Back then any joke, pious advert or £million competition that related to the environment was newsworthy.  Why?  Because the planet was – and still is – on fire and COP 26 was the UK’s time to shine on all things ecological.   

Here we are several Prime Ministers later and there are many more businesses, particularly small independent ones, working hard to find out what ESG means and what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint.

This article was written back in October 2021

As Kermit says, isn’t it all a bit difficult, being green?   

Maybe I’m being greedy, but I think we should be looking at ESG as something that has to make sense economically as well as environmentally. 

We have always talked about economy and ecology as two opposing entities. 

Like the two can’t exist working in combination.   

But that line of thinking is becoming obsolete.   

“As a brand we don’t struggle with recruitment, which in our sector, means we’re doing something right.  One aspect that we know employees see as important, is the work we do to reduce our carbon footprint. This has been making progress step by step, not all at once, because the whole management team has to buy into the plan.  And ultimately, suggestions must make sense for our long-term economic sustainability.  Or the money doesn’t get released.”  

FD, North West UK hospitality chain 

At Groundswell Innovation we feel very strongly that economy and sustainability have to co-exist and work together.  We know full well that if we want organisations to embrace sustainability as a core working principle, we must also demonstrate where the money is.  Otherwise all green plans will be quietly side-lined once the noise of COP 26 dies down.   

But here’s the newsflash. 

Consumption is not going anywhere.

It is changing in nature, but it is not going away.  If you don’t want your employer brand and your company’s products to be as out of date as last year’s spam, you had better get with the programme.   

Listening in to people who are actively engaged in UN sustainable development projects and enterprise around the world, we keep up to date with insight into all aspects of the climate change debate. 

It helps us to see where commercial opportunities are opening up.

We hear what industry leaders think and what expectations consumers have for brands in terms of transparency, deliberate action and sustainable change.   

And to be honest, what they are asking for is not out of line, or rocket science.   

Recent discussions have brought us out at a few simple guidelines for green-ness:  

• Right now, brands [backed up by independent scientists] are more trusted than government or the media.  Let’s keep it that way by avoiding greenwashing.   
• Transparency and positive forward motion are more important than solving everything overnight.  Focus on doing one thing well, then move on to the next.  You’ll take customers and employees with you.   
• ESG is not to an add-on.  It’s a fundamental way of doing things.  Treat it like Wifi not the Christmas party.   
• ESG isn’t just climate change.  Take a look at the UN’s 17 goals to hit by 2030.  Good quality jobs, shared prosperity.  Quality education.  Resilient communities.  Surely there’s something in there that aligns with your company values?   
• Vegan burgers might not always sell like hot cakes, but they send a strong message you’ve noticed the world is changing.  I’m not sure what the ‘vegan burger’ equivalent is for your industry, but think it out.  Send a clear signal that you’re doing something concrete.   
• Scrooge just became your best friend.  Cutting out waste and reducing energy usage is a great way to be green.  AND it delivers immediate economic benefits.   

Creativity can run low when you’re staring at a blank page, trying to think how best to turn sustainability into a revenue opportunity. Luckily for you, we’re really good at helping you with that.

Move over Kermit.  It’s our turn to be green.   

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But as we’re here on Lancashire Day itself, let’s use our brand new devolution deal as a springboard for confirming the county’s identity and communicating it out in an uncharacteristically loud voice.      

In Lancashire, we make things.  

You might have heard of the industrial revolution?

We’ve been making all kinds of textiles for hundreds of years, furniture, lino even.  During the war, manufacture of nuclear fuel was relocated here.  Since then, we’ve generated power and made planes, engines, batteries, a whole heap of low carbon tech and a gazillion different components necessary for these resilient, responsive supply chains to flourish.  All of this has helped to make us the fourth biggest aerospace hub in the world.  

But why is manufacturing such a fundamental part of Lancashire’s DNA?

Because we had power generated from running water, we had coal, we had the right kind of weather.  

No really.  The dampening air is perfect for carding wool and the water is soft, so it’s great for processing cotton fibres.

And if you’re looking for a place to hide a World War II squadron or two, look no further than Lancashire’s pretty regular cloud cover.  Thanks go to Miranda Barker for the reminder of this fact at the recent East Lancs Chamber Supply Chain Conference. 

As strategy gurus would say, we have a ‘harmonized combination of resources and skills that distinguish us from other places’.  

These act as the foundation of Lancashire’s competitiveness.  

I’m paraphrasing, but the point is valid.  

Let’s own the truths of Lancashire that some may advise us to gloss over.  Because like the clouds and rain (which gives us lush landscape as well as a hiding place for air defences) there are opportunities presented by who we really are and what we have here.  

Low carbon tech manufacture is in part centred in our county, because of pollution caused by coal-fuelled factories.      

Lancashire’s recent Independent Economic Review highlighted the fact that 50% of Lancashire’s population live within a 5-mile radius of the M65.  It also highlighted the health inequalities.  As a test bed for Medtech, that makes Lancashire a perfect place to monitor health and evaluate the impact of emerging innovation.  Not only that, but we have the capacity and the capability to feed ourselves back to health, from our own natural resources.  No wonder so many site-specific health projects are happening here.    

And let’s be proud of what we are not.

We aren’t another Manchester and never should be.    

Or another Liverpool, despite our shared shameful slave trade similarities.  

We are a network of beautifully distinct former mill towns.  Burnley and Blackburn football fans can tell you how tribal that makes us.  If any one place gets too big for its boots, the others all volunteer to bring it back down to earth in a hurry.  

This has created the perfect conditions for a thriving hub and spoke network of distinct places, each with their own character, specialisms and context.  With stunning countryside accessible from each one, you’re never far from a reminder of why people love to live here.  

Over the past couple of years we’ve had amazing announcements and new assets added to Lancashire.  AMRC North West.  RedCAT Centre for Alternative Technologies.  Plans for Eden Project North and National Cyber Force.  All of these represent huge investments that link us into chains of industry that span the world.  

Our task as proud Lancastrians on this and every other #LancashireDay then, is to capture the value and amplify the ripple effects of all this richness, in a way that is wholeheartedly Lancastrian – with humour, hard work and hopefully not too much humility.  

The post The competitive advantage of counties – a Lancashire story appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

Making this commitment has been on my list for a few years – since we began working on place-based innovation projects – to make sure our practice is informed by and connected into other initiatives across the country. 

Be more yes.  Be open, optimistic, rigorous, courageous and enabling. 

A succinct way to describe what the organisation and its work are all about.  With a 260-year history of working for the greater good, you might expect to find a culture that was slightly fustier than that, at the heart of the RSA.

Working from the North, we are often told that our project ideas and our business projections lack ambition.  The sums of money we are asking for are not big enough. 

It always makes me feel a little Oliver-esque. 

We absolutely should be asking for more, and bigger and better, for our communities.  But we are perhaps a little too well practiced at making do with less, so that the funds we have stretch as far as they can.  And perhaps the nature of our ambition is different.  I’d rather see companies and organisations scaling deep within Lancashire – building ecosystems that function well and make our county strong – than see them scale up, up and away to other places with more resources.    

One thing that I am really looking forward to as an active part of the RSA, is working with the backing of a really strong network of people who espouse similar values.  With the moral and practical support of national bodies, home-grown levelling-up can be bolder in scope and bigger in impact.     

Take for example, our ongoing collaboration with Lancaster University, Lancaster City Council, Lancashire County Council and Connected Places Catapult to encourage and enable active and sustainable travel between Morecambe and Lancaster.

Gathering partners as we move forward, and building on the human-centred-design work within i-Connect, we have the opportunity to re-green an urban area in a way that will encourage active travel, improve natural habitats and community wellbeing. 

Watch this space for further updates and if you’re part of Lancashire or the RSA yourself, come and help us build something fantastic. 

Jane Dalton, Founding Director of Groundswell Innovation

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The World Economic Forum in their Future of Jobs report for 2023 have a more positive view on AI than they did when we last delved into their research in 2016. Most new technologies are expected to be job creators in the next five years, rather than removing jobs. But we still know that repetitious tasks will go to robots – albeit at a slower rate than first feared.  Tasks that call for empathy, interpersonal skills and creativity will go to humans.  Because people, let’s face it, like dealing with people. And critically, the WEF says that:

“Analytical thinking and creative thinking remain the most important skills for workers in 2023.”

Artisan brands, drawing on ever more creative design, language, and marketing techniques, are impacting all kinds of sectors that have until now, been dominated by big players. 

Industry 4.0 gets us up to speed.  It doesn’t give us the edge.

Digital skill sets, urgently needed in greater supply to bring down the cost of Industry 4.0, have every bit as much to do with creative problem-solving and design as they do with scientific and technological knowledge.  It doesn’t matter how good we get at Industry 4.0 in this country if that is all we have to make us distinctive in a global marketplace.  The same technology is available the world over, to every manufacturing cell from Stuttgart to San Diego.  We can’t be first to market, because other countries are already there with vast economies of scale.  So we need to be better, or different. 

I’m biased.  I’m an arts graduate. 

In a time before tuition fees I was lucky enough to study History of Art, Italian and French so names like Leonardo Da Vinci became pretty familiar.  I didn’t ever need to question what the arts have to do with making things.  Maybe that is what made it so easy to understand the manufacturing environment at Cumbria Crystal.  Without creativity, we churn out obvious answers.  Without design thinking, we create products that reference competitor products more than they do the needs of customers. 

And yet Arts degrees are being squeezed out of many UK universities, because they don’t instantly translate into a specific job, in the way that business studies supposedly should.  If education is going to be all about immediate economic return, let’s convert ourselves into a robot race right now.  Conveyer belt through a work-focused degree, drudge through a career, retire.  Learning as a source of fulfillment, happiness and an end in itself will be effectively eradicated.  As Lord Bragg once put it: “Britain is one of the leading places for study of the arts…it’s not because of some artistic genius that sprouts out of the ground like dragon’s teeth.”

UK Manufacturing’s competitive edge won’t spring forth like dragon’s teeth either.  We need to find and nurture our inherent points of difference.  Why can’t we yet again, be a STEAM-powered nation? 

What can individual manufacturing firms do?

Make use of talent from non-standard backgrounds.  Employ people for their attitude to hard work and their skill sets, not just their experience levels in your sector.

Encourage a wide range of problem-solving techniques within your teams.  This starts with regular conversations between people from different departments, so they can cut across silo working. 

Don’t just focus on cost.  Focus on value.  The value that your products and services can add for clients and end-users.  Not all of that will be derived from technical or scientific excellence. 

To find out more about how we can help you with your innovation challenges, in Lancaster, Lancashire, the North West, and beyond, get in touch.

The post STEAM not STEM. Or we kill UK Manufacturing’s competitive edge. appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

What better celebration of innovation than a space designed to showcase and build creativity.  

Leeds-based Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band headlined on Saturday night.  An amazing event to be part of.  And I mean part of, because the entire audience was along for the wild ride as the ‘listening’ section of the band.  I say this having gorged on Edinburgh Festival this summer – these guys should have been headlining there too. 

We picked a very good year to be kicking off our annual sponsorship of a Jazz Festival – the same weekend a jazz band wins the Mercury Music Prize.  Ezra Collective are the first jazz act ever to receive the award. 

But wasn’t it great to see a proportion of the praise going to Tomorrow’s Warriors as well as the Ezra Collective?  This is the organisation, founded in 1991, that works to encourage the UK’s next generation of jazz musicians through initiatives such as the Young Artist Development Programme. 

TW might need to revise their yearly impact report, once they figure out how to quantify the generational ripple effects of such a major validation. 

Lancashire doesn’t have a branch of Tomorrow’s Warriors, but it does have Lancaster Jazz Festival, which has its own particular talent for enabling connection, inspiration and collaboration among up and coming musical talent working across the North.  

To give you an example, this year’s festival artist in residence has been mentoring musical duo 40,40A over the past few months.  Performing ‘officially’ as part of the festival for the first time this year, 40,40A’s talented performers are about to study Music in Leeds, where they will be listening and gigging in the same places as more established collaborations like Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band. 

The dividing line between education and industry is extremely permeable within Lancaster Jazz Festival’s community.  One of Ferg’s bravura collective hails from Lancaster and another very junior audience member joined the band as an impromptu addition on the night.  Interaction between professional musicians and the next generation of talent is continuous.  I’m not sure I’ve seen this level of passionate and highly connected talent cultivation in any other industry.  Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

The physical performance of Lancaster Jazz Festival is packed away for another year, but the buzz and the fostering of new musical endeavour carries on. 

#talentpipeline

#ecosystem

#creativity

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We do know that many companies consistently get it right.  Take Unilever for example.  They not only innovate new products, but they have innovation ingrained in their systems and processes.  This leads to some pretty impressive results.  In just one example, innovation around product prototyping techniques resulted in year 1 sales for a new cleaning product being 60% higher than first estimated.  This shows that profitable innovation is just as likely to come from ‘how’ you do business as ‘what you sell’.  The best innovation often comes from a different way of looking at what you’ve always done.  And you don’t have to be the size of Unilever to do that. 

Check 1. You and your team have a long list of ideas for fabulous new products and services, but agreeing which ones to take to market is a risky business, so they haven’t quite got off the ground yet. Did you quantify how much value is still sitting on that flip chart? 

Check 2.  You’ve got great product development processes that are regularly updated to take into account supply chain and customer feedback – you just wish they weren’t so cumbersome.  What if the competition managed to cut their time to market? 

Check 3. You operate in a tightly regulated industry, such as financial services, and it can be difficult to differentiate your offerings from the competition.  Such situations often go only one-way, a price war – is that a space that you want to be in?  Spoiler alert – your brand heritage is a great way to avoid that particular doom spiral. 

Check 4.  You are lucky to have a base of very loyal customers that like your traditional products, but your business needs to grow, and things may have to change.  Have you worked out how to keep everyone happy yet – especially the bottom line?

Check 5.  You’ve successfully launched your brilliant new product, your customers love it.  Have you spent time on any poor performing products lately to see how they could be turned around? 

When we have worked with clients in the past, they have generally recognised themselves in at least one of the above scenarios.  At Groundswell Innovation, we have decades of experience of seeking out the less-obvious, and we know the best hiding spots to find the secrets of your continued success. 

You may not be surprised to hear that we work a little differently to many other consultancies.  We like to deliver value from the word go.  So instead of generating lengthy proposals for you to wade through, we’ll go right ahead with a workshop with key members of the team to identify the opportunities and co-create the best solution. One of the things our customers value about us most is our pragmatic approach;  and delivering co-designed solutions that actually work for their business – right now.  

If you would like see if a co-creation workshop could help you do things differently, innovate and grow your business, please talk to us. We work with businesses in Lancaster, Lancashire, the North West and beyond.

The post 5 quick checks to optimise innovation appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.

This is the third Groundswell Innovation profile of women leading businesses in the Northwest who are creating change, generating social inclusion, and truly demonstrating inclusive innovation.

Amy Kohl is the founder of KOHR, a sustainable and ethical fashion house specialising in gender-neutral elevated basics. She is also a freelance graphic designer: a testament to her creativity and versatility. Amy has been nominated for the Northern Power Women Awards 2023 Future List – a reflection of her hard work driving change in the fashion industry.

After achieving a BA in Fashion Design, Amy began life in the corporate world.

“I worked for a brand that didn’t align with my ethos and values at all which made me fall out of love with the fashion industry. Until I realised there was a place for me in the industry to make a difference.”

Her journey really accelerated when she left her job and started a Masters in Fashion, Business and Marketing. This is where KOHR was born.

Her skills and entrepreneurial mindset stem from her broad range of experience working in the fashion industry, from sportswear to crafts, third-sector organisations and the public sector.

KOHR reflects Amy’s strong values on sustainability. She has created a brand that is not only environmentally friendly but also socially responsible, following her vision of creating a more transparent and ethical fashion industry.

Amy describes KOHR as “Figuring out how we can protect our planet and garments workers, whilst creating garments people want to wear”

Her vision is to see KOHR ‘’being on the high street with an in-house factory where consumers can see their clothes being made.’’ We think that would be pretty cool.

Gender bias in business – the challenges faced being a female founder

Creating a business can be rigorous and challenging. Creating a business in a world that isn’t set up for female entrepreneurs? Well, that’s a different story.

Amy’s belief in the importance of supporting women in business is evident in her own experience as a female entrepreneur.

“The hours, alpha-driven atmosphere and pay aren’t an environment where women thrive, and so they have to start up on their own. Women tend to start up on their own because they want a meaningful job, they want flexibility in their hours, they are undervalued, or they don’t fit within one job role.”

“As a woman, I’m a multi-tasker, passionately creative and driven by values, which get severely overlooked in both the corporate and business world. Most things get measured by numbers, metrics, data and logic. Women don’t tend to be wired by logic, I’m certainly not.

Interestingly, her business friends are either women founders or co-founders.

“You can look at that negatively or positively. Positively because these women believe in themselves enough to set up on their own, they have the talent, drive and passion to be successful business owners. Or you can counter it negatively and say the corporate world isn’t built for women.”

Amy has her own advice for female business owners: “Create a vision board, dream big, and confidently go in the direction of their dreams.’’

She emphasises the importance of finding business friends that will support you, believe in you, and hold you accountable.

At Groundswell Innovation, we understand the value of innovation that combines intelligence, creativity, and empathy. Amy certainly epitomises all of these.

Find out more about Amy and KOHR at  – https://www.kohrfashion.com

Post by Joe Evans, Groundswell Innovation intern

Written by Joe Evans, intern at Groundswell Innovation

The post Amy Kohl – entrepreneur, founder and Northern Power Woman! appeared first on Groundswell Innovation.