Mike Pitts is Deputy Challenge Director, Transforming Construction at Innovate UK (LinkedIn, Twitter). Innovate UK is the UK’s national innovation agency, supporting business-led innovation in all sectors, technologies and UK regions.
Our conversation covers:
- How a publicly-funded innovation agency tries to nurture innovation and contribute to economic success, especially on Net Zero, leveling up and increasing UK exports.
- The importance of storytelling in innovation in particular, and in change more widely.
- The importance of deeply integrating sustainability, so that the stand-alone 'sustainability' job is made obsolete.
- How Innovate UK tried to shift key parts of the construction industry.
- The innovation required wasn't just of new technologies, but of techniques, including: tacit know-how, process innovation and business models. Therefore, a novel innovation in one sector can come by learning from another sector.
- Addressing the challenges that sustainable construction often has much higher upfront investment and lower unproven running costs, which means that the developer is unwilling to risk the higher upfront investment because they cannot be sure the extra upfront cost (with a lifetime benefit) will be covered by a higher sales price.
The book I mention which covers the importance of story is Gaia Vince's Transcendance.
I also mention the Net Zero Review by Chris Skidmore (known as the 'Skidmore Review'). I also briefly mention Michael Gubb's innovation chain.
This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters. You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.
Mike Pitts is Deputy Challenge Director, Transforming Construction at Innovate UK (LinkedIn, Twitter). Innovate UK is the UK’s national innovation agency, supporting business-led innovation in all sectors, technologies and UK regions.
Our conversation covers:
- How a publicly-funded innovation agency tries to nurture innovation and contribute to economic success, especially on Net Zero, leveling up and increasing UK exports.
- The importance of storytelling in innovation in particular, and in change more widely.
- The importance of deeply integrating sustainability, so that the stand-alone 'sustainability' job is made obsolete.
- How Innovate UK tried to shift key parts of the construction industry.
- The innovation required wasn't just of new technologies, but of techniques, including: tacit know-how, process innovation and business models. Therefore, a novel innovation in one sector can come by learning from another sector.
- Addressing the challenges that sustainable construction often has much higher upfront investment and lower unproven running costs, which means that the developer is unwilling to risk the higher upfront investment because they cannot be sure the extra upfront cost (with a lifetime benefit) will be covered by a higher sales price.
The book I mention which covers the importance of story is Gaia Vince's Transcendance.
I also mention the Net Zero Review by Chris Skidmore (known as the 'Skidmore Review'). I also briefly mention Michael Gubb's innovation chain.
This is part of a series of interviews about innovation for sustainability conducted for the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, as a contribution to a module in this Masters. You can find out more about these interviews, and the module, here.