Why We Need to Tackle Corporate Inertia to Fight Climate Change: A Q&A With Greentech Global

As individuals, we can take steps within our circle to progress a climate-first agenda. But change won’t happen without engaging the larger business community and its leaders. With companies being responsible for the majority of carbon emissions, it’s crucial they take immediate action to reduce their carbon footprint. Yet most companies don’t have plans to deliver net zero.

Step forward Greentech Global, an investor in companies that have innovative solutions for a low-carbon future. It’s not just about providing capital, but arming these businesses with the tools they need to succeed and then introducing them to a wider corporate community as potential clients.  

GridDuck spoke to Andy Taylor, Greentech’s Commercial Director, about why he is relentless in his vision to fight climate change and why we need to move faster. 

Andy Taylor, Commercial Director at Greentech

What is your role at Greentech and how long have you been with the company? 

I perform the role of commercial director, which is very wide-ranging. It includes global business development for our portfolio of companies working on net zero innovations, and providing significant business advice to our clients. This covers everything from market-entry strategy, capital-raising, and general business operations and administration. I've been with Greentech for over four years, after spending more than 25 years in a corporate career with global multinational companies.

Greentech is involved in several different projects and solutions. What’s your mission? 

As background, we are ‘hyperactive impact investors’ in innovative sustainability technology. 

What this means is that we actively support the growth of our portfolio solutions by getting them ‘market-ready’ first, then marketing them to our network of multinational Fortune 500 companies. Ultimately, our mission is to make the world better by promoting and securing business for our portfolio innovations that are delivering net zero. 

In your experience, what’s one of the biggest obstacles to transitioning to a lower-carbon future? 

Simple. It's corporate inertia, which is resistant to change. Transforming a company to net zero requires radical change to existing business practices in many instances. We have developed two major solutions to this. 

Firstly, our thought leadership advocacy is that every company worldwide should employ a 'Head of Net Zero DELIVERY', drawn from experienced C-suite execs with operational and commercial experience. This way they can assess and deliver business-case-aligned net zero outcomes.

Secondly, in partnership with Companies for Net Zero, we’ve created a net zero insights and education smartphone app: the ‘CNZ Eco-Forum’ App. This is designed to help every employee in every company become a net zero ambassador, to actively support their company on its net zero mission. (Short profile here: Intro to CNZ App.)

What do businesses in your network struggle with and how do you solve some of these problems? 

For our companies looking to scale up, their biggest challenge almost every time is making their business 100% attractive to corporate clients – which means not only having fully proven technology, but also being fully ‘corporate’ ready. This includes well-developed pricing, payback analysis, acceptable contracts with appropriate warranties and indemnities, as well as a deep understanding of the implementation and the operational life-cycling of their technology. All from the lens of a company evaluating their offering.

They also need to be suitably market-ready with a corporate-aligned website, showcasing their tech, easy UX, client credentials, user cases and testimonials. When selling into the global corporate market, the company needs to present itself like Mercedes-Benz, a brand renowned for its engineering and quality. We support our portfolio companies to do this with what we call the Greentech-Growth-Model.

How are you and GridDuck working together? 

We are very pleased to have GridDuck in our portfolio as they sit at the front end of our ‘net zero cycle’, a way of measuring, planning, engaging, and delivering. We use these steps to decarbonise the commercial real estate of the clients we target. GridDuck fits in nicely with these plans because its highly granular monitoring system can be deployed across many commercial sites and provides data to in near-real time, allowing its customers control over their energy consumption and waste. Here’s where GridDuck fits into Greentech’s unique net zero building portfolio.

Selling energy as a service is still in its infancy. Is this something you’ve been able to do yet or is it an ambition? 

This is something that we are actually at the vanguard of delivering into the UK market. We have secured or are in advanced discussions with a number of institutional funds that have collectively over £1 billion available to provide ‘energy as a service’ to large-scale commercial real estate owners. A big focus here is what we're delivering with our Eqonic nanotech battery client, a technology that is delivering an innovative battery solution for the built environment.  

Greentech’s ‘Net Zero Cycle’ Approach

Do you believe we are doing enough to accelerate the transition to net zero? What do you think is still needed? 

We are seriously very far from transitioning to net zero, which is evidenced by a recent BCG [Boston Consulting Group] report. It found that only one in five large companies has a plan to actually deliver net zero anytime soon. This goes back to my point that companies need a dedicated ‘Head of Net Zero Delivery’ to oversee and coordinate actual net zero delivery across all their organisational divisions and also into their supply chains.

It’s our view that companies now are facing overwhelming market-driven climate forces. Firstly, younger consumers only want to buy from net zero companies. In the case of Gen Z and millennials, the figure is over 73%. Secondly, companies are struggling to attract and retain staff if they are not sufficiently net zero. Thirdly, they are facing significant new government legislation focusing on net zero. Finally, investors are putting huge pressure on listed companies, with those businesses delivering net zero able to access much lower-cost green bond finance.

 Our view is that companies embracing net zero, like Patagonia did recently, have the opportunity to thrive in the face of these climate challenges. Those that don't face existential risk and may not survive past 2030, if not much sooner.

There are those who are saying that the energy crisis will accelerate the uptake of renewables. Do you believe this is true? 

Unquestionably. With UK energy costs facing hyperinflation, much of the UK industrial, commercial and retail market will arguably face bankruptcy without immediate renewable energy alternatives being deployed. This is why we are so active now trying to bring completely integrated decarbonising solutions to this market.

COP27 has been criticised for being a platform for greenwashing. Do you believe these summits have a useful function or are they simply a chance for governments to make hollow promises? 

Frankly, the COPS are extremely helpful for keeping the climate crisis well in the public domain and ultimately forcing governments and companies to start to take action in the face of overwhelming public pressure. There is admittedly the temptation for governments and companies to ‘greenwash’ about what their future plans are.  

Everything we are about is lobbying companies to create ‘SMART’ [Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-driven] goals for achieving net zero and zero waste. The opportunities to reduce scope one, two and three carbon emissions and waste are now real and tangible. We need everyone to set specific goals on a timeframe for achieving net zero by 2030. Then we can hold everyone accountable against this.

What makes you hopeful for the future?

There are some truly incredible and exciting new technologies and innovations coming to market that can deliver net zero and zero waste immediately. These all need the right investor support up front, and then for the global corporate market to embrace these innovations. We therefore have every reason to be optimistic about the future, if we can just get past all this immediate inertia.

 For the sake of my two boys, 15 and 11, I'm working seven days a week consistently to make sure they have a viable future. I'm just hoping all the other senior executives in the world, who approve of making changes for the better in their companies, can be as equally committed to making the world a better place for our future generations.

Andy Taylor is the co-founder and commercial director of Greentech Global, who are working towards an accelerated net zero future by helping scale-ups and established businesses to bring their innovative environmental technologies and solutions to the global market. 

GridDuck’s intelligent monitoring system helps other businesses reduce their carbon emissions and their utility bills. Find out more about working with us.