can help us to help ourselves.
00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:22.159
And that became a really sustainable model where they were able to generate revenue directly into the community, not just as a gift, you know, uh in that in that sense around community benefits, it was a direct revenue because they took a stake in an asset.
00:13:22.639 --> 00:13:24.879
So it was back to that sort of Danage cooperative model.
00:13:25.279 --> 00:13:26.879
So there are different ways to disrupt.
00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:45.919
Um I think what we have to try and do is find a way that challenges the norm that actually started to deliver skills, opportunities, benefits for communities, whether they be communities of practice like a university or communities at all sorts of different scales, be it city scale, national scale, regional scale.
00:13:46.399 --> 00:13:50.399
It's it's interesting, Roddy, as well, to sort of see communities of interest form.
00:13:50.559 --> 00:14:01.679
And this is why, I mean, you know, I'm a I'm an avid user of Twitter, um, uh, rightly or wrongly, and I see many of its you know most positive elements against its weaknesses.
00:14:01.919 --> 00:14:11.360
But one of the real positive uh elements that's emerged for me over the last few years has been these communities of interest around these types of activities, the sharing of knowledge, sharing of of insights.
00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:24.960
And one I've started to really see formulate around a company, Ellie, that is trying to do, in my opinion, the right thing in terms of delivering net zero through exciting um forms of entrepreneurship and business model innovation is Octopus.
00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:29.440
So they're big savings sessions uh that happened just this past week.
00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:44.879
And you see these, I mean they're basically, and I say this in the in a loving way because I guess I'm one as well, these energy geeks who are well into this, who love this stuff, and they're you know, this kind of one-upmanship, but also, you know, friendly kind of support for one another about getting this done.
00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:51.360
So communities can happen out with the local area, out with the parish church or the local football team.
00:14:51.519 --> 00:15:00.159
Communities can be whatever you want them to be, and they're really powerful things once you start, once they start to coalesce and start to move en masse in a certain direction.
00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:09.120
I mean, Octopus had over 200,000 people signed on to that saving session, saved the equivalent of a small gas power plant in terms of turning down.
00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:17.120
And and I think Twitter and that social network and that community building has been critical to building that that uh direction of travel and that that critical mass.
00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:24.399
And I think what's really great about both those examples, both the Fintree one and the Octopus one, is it's empowering people, you know.
00:15:24.480 --> 00:15:32.320
And when I think when you look at big multinational processes like the UNFCC and COP27, you feel very disengaged, very disempowered.
00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:38.960
You're not there, you're not in the room, there's lots of business interests that are there who are lobbying against climate action.
00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:45.120
But actually, the stories of everyday people kind of rolling up their sleeves and getting involved and getting engaged.
00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:46.480
I think we need to do more of that.
00:15:46.639 --> 00:15:51.919
I think that's one of the things that we probably need to do more of, even with our students, to try and uh tell them those things.
00:15:52.000 --> 00:15:57.840
So is that something that kind of permeates now into the curriculum, Matt, when you're teaching uh students about these things?
00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:04.399
Are you using some of these examples to I guess galvanize climate action from them and to kind of inspire them?
00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:10.159
Yeah, I I think people need to be able to see what that coordination can achieve.
00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:21.679
And and all too often I think we've been conditioned, you know, particularly I think post-war there was an element of this kind of social contract, and this, you know, we're all in this together.
00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:35.679
The the scale of having to kind of you know mop up the um um the the chaos of post-war, both in terms of that built vernacular, but also a lot of the social institutions that had had kind of unraveled as a result of that.
00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:43.360
There was a sort of in the 50s and 60s this big focus on rebuilding and and standing shoulder to shoulder and getting that done.
00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:53.759
Um, I think what we've lost sight of in the intervening decades post-that, uh and and this kind of oil boom and this this rise of consumerism is that we start to act as individuals.
00:16:53.919 --> 00:17:04.640
We are individual consumers, that we're framed as economically rational consumers who think primarily in value proposition and economic terms.
00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:08.000
That won't get us through the climate crisis.
00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:10.160
That will not solve the problem.
00:17:10.319 --> 00:17:16.240
So, what we need are different types of offerings that will elicit different types of solutions.
00:17:16.319 --> 00:17:24.960
And I think community coordination, this sense of social contract and shared problems, but also shared solutions, is what gets us there.
00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:26.960
The problem is we're not used to doing that.
00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:30.960
And Roddy says, you know, quite rightly on the continent, they they've been doing this for quite a while.
00:17:31.039 --> 00:17:34.240
I think in the UK we're way, way, way behind on that.
00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:36.720
Yeah, it's a social norm, isn't it?
00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:37.680
Or not.
00:17:38.240 --> 00:17:44.559
You know, I think there is a much more owner ownership of property, you know, that whole piece.
00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:49.519
Oh, it that seems to be a legacy that's really hard to shift.
00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:52.559
In Europe, there isn't that same legacy necessarily.
00:17:52.640 --> 00:18:02.079
There isn't that same ownership of your house you you rent or you lease or you're part of a community um or you're or you're offered a house through the state.
00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:14.319
Um so the these interventions are are quite often welded into our thinking, into our media, into our exposure to commerce.
00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:19.519
You know, these are hard to shift sometimes, but I think we're moving more and more towards that, right?
00:18:19.759 --> 00:18:21.039
COVID, right.
00:18:21.200 --> 00:18:23.359
We maybe need to work a bit more together here.
00:18:23.680 --> 00:18:38.640
That's my hope, anyway, in terms of climate, is that we have we we start to reflect how we can work more closely together, public-private individuals who get together and formulate ideas, maybe businesses, whatever um they might they might generate.
00:18:39.039 --> 00:18:40.319
I I I completely agree.
00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:48.559
This notion of collective entrepreneurship, you know, working together to solve a joint problem which will elicit a you know a shared benefit.
00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:54.079
And and the types of legal models, how you legally institution this action is really important.
00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:56.640
You mentioned managed before about cooperatives.
00:18:56.960 --> 00:19:05.759
Um again, something that was very popular for a time in the UK, uh less so in the intervening maybe couple of decades.
00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:07.680
I think we're starting to see a rise again.
00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:24.079
And what I've really noted actually is as local authorities have really struggled for funding, it's something that came up again in the autumn statement, and we saw additional powers for councils now to raise that tax because basically many of them are broke.
00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:44.799
Um, and it's something that we're actually covering for the local zero pod in the next episode is how communities have moved in social, environmental entrepreneurs, not just one, but many, working together to fill those gaps by providing something that is revenue generating to the community to solve those problems.
00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:48.799
They've essentially, I mean, I've I've made this point in previous sessions.
00:19:49.119 --> 00:20:06.079
You go back to the formation of the coalition government in the UK 2010, one of the big, big um policies of the time, which was derided, um, was uh David Cameron's big society and kind of fell away after various critique from all sides, all political sides.
00:20:06.240 --> 00:20:15.359
But actually, it's ended up happening almost by default, because if you cut the state, something still needs to fill that gap.
00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:22.160
Um, there's cases up in the Highlands which we'll be profiling on the pod, which is communities are building affordable housing.
00:20:22.319 --> 00:20:26.319
They're building medical centers with community funds.
00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:43.680
And and this without that notion of community and collective entrepreneurship with a really strong triple bottom line focus, this stuff wouldn't be there, and the communities wouldn't have somewhere to be homed, to be you know provided medical care or to be educated.
00:20:44.079 --> 00:20:48.240
And so it's I guess it's a needs-must element here as well.
00:20:49.599 --> 00:20:51.279
I'm a farmer's son, right?
00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:55.680
Um and my brother still farms up in the northeast of Scotland.
00:20:56.000 --> 00:20:58.799
There's a thing in Scotland called machinery rings.
00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:17.039
I don't know if you've if you're not a farmer, you you won't know about this, but to Matt's point about you know, a group of people nationally but locally um forming themselves into little clusters of businesses that have like-minded interests.
00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:25.119
And that could be clusters of communities who have the same interests, who want to be sustainable financially, economically, locally.
00:21:25.680 --> 00:21:42.240
Circular economy, we talk about circular economy, the machinery rings, I think, are a great example of a commercial model that's focused on a community of practitioners, farmers, right, who need to buy or access services to farm, right?
00:21:42.480 --> 00:21:46.240
So if you're an arable farmer, you have to buy a combine harvester.
00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:54.720
Well, maybe you form a cluster where you all share the c the combine harvester and you have an asset a you know, a percentage share in that asset.
00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:59.200
This is just an economic model, but it's more community focused.
00:21:59.279 --> 00:22:08.319
It delivers Value because you get your crops out of the ground, you know, you fertilize whatever you do, and it's all based around that sharing, like a tool share in a local.
00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:15.119
Yeah, I was just gonna sound seeds do the same thing, Roddy, but obviously not combine harvesters, but you know, yeah, but it's just the scale.
00:22:15.200 --> 00:22:17.680
So you think of the scale that we need to act on.
00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:22.559
Well, why don't we think about these just as what are the outcomes that we're seeking here?
00:22:22.799 --> 00:22:34.160
How do we pivot more towards those and use a private investment model or whatever the investment model might be to deliver social value, deliver economic value, and to deliver climate benefits, whatever that might be.
00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:35.200
That's just the same thing.
00:22:35.279 --> 00:22:38.400
You could do it all sorts of different skills, but look up machinery rings.
00:22:38.559 --> 00:22:40.160
Yeah, I know it sounds sounds great.
00:22:40.319 --> 00:22:44.240
Ellie, I'm gonna uh pass over to you to to come in here with your question.
00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:51.279
Yeah, it actually links quite closely to what both um Matt and Roddy have just mentioned.
00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:58.160
I mean, we're talking quite a lot around almost, you know, who's who's driving this change?
00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:07.519
Is it communities, is it the consumers, is it the innovators, is it the people that are within the large corporate organisations, is it the government?
00:23:07.680 --> 00:23:10.559
Is it a combination of all of them?
00:23:10.799 --> 00:23:12.319
Is it the times?
00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:20.559
So this links quite closely to this in in terms of is the timing a key element to this?
00:23:20.720 --> 00:23:22.799
Is it is the timing a key element to this?
00:23:22.960 --> 00:23:34.960
So, you know, this is such a vast topic, and it's it's almost a bit overwhelming to think about it as an individual, you know, maybe as a small business or a single entrepreneur, how they can really make an impact.
00:23:35.200 --> 00:23:45.599
But entrepreneurs have, as you've mentioned, Matt, driven, you know, main major global, I mean, if you think about it, maybe major global warming issues for centuries.
00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:59.119
If you think about the Industrial Revolution, you know, we that caused major carbon emissions throughout the last few centuries, and that was driven by entrepreneurs such as Henry Ford and you know others.
00:23:59.200 --> 00:24:09.200
Um, and whilst that definitely transformed millions of lives for the better, also pioneered industries that became driving forces behind climate change.
00:24:09.440 --> 00:24:19.759
So if entrepreneurs can transform industries for the worse of the environment, do you think that they should be the ones that are fighting the climate change on their own?
00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:21.599
Do you think it's it's the timing?
00:24:21.759 --> 00:24:23.839
You know, what are your thoughts on that?
00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:30.480
So, I mean, yes, in short, uh we need entrepreneurship, we need innovation to get us out of this mess.
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:35.440
Um, there's a big question about uh what type.
00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:48.720
I mean, I I think many of the key technologies we require, people will contest this, and if you uh rightly so, because some of the some of the hardest to reach emissions reductions will require uh significant technological innovation.
00:24:49.119 --> 00:24:58.240
But in general, the bulk of the emissions that we we need to reduce can be reduced through existing mature technologies.
00:24:58.400 --> 00:25:07.759
It's about how you then package those in business models, in in market structures, how you finance those, the types of policy innovations that you need to bring those to market.
00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:13.920
So I'm a big advocate of um almost just looking in the tool shed and saying, well, what text do we already have?
00:25:14.079 --> 00:25:15.519
Right, what can we do?
00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:16.720
What can we do with those?
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:19.279
You know, how can we make more with that?
00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:30.480
Um your point there about you know who is responsible for this, uh, I think kind of began to lead into is this a private sector kind of you know drive here?
00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:33.839
Um I mean, it we're at that point now.
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:46.000
This is a bit of a cop, I'm afraid, Eddie, but we're at that point where it's all hands on deck, so it's all sectors, you know, and yeah, Roddy's point there, it's these public-private partnerships, but with a very healthy dose of third sector and community action.
00:25:46.400 --> 00:25:48.799
The question is, what do those partnerships look like?
00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:52.799
What do they what do they galvanize around?
00:25:52.880 --> 00:26:02.559
What's the um the governance structure that allows that collaboration and shared ownership of the problem and then shared benefit from providing that solution?
00:26:02.799 --> 00:26:10.400
And again, I think we're still very much at the early stages of what that might look like in the UK because as I said before, we're just not used to doing it.
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:18.559
So I think there's a strong emphasis about trying to trying to engage people on their own terms.
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:20.079
So I often think about this.
00:26:20.240 --> 00:26:24.640
Some people are just not remotely interested by the environment or climate.
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:28.400
I mean, I can't relate to that, but I accept these people exist.
00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:32.880
Many people on the call here might be saying, that's fine, that's me, great, and I respect that.
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:37.839
But how do we get you if you're that person engaged?
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:39.440
And so it needs to be on your terms.
00:26:39.519 --> 00:26:54.559
So often, oftentimes, you know, some of the stuff we're doing with South Seeds, actually, if you really dig into it, environment, ecological, climate elements may become, and somebody wouldn't necessarily admit this out loud, but maybe come for fourth or fifth down that list.
00:26:54.799 --> 00:27:14.319
The first reason they're doing that is about the community and about reaching out, connecting with other folk, because we've seen this demise of the third place, you know, the kind of the the churches, the pubs, the the you know, these these spaces where we would normally coalesce and connect with one another.
00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:23.359
And actually, that's a really powerful thing to sell that just somebody to come down for an hour or two and to engage, it it's it's more time and it's more effort.
00:27:23.680 --> 00:27:32.559
But there's also this element that if you provide a solution, you start to bring that money back into the community, maybe that's a new playground, maybe it's a new football kit for the for the under-elevens.
00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:39.039
And actually, you're going down the list before you start to look at emissions and and what have you for some folk.
00:27:39.200 --> 00:27:40.720
And that's what we need to think about.
00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:45.200
How do we engage the disengaged to be part of this collective entrepreneurship?
00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:48.240
Yeah, I I think it's about values as well.
00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:52.640
Like I think what you just said, Matt, is about how do we value place?
00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:58.400
How do we evaluate our the people that live next door or live above us or below us to the left and right?
00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:01.279
And and um what are our values around that?
00:28:01.440 --> 00:28:16.640
And and then you can start to think, well, how can you then how should the public sector, which is this you know, the sector I work in, we all we work in, is how can we think about enabling that place, those values to be able to be um realized?
00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:41.200
So the taxation you know, we've seen now uh the budget announcement last week, like it or loath it, you know, it does have a bit of an emphasis now on on taxation of of energy to start to release that funding to do something good that that maybe reflects values around you know, being able to heat your your space that you up that you live in.
00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:59.519
So you know, is that some uh a way that we start to signal a pipeline of entrepreneur real uh ideas and innovations around using that taxation to help to stimulate that economic, social, climate-related investment?
00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:02.160
You say maybe not it's not top of this for some people.
00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:04.240
I think it's not top of this for most people.
00:29:05.119 --> 00:29:11.759
People think about the money in their pockets, what they're gonna do at the weekend, you know, how they're gonna sustain their lives and their families.
00:29:11.839 --> 00:29:16.960
But so I think the taxation and the private sector investment opportunities have to come together.
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:19.039
And I think we're starting to see that.
00:29:19.359 --> 00:29:22.640
I hope that evolves at this at at a speed and at scale.
00:29:23.279 --> 00:29:30.880
You know, EVs, yeah, you know, the the market was signalled to the to the the car producers um a number of years ago.
00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:37.839
So EVs are now a thing, a growing part of that that model because you because the European Union started to legislate.
00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:42.319
So you have to have a bit of carrot, you have to sort of have some stick that starts to stimulate a market.
00:29:43.119 --> 00:29:47.279
And you you know, I think wind energy absolutely should be much more of that heat network.
00:29:47.839 --> 00:29:53.759
There's a signal around heat where if you if there's a heat network in a dense urban environment, you will have to connect.
00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:58.720
So you're starting to see we have to change how do we do it in a way that's that's palatable.
00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:14.720
And it's worth saying, Brother, just in the context of COP27, which you know, as we're recording just been and gone, it's we're too, I think I'm very guilty of this, thinking very much within international or national boundaries, or even sort of city and regional boundaries.
00:30:14.960 --> 00:30:22.079
When when Ellie, your original question was who should be driving this entrepreneurship and innovation, well, we've got to think globally, right?
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:30.079
There are there are innovations that we will require, there are skills that we will require in the UK to get this done, and vice versa.
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:31.680
We can help other countries.
00:30:31.839 --> 00:30:44.799
This whole developed, developing world dichotomy, I have a tremendous problem with, but you know, if we take that that kind of that framing, that there needs to be that transfer of solutions across boundaries.
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:50.799
If we start trying to do this at a kind of very nation-state level, we are doomed to fail.
00:30:50.880 --> 00:30:58.880
So, how do we transfer that technology, those ideas and those skills in the in the most frictionless way possible?
00:30:59.039 --> 00:31:06.559
Um, obviously, there's a whole discussion around what the UK looks like post-Brexit here, which we may not have time to get into, but but it's for another podcast.
00:31:06.799 --> 00:31:07.839
It's for another podcast.
00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:32.319
But it it's very much there because it's about how do we support developing countries to leapfrog, to leapfrog that that extremely carbon-intensive industrial revolution that we went through, but can still benefit from the you know the welfare um uh you know advantages of living a cleaner, greener um lifestyle predicated on renewables and storage and EVs, as Rod Roddy says.
00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:33.119
How do we do that?
00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:57.759
And and I guess we at universities we are uniquely placed globally to be able to do some of that work in a fairly frictionless environment by cultural exchange, by academics visiting, by you know, we've we've all got colleagues here who uh are in Malawi right now, you know, doing just that, like you know, working with local communities on sustainability issues, they'll bring back things here as well, which hopefully we'll benefit from.
00:31:57.920 --> 00:32:05.680
And actually, you know, Brexit I think has had an impact on our sector, quite a significant impact, and you know, things like Erasmus programmes and others.
00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:13.039
And you know, I know we have new programs that are going to replace some of those things, but they're certainly not uh up and running and providing the benefits that we need right now.
00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:16.960
But I do think our sector's well placed to actually be a big contributor.
00:32:17.039 --> 00:32:21.759
Um, and obviously there would have been we had colleagues who were at COP from Strathclyde.
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:33.440
Um and I think since COP26, the university itself has definitely raised its gaze and its ambition around both the international processes but also the role it plays in the city.
00:32:33.599 --> 00:32:40.240
I guess my question was you know, working with students, and we all you know, we all have the privilege of engaging with our student body.
00:32:40.880 --> 00:32:54.160
There are multiple challenges facing them at the moment, whether it's the cost of living, um, you know, finding housing, suitable housing in the city, um the the job market when they come out from university.
00:32:54.720 --> 00:33:02.160
How do you how do you think they overcome some of these challenges and how do we focus the minds on this element of collective entrepreneurship?
00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:03.200
I really like that term, Matt.
00:33:03.359 --> 00:33:04.240
I feel it.
00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:09.039
Um because I do think it speaks to the multiple crises and multiple challenges that we face.
00:33:09.279 --> 00:33:10.319
But what do you think?
00:33:10.480 --> 00:33:18.720
What would you say to our students right now who are kind of sitting there just trying to figure out what they do um in amongst the context of all these challenges?
00:33:19.200 --> 00:33:24.079
Well, I I think we should be um we should be working.
00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:25.920
I'm in delivery mode, right?
00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:28.720
And that that's my DNA, and that's just getting stuff done.
00:33:28.880 --> 00:33:33.519
And I can see from the work I do at region level, let's just think about that.
00:33:33.599 --> 00:33:38.640
Um there is a huge appetite to get students to or knowledge.
00:33:39.039 --> 00:33:41.440
Let's let's not start with students, but knowledge, right?
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:44.000
We need can you tell us how to do X, Y, and Z?
00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:52.240
That that's just a common opening gambit from a community group or um stratified passenger transport.
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:58.799
There's you know, can you help us as a university to do what we need to do to respond to the climate emergency?
00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:00.720
That's just a common ask, no.
00:34:01.200 --> 00:34:02.720
I get asked that all the time.
00:34:03.359 --> 00:34:07.839
And I I think we have to think, well, how can we place our students in a position where they can respond to that?
00:34:08.159 --> 00:34:13.360
And our staff that can sit in behind that as a support mechanism, professional and academic.
00:34:14.079 --> 00:34:19.039
That is absolutely what we should be doing, I think, uh, in that area of of our work.
00:34:19.360 --> 00:34:26.320
Um when I go and speak to, I was at Helensborough, um uh happened to be invited to Helensborough.
00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:33.039
You know, a community in Argyll and Butte, who um it's the end of a commuter route.
00:34:33.119 --> 00:34:41.199
Uh very you know knowledgeable people, it would appear in in that room who who spoke I spoke to and spoke back to me and tell told me what their concerns were.
00:34:41.760 --> 00:34:55.519
And I can see exactly where our students can embed themselves in humanities, science, engineering, business to help that community to think about how to you know rise to this challenge.
00:34:55.920 --> 00:35:15.760
And I think that's if if we did nothing else, that would be brilliant to get our because you know, ideas will come from that engagement, solutions will be deployed, you know, people people can start to realize how to respond and work with to collectively together, but we have to allow some space to have that happen.
00:35:16.079 --> 00:35:24.079
Yeah, I I echo everything Roddy said, and I think just maybe picking up on his his former point, and I'm afraid I completely forget which university's just done it.
00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:35.760
Um, but I I think just last week I saw an announcement that one of the major unis is looking to initiate a sustainable development module, which is compulsory, I think, for all undergraduates.
00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:37.440
I need to I'll need to fact-check myself.
00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:40.400
No, no, it was in it was in Barcelona, it was one of the universities in Barcelona.
00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:41.039
There we go.
00:35:41.119 --> 00:35:41.440
Yeah.
00:35:41.679 --> 00:35:43.519
So um I think this is fantastic.
00:35:43.599 --> 00:36:04.079
You know, and Strathclyde, in my humble opinion, would be very well placed to do this, um, and would be a wonderful COP26 legacy, actually, to say 10 credits, undergraduate, maybe not first year, get the fundamentals laid down, but particularly in that third year, when you're starting to think, how do I translate what I've learned into actual useful learning?
00:36:04.239 --> 00:36:07.920
Okay, so that'll that'll ring all the Strathclyde bells there.
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:10.079
Um, so I think that's necessary.
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:14.079
Um, two, I think we need to inspire students.
00:36:14.239 --> 00:36:22.000
Um, no pun intended on the podcast name, but inspire students with former successes, but also don't be afraid to learn from failures.
00:36:22.159 --> 00:36:29.599
We're we're pretty bad in the UK about talking about this, we'd sort of stiff up a lip, crack on, let's not really talk too much about the bad stuff.
00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:45.199
Um, in terms of past ventures into environmental uh and and social entrepreneurship, um, you know, alumna, I think, are really well placed to do this because the student can immediately see themselves reflected in that individual.
00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:46.559
They went through that same journey.
00:36:46.639 --> 00:36:52.400
So we've got colleagues, you know, the longer I'm at Strathclyde, the more individuals I see moving on and doing great things.
00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:56.880
Great example would be um uh Yannick Nijberg, who's just set up seawater solutions.
00:36:56.960 --> 00:37:07.920
We're hoping to get him heading involved, which is doing some fantastic work around reclaiming coastal landscapes to sequester carbon and improve biodiversity, uh, as well as providing sort of floodwater defenses.
00:37:08.159 --> 00:37:14.719
To get somebody like Yannick along to say, This is what I did and this is what you could do, is really, really powerful.
00:37:15.039 --> 00:37:27.519
And the final point I would say is that we need to educate our students around the entrepreneurial ecosystem, which is yet another buzzword, um, that they're they're part of.
00:37:27.679 --> 00:37:30.880
The university is part of this ecosystem.
00:37:31.119 --> 00:37:40.079
This ecosystem moves, has connections with the private sector, with other public sector bodies, particularly Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, um, but also the third sector.
00:37:40.239 --> 00:37:45.119
And to say, look, you are a living, breathing, active member of this ecosystem right now.
00:37:45.280 --> 00:37:48.800
And this is what you can do, and this is the support that's available.
00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:51.679
Um, but actually, you know, look at look at this.
00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:56.000
Look how look how active this is, particularly in the central belt of Scotland.
00:37:56.079 --> 00:37:58.480
We're very much, I don't think we make enough of this.
00:37:58.719 --> 00:38:04.079
We're very, very much at the forefront of of some of the most exciting innovation that's happening in this space.
00:38:04.239 --> 00:38:08.239
And I think just pointing students to that is a really powerful first step.
00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:09.199
Definitely.
00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:13.519
I mean, I I've got a final question, but I think you've more or less covered that, Matt.
00:38:13.599 --> 00:38:15.920
Um, and I also love the fact that you're on message.
00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:21.760
You've got everything inspire university, and and you've even used a Strathclyde Inspire.
00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:35.679
I've been brainwashed in So Seawater Solutions is a great example of somebody that has gone through kind of the support of Strathclyde Inspire can certainly inspire others in kind of going down that that kind of route.
00:38:35.920 --> 00:38:42.960
I guess um just kind of a quick follow-up, um, maybe more around maybe the policies and funding that's available.
00:38:43.199 --> 00:38:52.320
Roddy, maybe there's something within the climate plan, for example, that encourages innovators to have this topic front and centre within their business strategies.
00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:57.760
I think that well, uh we deal with lots of different um stakeholders, don't we?
00:38:57.920 --> 00:38:58.800
Um deal with.
00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:02.960
We work with um and engage with um Glasgow Chamber, good example.
00:39:03.199 --> 00:39:10.719
Lots of SMEs in the city um developing their own climate solutions because they think that's the right thing to do, which is great to see.
00:39:11.199 --> 00:39:18.079
And I think if we can pivot more towards these, what's happening, knowing what's going on, horizon gazing, seeing the opportunities.
00:39:18.559 --> 00:39:21.360
But we need a policy piece, I think, to support this, as you say.
00:39:21.440 --> 00:39:32.400
And if you know I I'm staggered that there isn't a much greater focus on communities of practice to really cluster support into those communities of practice.
00:39:32.880 --> 00:39:44.800
So when there's a willingness amongst a community and a signal sent out to government or to you know institutions like Scottish Enterprise, should there not be a mission-based approach to that community?
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:47.119
You know, to to really think, well, how can we help you?
00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:48.159
What's it what do you need?
00:39:48.800 --> 00:39:50.480
What ideas do you not have?
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:52.000
What do you not know yet?
00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:54.079
So and that's our response.
00:39:55.519 --> 00:39:57.760
So you don't know what you don't know until someone tells you.
00:39:58.400 --> 00:40:03.280
We should be that's our responsibility, isn't it, to really think and seek out these opportunities.
00:40:03.360 --> 00:40:13.599
And then you start to get investments, pipelines of infrastructure, pipelines of ideas, pipelines of of knowledge, and then you can seek the funding to come in on the back of that.
00:40:13.760 --> 00:40:17.440
So just you know, why are we not doing more of that question?
00:40:18.079 --> 00:40:19.519
You've just launched it.
00:40:21.039 --> 00:40:25.599
You've put the action of entrepreneurship uh community of practice right there.
00:40:26.239 --> 00:40:26.960
Well, there you go.
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:28.400
We should do it, we should do it.
00:40:28.480 --> 00:40:29.440
I think we should do it.
00:40:29.599 --> 00:40:38.880
I think yeah, I think well, I've said I said this to Scottish Government, I think Matt was at the meeting where I met that practitioner, was I don't care last year a COP.
00:40:39.119 --> 00:40:42.480
Why doesn't every community have a climate audit done?
00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:44.800
Access to that.
00:40:44.960 --> 00:40:48.239
There are something like twelve twelve hundred community councils in Scotland.
00:40:48.400 --> 00:40:59.360
Yeah, 1,200 climate audits, 1,200 you know, placements of embedded students who are on a formal embedding, they're mentored, they're they're given the help.
00:40:59.679 --> 00:41:07.440
You know, this is a theoretical idea, but what if you did that as an experiment and you it's okay to fail?
00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:08.880
It's a mission-based approach.
00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:10.480
Mariana Matsucato.
00:41:10.800 --> 00:41:13.440
Why don't we do that for uh two years, right?
00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:14.960
What would that cost?
00:41:15.199 --> 00:41:16.639
Yeah, whatever that might be.
00:41:16.880 --> 00:41:20.400
That's an investment in people, it's an investment in companies.
00:41:20.559 --> 00:41:25.519
It starts to think about challenging the norm, and maybe you get some really good outputs from that.
00:41:25.679 --> 00:41:28.480
Maybe you don't, but you'll learn, our students will be deployed.
00:41:28.719 --> 00:41:39.119
So, you know, you start to have that conversation almost from a bottom-up approach, as well as you know, companies coming in the middle, policy over the top.
00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:40.000
Yeah.
00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:44.000
If if I can add to that, I completely agree with everything Roddy's said there.
00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:53.199
I think, particularly in higher education, but I think this we're guilty of this across the piece in terms of funding stuff.
00:41:53.280 --> 00:41:56.480
We want we want to fund oven-ready ideas.
00:41:57.039 --> 00:41:59.679
Problem is, have we got the right recipes?
00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:10.239
No, it's a terrible analogy, but you you need time to formulate these ideas and you need the right people around the table at the right time, and they need to be galvanized around a shared, we go back to the shared problem, shared solution.
00:42:10.480 --> 00:42:17.119
What I really worry about, and I particularly higher education sector, but I say this is a common problem.
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:21.679
We want to do stuff very cheaply, very quickly.
00:42:22.079 --> 00:42:27.280
Um, we want to have it of the highest quality, but delivered in the quickest fashion.
00:42:27.760 --> 00:42:30.079
With limited resources with limited resources.
00:42:30.400 --> 00:42:35.679
Now, that's all well and good if you've got the right, you know, the right people, right skill sets, right ideas.
00:42:35.760 --> 00:42:43.840
And I think Roddy's point around actually putting together some of the foundational architecture that will bring these people around and to patient.
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:46.320
I know, I know we don't have lots of time in this climate crisis.
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:47.599
I understand that.
00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:55.119
But sometimes you need these sheltered spaces for new ideas to form, new partnerships.
00:42:55.360 --> 00:42:57.679
You need the partnerships before you have the ideas.
00:42:58.159 --> 00:43:04.079
And once you have the ideas, you've got you've got a kernel that, you know, a nugget that you can build around and do something fantastic with.
00:43:04.159 --> 00:43:06.480
And I fear that we're missing that first step.
00:43:06.719 --> 00:43:09.119
So there's a lot of work that needs to be done here.
00:43:09.360 --> 00:43:21.199
Fantastic work just out last week from my colleague Jen Roberts, who was looking at um, you know, inclusivity and engagement around having basically bringing the right people, particularly those who've been marginalized from these kind of discussions in the past.
00:43:21.360 --> 00:43:24.159
How do you get the right people around the right table at the right time?
00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:29.519
Now, if we can't do that, again, you know, don't want to misquote uh Mr.
00:43:29.679 --> 00:43:33.280
Mannering here, but you know, we we're sort of doomed, you know, dad's army style.
00:43:33.360 --> 00:43:36.559
It we you need you need these foundations.
00:43:36.719 --> 00:43:45.920
And I think Strathclyde has all the right bits and pieces there, but there needs to be a platform because I can see the will and I see the brains, yeah.
00:43:46.000 --> 00:43:50.639
Um, but you'd need to bring them around, you need you need you need something to galvanize them.
00:43:50.719 --> 00:43:53.679
And I feel that last piece is is missing currently.
00:43:53.920 --> 00:43:56.320
I think that I mean that links quite closely, Manish.
00:43:56.480 --> 00:43:58.000
Maybe you can kind of talk to this as well.
00:43:58.079 --> 00:44:06.000
But um, you know, the Inspire Strategy is a whole the the kind of first pillar, so to speak, is around entrepreneurship for all.
00:44:06.079 --> 00:44:21.679
So it's encouraging anybody and everybody to look at entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial ideas and and behaviours within themselves to develop themselves as well as ideas.
00:44:21.840 --> 00:44:33.039
So if you think about you're talking about um almost building a foundation before you even start to think about how you can create a solution to a problem.
00:44:33.280 --> 00:44:58.320
It's building the foundations, building the network, and building who you are as a person before you then go on to creating the solution, because actually the solution will be better thought out, it will have better connections, it will, you know, form that almost that community that you're talking about, which will enable it to kind of propel and move forward.
00:44:58.800 --> 00:45:01.920
Um I'd I'd I completely agree with it.
00:45:02.239 --> 00:45:13.599
I think I think we're actually pretty good as a human race, but I mean I see it particularly, you know, in because I mean obviously lived in but I've seen it, you know, you put the right people in the right room at the right time, they tend to come up with a solution, right?
00:45:13.920 --> 00:45:16.960
It's that's the but but to get to that point is the tricky bit.
00:45:17.039 --> 00:45:17.280
Yeah.
00:45:17.440 --> 00:45:20.000
So so and then universities, manage, you made that point.
00:45:20.159 --> 00:45:25.039
Universities, what a fantastic, you know, asset that we have in the UK.
00:45:25.280 --> 00:45:26.480
The higher education.
00:45:26.559 --> 00:45:43.519
I mean, I I you know, I I I I I moan and grumble around some of the, but to what we have, these are the some of the crown jewel institutions globally, and we need to build around these, and they need to be open to the public and open to industry and open to government to provide that platform for engagement.
00:45:43.599 --> 00:45:50.320
And if we can do that, I I genuinely hand on heart believe we can have this wrapped up, but we're not quite doing that at the moment.
00:45:51.119 --> 00:46:00.800
Well, I think it's been a great discussion, and uh, you know, I'm gonna advocate that instead of meetings we just have podcasts because I think it may be more productive at uh getting things forward.
00:46:00.880 --> 00:46:09.440
But I've certainly taken away collective entrepreneurship, collaboration, and I think those two things will actually lead to meaningful climate action, you know.
00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:26.639
And you know, I would invite students, uh staff, fellow academics, those that are in around Glasgow to get in touch, get in touch with uh Inspire, get in touch with the Centre for Sustainable Development, get in touch with university because it is going to take all of us to meet the challenges that are before us.
00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:29.440
And uh but I think we have you know I'm kind of with you, Matt.
00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:31.280
I'm with the optimism for a Monday.
00:46:31.440 --> 00:46:34.800
I think that's a great bit of optimism to kind of leave us with the actually tomorrow.
00:46:34.960 --> 00:46:39.760
If we get it the right people around the table at the right time, we'll get this all thrown up.
00:46:39.840 --> 00:46:41.840
And uh, you know, I think we've got to get started.
00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:45.360
So big thanks to both of you for joining us today.
00:46:45.519 --> 00:46:49.360
Um, it's been great, and I'm sure we'll pick up this conversation again.
00:46:49.519 --> 00:46:51.360
Um, and thank you to our listeners.
00:46:51.519 --> 00:46:56.480
That's uh it for this uh week's uh or this month's series.
00:46:56.639 --> 00:47:02.000
And remember to hit the subscribe button or follow whatever platform you listen to uh or podcast on.
00:47:02.239 --> 00:47:10.400
And you can find out more about StrafClides Inspire on our Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, or just search ScraftClides Inspire on the University of StraftGoods website.
00:47:10.559 --> 00:47:11.599
Thank you very much.
00:47:12.320 --> 00:47:12.800
Excellent.
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:14.800
Thanks, folks.
