The last few days have seen a number of high-level initiatives promoted to encourage sustainability entrepreneurs are start-ups to apply for and win funding, to enable their creations to be developed.
Brilliant!
The Small Business Research Initiative offers a competitive process at the end of which, eighteen months ahead, successful businesses can have received up to £1m to bring their prototypes to stage 10 — the new technology is ready to be used.
Fantastic!
The energy regulator Ofgem is putting forward £450m to encourage energy firms to submit ideas that were “big, bold and ambitious” to find greener ways to power British homes and businesses — new ways to heat homes, store energy or transport goods and people.
Wonderful!
But it strikes me there are two key parts of this movement in the right direction, ambitious, exciting and forward-thinking though it may be, and that’s urgency.
And the other is joining those dots…
At the end of the SBRI process from InnovateUK, the inventors will have a product ready to go to market, and the right to do what they will with it. So how do they get that straight to the very people who can benefit from it? In other words, every individual in this country, every man, woman and child, not to mention the creatures we live alongside?
There is a body already in place to get this kind of initiative working on the ground, and not even having to wait months for the competitive process to grind through and all the levels of bureaucracy and paper pushing. And we don’t have that kind of time in any case. The IPPC Report last month was stark in its warnings about time running out. We can’t wait while these wheels within heels grind on.
So who is that body that could be stepping in now? Are we talking about philanthropist billionaires getting involved? Are we suggesting tapping Elon Musk or Richard Branson for a few million? That would be incredible. But the people who can start this coming together are very much closer to home.
Our public sector in the UK is a body so close to the problems we face that they are already working on the ground — literally — every single day. Our councils, our health trusts, our police, fire and ambulance services, the very people onto whose care we trust our kids every day, and the people who procure goods and services on their behalf — these are the potential saviours of the planet. And how?
We now call on the whole public sector to step in, to collaborate and share the ideas and best practice that are already out there. The National Procurement Strategy has freed councils from having to take lowest priced quotes, and instead focus on the longer-term sustainable options. What’s best for people and planet. Communities, improved infrastructure, reduced consumption, better air.
And we do that right now.
Calling on all councils in the UK! Let us build you a pre-vetted, compliant, fixed-price procurement framework for whatever challenges you face; from financial issues that can save you 40p per card transaction to remote health services, from cleaner energy sources to the safety of your own employees, there is something out there that we can investigate, price up and make a part of your solution.
