WATCH: Innovate UK's executive director for net zero Mike Biddle's keynote speech at the Net Zero Festival 2023
Net zero is a race against time, not against each other, and business as usual means failure.
For Mike Biddle, executive director for net zero at Innovate UK, that means we must change the way we do things, with innovation and urgency, because the clock is ticking.
The UK's innovation agency has an ambition to ensure the UK prospers from being the fastest transitioning economy to net zero, and between 2015 and 2020 nearly 6,000 companies received net zero-related grants from Innovate UK worth £1.9bn, which it says has catalysed £4.8bn of private investment and created 67,000 new jobs.
At the recent Net Zero Festival 2023, Biddle provided a deeper overview of Innovate UK's work, and the scale of innovation, investment and scaling up of low carbon technologies needed across all sectors of the economy to accelerate the UK's transition.
His speech and presentation - which as the title suggests is suitably peppered with pop music references - can be watched back in full in the video below.
With thanks to Net Zero Festival 2023's headline sponsors Innovate UK and OVO.
While this year's event may have drawn to a close, the Net Zero Festival will be back in force again in 2024 - so sign up below to stay in the loop on the plans for next year's event.