Demos Project : The Disrupters

carbon neutralizers

charlie.tims@demos.co.uk ( Charlie Tims ) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 12:37:09 UT

A few weeks ago Demos published a report with NESTA titled The Disruptors about low-carbon innovation. Low carbon-innovation basically means people and companies who make things that can reduce our production of carbon. It's not necessarily about technological breakthroughs - but more about how technologies can be applied in new ways, so that they are used by people and their benefits are spread through society. The argument being that if we are going to make the transition to a low-carbon society: we need to develop entirely different ways of building, travelling, shopping and even eating, and the Disruptors - people innovating in this way - are the people to help us do it. Anyway Molly Webb, one of the report's co-authors, talks through these issues in this week's podcast. You can also check out the reports other two authors James Wilsdon and Rebecca Willis giving their presentations at the launch of the report here.

You can listen to the podcast...

1. By subscribing via feedburner
2. Listening via the Internet Archive
3. Downloading the file (9.9MB)
4. Listening here on the embedded player (you need quicktime),

Carbon geeks may have noticed the solar panels being installed above molly's head in the picture.

Demos/NESTA Report and Environmental Challenge Launch

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:08:06 UT

The Innovation Challenges programme at NESTA aims to stimulate innovation in response to major social issues.

Please join us for the launch of our next challenge which will focus on climate change. We will also launch our latest report - a NESTA/Demos publication on low-carbon innovation entitled ‘The Disrupters’.

The launch event will include a panel debate which will consider the role of Government, investors and the public in improving the conditions for low-carbon innovation. Panellists include John Elkington, founder and chief entrepreneur at SustainAbility, James Wilsdon, Head of Science and Innovation at Demos and Sarah Butler-Sloss, Chair of the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy.

Registration 4.30pm (presentations will start promptly at 5pm)

Drinks Reception from 6.30pm

Spaces are limited. RSVP at the link below:
http://challengelaunch.eventbrite.com/

Climate change, behaviour and innovation

molly.webb@gmail.com ( Molly Webb ) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 10:48:41 UT

When did this happen? Is it suddenly ok to talk about the fact that people will need to change their behaviour if we want to tackle climate change? This discourse around behaviour is careful: it’s all about participation, not about prescription. It fits well with the latest media culture ethos – we’re all constantly on our mobiles, online and on facebook.

Whether this will lead to an ‘I can’ politics, as David Miliband said recently, or ‘pro-social behaviour’ – thanks Matthew Taylor – is still up for debate. It all seems possible, but have we got proof? We know that people using last.fm get better music recommendations, and someone was willing to pay £140 million for the site just the other day.

We know we've got good intentions. together.com claims that people in the Orkneys will be saving 26,000 tonnes of CO2 - IF they keep their promises.We know that millions went to see An Inconvenient Truth. We know that people care about decisions that affect their behaviour and the climate, as evidenced by the 1.8 million signatures on the road-pricing petition.

But we have further to go to demonstrate that web 2.0 - and how it works - is more than a metaphor for a new kind of participatory politics. We get very excited by the potential of participation – from social entrepreneurs who demonstrate that the economy can work with our values, to interaction designers like DIY Kyoto who want everyone to have more information about their home energy use.

Contrast this with Hilary Clinton's "9-point plan to turn the United States around in its commitment to science, engineering, technology and math, and to upgrade the innovation infrastructure" which includes a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund.

But we need both - big strategic investments and mass behaviour innovation. We'll be launching The Disrupters soon, about low-carbon innovation in the UK.

Getting off our Hackneys

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:21:27 UT

Dr. William Seward Webb hit on a brilliant transport idea in 1890. He would solve one particular type of mobility problem by breeding the Range Rover of horses - the Hackney - an animal elegant enough for the city, yet hardy enough for the country. This was a great idea except for one thing: just 15 years later, the first Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line. Surprise!

I often think of this when I am cycling to work and find myself behind a big van, and I'm closing my eyes and nostrils as much as possible to fend off the exhaust. I talk myself down from frustration: At least I'm not riding a horse. At least I'm not in pre-Clean Air act London. And at least I'm not in Beijing, where people are deserting their bikes for cars so they can sit in traffic. Ah, the joys of living in London, one of the most successful cities in the world!

But really, it's not ok. The internal combustion engine was an innovation in 1905, but in 2007, it's a fossil, burning other fossils. I know that it's done amazing things for the human race. But it's time we thought of something else. It is no longer really solving mobility problems - commuting in congestion is adding to stress as well as pollution - and its creating too many others to be worth the effort.

But most people are not thinking about providing alternatives to the service of mobility - they are breeding the Hackney horse, ie: Efficiency. In spite of the fact that we have alternatives - electrics, hybrids, or other wild ideas - those don't become widely used.

I don't think it's the technology that's the problem. it's the way we think, and the fact that so many of our services and systems have been built around the car as the mobility solution.

Everett Rogers points out that diffusion of innovations often relies not just on awareness or trying it out, but on a cluster of technologies all complementing each other, so that there is a tipping point in the uptake of each. "...innovations diffusing in a system at about the same time are interdependent".

Or what if a change (social, political or technological) in a completely unrelated area of the economy ends up applying pressure from surprising places?

Which brings me to case study I was doing for the Disrupters project yesterday - on Green Homes, a service that is part of London's Climate Change Action Plan. I talked to Andrew Long about his experience trying this out. The prototyping phase has been useful so far in all the ways they expected (gathering data from energy audits of homes to see where people think they use energy, how they can improve, etc).

But they didn't count on not being able to park their vehicles when they arrived at a home to do an audit. The scheduling and logistics of the whole experiment have been, well, a challenge. So Andrew is thinking of using electric cars to deliver the service, which can be parked anywhere, and hey, no congestion charge.

This could have a big impact. Already he reckons they may have sold a few Prius, because when they drive a Prius to a home audit, people inevitably ask for a testdrive. So Green Homes may end up sending out fleets of green cars, and people get interested in those, even as they hear about insulating their roofs or replacing boilers. Word of mouth, small changes with viral appeal. Virtuous circle. (note: cars are still cooler than boilers).

It all sounds very small scale, but I think this is how we'll end up getting off our Hackneys and participating in a sea of small changes that are positively reinforcing.

But I'm still waiting for smart car 2.0...

Giving citizens the megaphone

molly.webb@gmail.com ( Molly Webb ) — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 16:55:21 UT

The past year has seen a surge in both government and citizen's attention to climate change. Scientists largely agree that climate change is happening and that it's human induced. And as the weather becomes weirder, public awareness is growing. The Stern Review urges economic action now to prevent costly adaptation later, the financial community is investing more in clean tech, and people want to see action on climate change. It is no longer an option not to act, the question is, what now?

This increased excitement is in danger of falling flat if real changes in our emissions levels aren't achieved. In the past, energy policy has focused on providing as much of it as possible, and environmental policy has focused on regulating out problems. These approaches will entirely miss the opportunity to turn awareness into action. Citizens are now treated by policy as consumers and wasters, and industries that produce commodities are treated (only reluctantly) as polluters, an approach that is disempowering for both. In trying to regulate, we must not make the mistake of squashing use-centered creativity at the individual or organisational level when we intend only to curb certain kinds of behaviour.We need to re-imagine the power of the user and producer.

Several shifts in our societies and economies show that the time is right for this desperately needed new approach to climate change and environmental solutions more broadly.

Tthe myth of disengagement. In a country like the UK where just 21% of citizens feel they can meaninfully participate in local decision-making, people are frustrated and are turning away from traditional routes for enacting social change. But at the same time, the rise in blogging, social networking and single issue activism shows that people are far from apathetic.
The newest online tools rely more heavily on the properties of networks that allow individuals to see the benefit of their actions and who else is doing something similar. This will have powerful implications for collective efficacy at local, national and international levels. As we struggle to make everyday choices that also benefit the public or our children, we will need new kinds of feedback. New web tools are showing the power of reciprocity (I will if you will) with sites like Pledge Bank. I'm interested in seeing this power unleashed on solutions for climate change.
As experiments like wikipedia and distributed computing turn out useful sources of collective intelligence, more experiments are underway. Nature recently reported their efforts to create a massive wiki for professional scientists, an up-to-the-minute source for the latest science. We need to pool knowledge from many sources so that we can make the tough political and social choices that are urgently required. But even more than information.
The lessons from the GM debates, when people deeply mistrusted government and expert information, should be incorporated even further into policy-making. Public engagement is used not only to accept or reject pre-determined courses of action, but as a force for better solutions.
We are re-thinking what "innovation" means in light of international competitiveness and global change. In the past, innovation policy has focused heavily on supply side initiatives, such as how much R&D is funded and what science needs to be produced. The demand side has been neglected, although it is well known that users in a meaningful interaction with producers will create market-leading services and products. Innovative places combine those lead markets with a mobile population who move between academia, industry and services. (See NESTA's The Innovation Gap) The creative industries, growing faster than the rest of the UK economy, are made up of organisations that are less than 5 people.

And now back to the burning question, "what now"? Policy needs to be reconceived for a new kind of citizen and new ways of organising. Citizens may have a voice, but consumers have a megaphone. So how do we amplify citizen's choices to match the cacophony of their market preferences? How can conceiving of citizens as active producers be connected to changing our energy infrastructures? How do we harness individual action for public value?

There is no techno-fix, as James Lovelock would have us believe, in solutions like nuclear. We should balance the current focus on supply side policies with a renewed effort to support demand side innovation. Huge potential lies in combining the many options expert scientists and technologists have been developing over many years with the mass social consensus that awareness is bringing about. Though people do not want to change their own behaviour if their neighbour does not, it is clear that collective solutions can be realised when realistic options are generated by passionate individuals or organisations.

We need to give citizens the megaphone.