Our Careers in Sustainability blog series comes to a close with a unique contribution from Errol Grant, Principal Social Value Consultant at Mott MacDonald. Errol explains what climate technology innovation is, and shares his career journey and advice on how to get into the sector.
What is climate technology innovation?
Climate technology is broad. It encompasses areas like renewable energy production (wind, solar, biomass), energy efficiency, energy infrastructure to create demand-side flexibility, and energy storage. It can also include transport, waste, carbon capture, green infrastructure, appliances and more.
Innovation in climate technology is all about finding new solutions or business models and accelerating their development to make climate technology more efficient and cost-effective, and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Whether it is a product or a service, climate technology innovation focuses on developing ideas. It is about bringing solutions from the lab straight to market to tackle climate change.
With green jobs growing at four times the rate of the overall UK employment market, the opportunity is tremendous.
My journey
My journey began with a digital transformation company where I specialised within the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) space. I worked with experts in the sustainability field, interfacing with clients on their sustainability plans and developing an understanding of practices in sustainability, such as cataloguing ‘grey IT’. ‘Grey IT’ is a term to describe any IT assets which are in use but unknown to the organisation, and therefore do not have their impact in terms of carbon footprint understood and reported.
I now specialise in social value at Mott MacDonald where I regularly engage with activities associated with fighting climate change and the environmental impact of our work. Understanding the latest climate technology innovations is critical to ensure I can influence our commitment to generate efficient cuts to greenhouse gas emissions or share best practices across the supply chain.
How can you get into climate technology innovation?
Climate technology innovation has a range of career opportunities. It needs people with a range of specialisms and skills. Entrepreneurs, governments, researchers, investors, corporations and civil society all play important roles.
You can get into climate technology innovation through a range of different backgrounds. Some of these are:
- Engineering, which can lead to roles in technology development and manufacturing within a climate technology venture, university spinout or product innovation within a large corporation.
- Science, geography and data analytics, which can contribute to technical and market research needed to develop new innovations, support Research & Development (R&D) and testing of new technologies, as well as analysing trends in sales and performance.
Opportunities within it are vast. Many organisations are working collaboratively, such as Carbon Trust’s collaboration with Mott MacDonald and other companies on the UK government Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP), which is accelerating the development and demonstration of breakthrough solutions across power, industry and the built environment.
My advice
When I graduated, I had no idea my career would take me into the world of climate innovation technology and social value. I got given opportunities to step into the unknown and work in new fields of work. And I am so glad I did! My advice to anyone starting their journey into the world of work is to be open to those unknown opportunities. Be bold, be brave and step outside of your comfort zone. You never know where it might lead!
Thank you, Errol.
You can connect with Errol on LinkedIn here.
Errol talked about the importance of being open to opportunities that will help you develop your skills. To find out how you can do that, visit our Build Experience page.
To learn how to seek and create your own opportunity, check out our Create your own opportunity page.
