By Kalyan Sarma, VP of Climate, Environment, and Sustainability Commercialisation at Ploughshare, and Maurits van Tol, CEO of Catalyst Technologies, Johnson Matthey
Bleak. That is the word that anyone, we would wager, would describe the world if there was no form of cooperation between people. If there was no collaboration between groups of people, it would be the same. Why, then, do we find ourselves in an era – where we have vast, vast swathes of knowledge at our fingertips, hugely intelligent, informed, and motivated groups of people – where collaboration seems to be the last thing anyone wants?
At best, we see cooperation and collaboration put away for a rainy day; “we’ll get around to it”, “it’s not the right time”, “it can’t be done just yet”. At worst, it’s shunned, feared, and outright refused; “it will never work”, “no, our competitors can’t know what we’re doing”, “what if something goes wrong, who will be blamed?”.
It can be an action that might mean some uncertainty. It can, perhaps, mean that things might not go to plan, and it can mean that credit won’t be absolute to one party. But, playing devil’s advocate to those arguments, it can give certainties in research, you will find out what doesn’t work so that it might be avoided in the future, and the opportunity to publicise successes is shared across multiple parties.
Creating an innovation ecosystem that prioritises collaboration and cooperation are hugely important to the advancement of not only business practice, but also to the advancement of research, development, and technologies that can positively alter the future of the globe. For climate, environment, and sustainability (CES) – collaboration that can better the planet is tenfold.
We only need to look at recent times to see that collaboration and cooperation has huge impacts and can hugely benefit the world. The obvious answer would be to examine how many man-hours were put into the rapid research and development of the COVID vaccines to see the benefits of all pulling towards a specific mission. What may normally take years and years under normal circumstances, took less than one, with a global roll out that took even less time. The same can be achieved, perhaps at a slightly slower pace, by collaboration within the world of CES. It’s a part of future business strategy that cannot be ignored or avoided. So, this raises a few questions. Why is it not shouted about more, given what it can do? Why is collaboration not seen as a non-negotiable across organisations? How can it be thought of in a better way, and why should it be promoted as a way forward?
We decided to come together, as past colleagues and hopeful future partners, and put forward our arguments as to why collaboration is the new best practice in CES, why it can help us move forward, and why governments should not be leaving this to industry alone.
Collaboration for Sustainable Technology Deployment
Short of absolutely everyone abandoning technology as we know it, there is no chance of it going away. Its influence over our lives is far too ingrained, and the value it brings to our lives cannot be discounted. Equally, the speed of development when it comes to technology of all colours is breakneck, and stopping something that fast is bound to result in something less than savoury. The loneliness that comes with being an innovator can make the journey itself seem endless – and an endless road can seem unsustainable.
In a task like trying to ensure the planet survives longer, has a better time of it generally, or goes back to being green – the feeling of an unsustainable journey could mean the difference between a breakthrough technology getting through the final steps to market, or simply falling by the wayside never to be seen again. Or worse: getting to market when it’s too late. Working together, as cliché as it might sound, is one of the keys to ensuring that sustainable speeds and amounts of developments are possible. Sustainability development needs to be sustainable itself too and requires continued investment into further R&D – something that industry is very adept at. We can also hope that the Wealth Fund that is being launched by the new government in the UK will also help bring new and exciting technologies to light through external investment coupled with public sector funding. This is an exciting prospect that can help UK plc bring out to the rest of the world.
However, before ideas are even thought to be brought to market, it will take implicit trust to discuss with a potential partner about technologies that have already undergone significant R&D that will align and match up with each other. Taking it a step further by narrowing your search for a trusted partner that has a reputation and a heritage of strong, robust, and scientific a research and development can further your journey and search for technologies that can change the world.
Collaborating in this manner can lead to new discoveries that have the potential to be accelerated to a point where, not unlike the COVID vaccine, their deployment can be more rapid, and have more impact on both the global market and population than previously thought. That same accelerated deployment lays the foundations for not only wider dissemination, but also can ensure that the best teams involved in scaling up technologies can be involved too. The impact of collaborative partnerships isn’t limited to one country – the world can benefit.
Partnerships like these don’t come around very often, and when they do, magic can happen. Scaling up on this level takes a lot of previous knowledge: how do you build value, how do you build robust supply chains, what value will be delivered, where will it be delivered, and to whom will it be delivered? All these points mean consideration of the cost-effectiveness and trust in market forces to make sure the most impactful and effective technologies make it to the top. Some technologies may fall along the way, but these aren’t losses, and in a collaboration, they shouldn’t be seen as such. It’s about knowing which solution is the right one for that moment in time and that market.
There is also a huge diversity when it comes to sustainability needs. By having the right collaborations and cooperative movements in place, organisations in both the public and private sector can ensure that the right combination of technologies and scaling up expertise can be harnessed to create tailored solutions. We saw this with the development of the COVID vaccine – research that was then supported by the private sector to be scaled and deployed at a huge scale.
Everyone knows that the markets we all operate in aren’t uniform, they’re fluid and all different. It’s the cooperation and ability to adapt that we all draw upon each other for to ensure our successes.
Mitigating Risk to Drive Innovation Ecosystems
Drawing upon each other is also one of the key points that collaboration allows more of when it comes to creating and bringing innovations to light. Part of the benefit of it is the spreading of risk – mitigating risk through partnerships is an invaluable tool that can ensure many things.
One thing is obvious – it’s the fact that sharing risk makes it less for everyone involved. A problem shared is a problem halved, and the same applies to risk. Sharing it out can ensure that the parties equal in level in partnership also bring onto themselves equal levels of risk – especially in something unknown. However, there is more than that. One part of it is that these collaborative efforts can ensure that the risk associated with both adopting technology and making innovations more available and simply more viable for smaller end-users. New technologies need to have the backing of collaboration to be able to simply be economically viable to those smaller end-users.
Equally it’s about cost reduction and efficiency. Without the pooling of resources and expertise that is brought to the table by a strong collaboration, prices could skyrocket for a single party, which in the end would be brought to the end-user.
As we all know, prices being too high for the end user will mean non-adoption – something that sustainability has struggled with. Without tightly knit collaboration in place from the very beginning – right before the R&D history is looked over, right before a final agreement is struck – the possibility of spiralling costs being pushed onto the end user is all but guaranteed.
However, the more people working on something to achieve a defined mission – such as the COVID vaccine development – the quicker it can be done. Money will, of course, be spent on development. But spending that money sooner to get a product or innovation to both geographical and industrial markets will ensure that teams can start recouping that financial outlay sooner. They can then either simply recoup or invest that money into further accelerations in developments going toward specific goals. The big goal of our time is Net Zero – and we need to think about how collaborating on new technologies can help us get there quicker. Technology can be a major contributor to reach net zero, governments can help accelerate large scale deployment. Value chain collaborations to achieve NetZero need to be started on sooner rather than later, and governments have a role to play with aid for first-of-a-kind deployment, carbon tax, contracts for difference, mandates – you name it.
With government support brought alongside government research, for example, discussions for potential applications with those in the private sector who also have the capacity and the experience in R&D in that specific area, then the possibilities are truly endless. At the end of the day, those same innovations are generally going to be bought by end-users from the private sector – ensuring that they are involved from the beginning through partnering correctly, i.e. are listened to so the customer need is defined in detail, could mean the difference between progress in creating an environment where innovation is lauded and promoted, or one that stagnates.
Importance of Government/Industry Partnerships
It’s this very real risk of a lack of an innovation-friendly environment that could appear should the importance of partnerships between both the private and the public sector not come to pass. Perhaps, in the private sector, this notion of a tie up is an easier thing to get across the line? But when it comes to bridging that gap between private and public there are other aspects that one may need to take into consideration.
Besides the most obvious one – sheer political will, that is becoming more evident with the appearance of Labour’s new Green Prosperity Plan via the National Wealth Fund that shifts will to reality – others may well follow. Obstacles such as policy harmonisation and law, ensuring taxpayer money is well-spent, the optics of what such a collaboration might look like all exist. These are all examples that may well rear their heads but are all obstacles that will need to be overcome at some point when looking to address and encourage collaboration – especially when it comes to sustainability. CES is, in the grand scheme of things, a completely new area of science and R&D. However, governments across the world acknowledge the critical role of partnerships to be able to efficiently and meaningfully advance sustainability technology – such as Ploughshare’s partnerships with the National Oceanographic Centre and the Met Office. This said, government also needs assistance to better understand what these partnerships can bring to the table for the public, as well as how to better facilitate them and get them underway. This is where the private sector can come in clutch. It has the experience of not only searching for these partnerships, but also getting them off the ground, setting them up with the relevant research and likelihood of success, as well as a deep understanding of what would help to accelerate large scale deployment.
With this experience to draw on, the only way is up. The potential to accelerate progress towards NetZero is huge when organisations come together. In the UK the government is bound by its own laws to hit NetZero by a certain time. Industry is also bound by those laws. It stands to reason that working together is going to help both parties hit NetZero quicker, or at least ensure that the technologies that will enable that goal are reached sooner rather than later – with enough time in place to put into action a system of systems that will help the right infrastructure be installed. This race to NetZero isn’t just for one industry or for the public sector by itself. By leveraging technologies that already exist and by researching those yet to come, governments and industry can accelerate the right research, scale up their relative capabilities to ensure efficient and economical deployment, as well as mitigating the risks that come with anything new – as well as developing policy to support what is to come.
Then what about when that goal is hit? NetZero is the big one, of course, but what comes after? Anything and everything CES is going to be a concerted, continued effort. These partnerships will be essential for driving future sustainability partnerships and initiatives between industry and governments internationally through harmonising policy – as well as ensuring a smooth transition towards a more sustainable future.
A Leap Onwards and Upwards
It’s time for government and private organisations to set an example and come together in more ways than ever before.
We are going to need it to survive. For governments its especially important because sustainability is a key part of the public’s health and wellbeing now and in the future. Partnering a part of human nature, and collaborating is more than a buzzword thrown around boardrooms – it’s a very real part of survival.
By working together, we can all do better, and do more for not only ourselves and our own economies, but also those that are around us. Forget geography specific collaboration, forget economy specific collaboration, just embrace collaboration for its own sake, and you can take whatever trope you might find about working together – it will be true. And we all are here for it, and ready to give it a good crack.