The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) and the University of the Built Environment (UBE) have secured funding to accelerate the adoption and scaling of sustainable solutions across the UK built environment.
The initiative has been made available through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), part-funded by Innovate UK. A KTP is a collaborative partnership between a business and university to enable transfer of knowledge from academia and its application to identified business challenges.
This KTP forms a key part of UKGBC’s recently launched Scaling Sustainable Solutions for the Built Environment initiative, which aims to bridge the gap between innovative ideas and their widespread implementation.
By combining UBE’s academic expertise in scaling innovation, adoption processes and change management with UKGBC’s convening power and insight into industry practice, the KTP will help the sector overcome systemic barriers to scaling up sustainability technologies and practices.
Working with industry to identify and understand obstacles that prevent promising solutions from moving beyond pilot stage, the KTP will analyse case studies and innovation journeys to draw out transferable lessons for industry. This evidence base will underpin the development of practical recommendations and actions for key stakeholders – including how organisations can better collaborate and partner to drive adoption. In its final phase, the KTP will work hands-on with industry to test and implement these recommendations, ensuring tangible impact for innovators, adopters and the wider market.
This partnership strengthens UKGBC’s capacity to support its members in implementing sustainable solutions at scale, maximising benefits for industry, government and society alike. It also reflects UKGBC’s growing commitment to not only showcase solutions and successes, but actively enable their deployment and accelerating change.
Applications are now open for a mission driven individual to join the team and deliver the 24-month programme of research, design and implementation.
Yetunde Abdul, Director of Industry Transformation, UK Green Building Council, said: “Too many promising sustainable solutions get stuck in the ‘valley of death’ between pilot and mainstream adoption. Through this Knowledge Transfer Partnership, UKGBC and UBE are working to change that. By combining academic rigour with deep industry engagement, we will build the insights, partnerships and practical tools needed to unlock innovation at scale – helping our members and the wider sector accelerate the transition to a more sustainable and resilient built environment.”
Dr Graeme Larsen, Associate Dean (Sustainability), University of the Built Environment, said: “Innovation in the built environment is a complex challenge. Any new solution requires changes to technical systems and stakeholder interests to become mainstream. Through this Knowledge Transfer Partnership with UKGBC, academics from University of the Built Environment will generate evidence-based insights grounded in a rigorous, nuanced understanding of innovation uptake and scaling. These will inform the development of new capabilities enabling UKGBC and its partners to unlock sustainable innovation and foster a virtuous circle of delivery and learning.”
