From Formula One to food aisles: Nick Wirth’s ROI-driven sustainability revolution

What does it take to scale real-world climate solutions fast?

In this episode, we explore what happens when you treat climate action like an engineering challenge, not just a moral imperative. 

Joining us is Nick Wirth, aerodynamicist, engineer, and former Formula One team owner turned cleantech entrepreneur. Today, he’s applying high-performance engineering to supermarkets, trucks, and buildings through Wirth Research, saving clients energy costs and cutting emissions with every installation.

Nick walks us through his journey from designing wind-tunnel-free F1 cars to developing AirDoor and EcoBlade, technologies which are now being used across the UK retail sector to cut heating and cooling loads by up to 70%.

We explore why sustainability only scales when it delivers a strong return, how overlooked retrofits could unlock widespread adoption of heat pumps, and what supermarkets reveal about behavioural economics and invisible design. 

The good news is that the business case is stronger than ever. The challenge now is moving fast enough, and thinking big enough, to match the moment.

Nick’s story is a powerful reminder that many of the answers we need already exist. What’s missing isn’t innovation but implementation at scale. Listen in, and find out what it looks like when a Formula One mindset meets a broken energy system – and decides to rebuild it.

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