Something exciting is happening in London and beyond...

Authored by Professor Richard Templer

Recently I have been wondering how visible and obvious the Industrial Revolution was to our forefathers. I was thinking about this because for the past 15 or so years London has been at the leading edge of the next great socio-economic revolution and yet its contribution is invisible to most of us, and that bugs me.

This revolution will alter the way we live and work in ways that are as great as the Industrial Revolution, and address the climate change and species diversity losses that industrialisation brought in its wake. There is no bigger challenge, nor opportunity.

So, what has London been up to?

It may be almost invisible, but what I call climate innovation – the development of ideas that address the challenges of climate change – has been growing at a remarkable pace. From essentially nothing it is now worth £50bn, roughly 9% of London’s economic value. Since 2008 it has consistently exceeded the growth rate of the rest of the economy, currently nudging 10%. It employs over 311,000 people in London – that’s roughly 6.5% of the work force, and this figure is growing. There are very few cities anywhere in the world generating this much growth in the ‘Green’ economy, and it has been doing this despite the impacts of a global economic crash, the UK’s exit from the EU and a pandemic.*

Impressive, but the statistics give us little or no hint of the vibrant and exciting things that are happening all around us. For that you need to look at the stories of London’s climate innovation community.

In fact, community and its creation are the first clue to what is going on in London. We are home to many creative and entrepreneurial minds, attracted to the city for its global financial prowess and its concentration of globally leading universities, including the world’s number two university Imperial College London (QS World University Rankings 2025). We are cosmopolitan and open, a place that attracts, concentrates and catalyses innovative potential. In its wake this has led to the creation of specialist climate innovation support organisations: incubators and accelerators such as Undaunted: Tackling climate change with innovation and Sustainable Ventures , and lab spaces like Central Research Laboratory ( Plus X Innovation ) and Scale Space . All of these organisations have been supported by grant funding from the Greater London Authority and donations from some of London’s largest corporates. This financial support and encouragement has enabled the birth and coalescence of a unique community of many hundreds of technically advanced climate startups that are already having a positive impact.

Some of these startups have grown and remained in London. The most impressive of these is Octopus Energy . Founded by Greg Jackson in 2015, its mission is to make energy fair, clean and simple. In the last eight years it has become a global energy provider with a market valuation of £7bn. In 2020 Octopus bought in another London startup, Kraken (formerly known as Upside Energy), to provide energy management functionality that enables customers to be paid for turning devices off when the grid requires it. This is the future of the energy business, happening in the heart of London.

Though in actual fact that is not quite true. Krakenflex is now based in Manchester – but the teams story highlights how London is catalysing the creation of the ‘Green’ economy. London’s climate innovation community provides the perfect ground for new businesses to be forged – talented people, impact investors, technical powerhouses are the ideal mix for creating a climate startup. So, London is where a climate startup is born, but for many, eventual growth happens elsewhere. Undaunted’s startups can be found in more than 30 countries, all over the globe, and across the UK from the Southwest of England to the northern-most parts of Scotland. It is the cosmopolitan makeup of London’s climate innovators, and the city’s connections to the wider world, that sends London innovations to Kenya, California, Ecuador and Japan amongst many others.

The examples of what is happening are inspiring and the list too long for this blog, so a few examples will have to suffice.

GrowUp Farms , founded in London, now has a vast low-carbon vertical farm in Kent supplying salad to Tesco. Materra is now in Gujarat where their technology for low-impact cotton growing is being used. Desolenator ’s zero-emission water purification technology is now operating in the Gulf with the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. ADAPTAVATE manufacture and sell their carbon negative construction materials in Bristol. Origen is working in Lincolnshire and the US manufacturing lime that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Naked Energy Ltd is supplying its renewable heat and electricity system across the world, via partnerships with E.ON across Europe and ELM Companies in the USA. TruckLabs took their energy efficiency fairings for trucks to California – technology that has been reducing fuel consumption and emissions for almost a decade. And last but not least, Notpla , who use seaweed to replace plastic and card packaging – its team has moved all the way to Hackney in North London (!) to develop new materials and expand manufacture. So, London is the place that climate startups are born and nurtured before they fly the nest to expand their impact on tackling climate change. And in some cases it is the place they grow up too.

The stories of London’s climate innovators are inspiring. They give me hope that we can – and will – get to grips with creating a ‘Green’ economy that will bring us a better future. Their stories need to be told to a wider audience, not just to give us all hope, but perhaps more importantly to give inspiration to the next generation. We need to inspire and support the next wave of climate innovators and entrepreneurs, a new generation of climate investors and the next government’s leadership in tackling climate change and grasping the opportunities to shape the new economy.

There’s a place in this story for everyone. Stay in-the-loop by signing up to newsletters like Undaunted, get involved in the many events, activities and opportunities that are happening in areas local to you and find your place in this thriving, exciting community.

About the author

Professor Richard Templer is Emeritus Professor of Climate Innovation and a Senior Research Investigator at Imperial College London. He holds a joint appointment with the Department of Chemistry and the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment, where he was the Director of Innovation and founded Undaunted (formerly the Centre for Climate Change Innovation) – which is a partnership between Imperial and the Royal Institution. He has been a Commissioner at the London Sustainable Development Commission, and advisory body to the Mayor of London, since 2015 and was awarded an OBE for his contributions to climate innovation in 2024.

About Undaunted

Undaunted is a hub for the UK’s climate innovation community, creating new routes into green entrepreneurship and supporting the acceleration of startups and SMEs tackling climate change. We are a partnership between The Royal Institution and the Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London based at Scale Space in the White City Innovation District .

Source

*Figures taken London’s Low Carbon Market Snapshot Low Carbon Environmental Goods and Services (LCEGS) Update for Financial Years 2021/22 amp; 2022/23 March 2024, Matrix Data Services Ltd.

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Johnson Banks Design for Undaunted: Tackling climate change with innovation