Moving Boldly Toward Transformative Innovation

When we have received our nomination for the Public value Award 2024, I spent a lot of time reflecting about the impact innovation has had on the trajectory of human life.

117 billion humans are estimated to have ever lived over the course of 192,000 years, 109 billion have lived and died. It is these 109 billion people we have to thank for the civilisation that we live in, who laid the foundation for our modern societies.

The advances that have changed the trajectory of human life didn’t came from safe bets, or the pursuit of incremental improvements. They have been bold, transformational pursuits with the potential to dramatically alter the way we live.

The First Industrial Revolution transformed society through mechanisation and the use of steam power, leading to mass coal burning. The Second Industrial Revolution, often referred to as the Technological Revolution, introduced electricity, steel production, and the internal combustion engine.

The Industrial Revolutions are called a revolution for a reason - it advanced society in a number of crucial ways and resulted in rapid economic growth. By shifting to a manufacturing-based economy, the Industrial Revolution created huge advancements in terms of increased production and efficiencies, it also advanced transportation systems and led to improvements in working and living conditions.

The Greatest Tragedy of the Commons

However, these developments came with severe consequences. The Industrial Revolution's environmental impact is profound, marking the start of our intensive use of fossil fuels (the driving force behind climate change). Each phase of industrialisation added to the cumulative environmental strain, causing significant increases in air pollution, deforestation, and greenhouse gas emissions - the greatest tragedy of the commons, one humankind still has to escape from.

Pursuing Positive Impact: Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Startups

In a world where the challenges of inequality, climate change, and social injustice continue to grow - the multiplication of social and environmental crises, social entrepreneurs are stepping us as key players in addressing these pressing issues. Change-makers focused not just on generating profits, but on creating positive societal impact. Blending business acumen with a commitment to social and environmental causes, they identify gaps, they identify novel and promising solutions that are not being pursued by more conventional players, and commit their time, energy and money to refine this solution and scale their impact.

I am optimistic about what people are capable of in a crisis, and in the long run, I wouldn’t bet against us. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of a long run. We have already achieved many zero-carbon breakthroughs. We need to achieve more, faster, to avoid a climate disaster.

Pursuing Transformational Innovation

As mentioned above, we have to focus our efforts on the pursuit of transformational innovation, advances that will challenge established technological paradigms and business models and will dramatically reduce resource extraction and emissions. That said, strategy only gets us so far. The key to our innovator’s ability to deliver transformative innovation will be having the courage and commitment to move past setbacks and failures, and to usher in new waves of GreenTech innovation. To do that, we have to think differently about not just the solutions we pursue, but also how we develop them:

• Avoiding a climate disaster will be the hardest challenge people have ever faced, the biggest transformation since the industrial revolution - another industrial revolution.
• The only way to do it is to innovate aggressively in GreenTech solutions and to invest heavily in their deployment. A new industrial revolution powered by millions of sustainable innovations is essential.
• We have to chase the toughest problems where innovation has been scarce. At MWS, we are taking on the most complex and difficult waste streams to turn them into the most critical secondary raw materials, where advances in molecular recycling have the potential to unlock the amount of secondary raw materials required for circular economies.
• Rethinking what recycling looks like and exploring cutting-edge fields that could redefine recycling. Moving from sorting waste to sorting molecules.
• Challenging ourselves to innovate differently, so we can be more efficient, support more use cases, reach more communities and industries and better engage the vast ecosystem.

Building Impact Unicorns

When properly harnessed, impact Unicorns can provide the necessary horsepower to drive Europe’s and the world’s sustainable development revolution, since they take a startup’s traditional strengths, such as an ability to act fast, innovate and disrupt, and focus them on the major social and environmental problems to drive widespread, positive change - potentially on the scale of billions of lives changed, billions of dollars in economic impact generated or societal costs saved.

What makes impact unicorns unique is that they are focused on, and they are designing for, making a difference not only in their immediate communities but on a global scale. They use innovative approaches that often work across borders, value-chains and industries to drive progress. They are using innovative and far-reaching collaborative models. They are using innovative business models to tackle social and environmental challenges, often work at the intersection of sectors. These ventures are thinking radically about a large addressable market.

A few common capabilities are noticeable:

• Clarity on the endgame: Though these ventures are tackling big, complex problems, they know that scaling their organisation is different from scaling their impact. So rather than focusing only on fundraising to achieve organisational growth, they are focused as well on strategies - like government adoption, collaborations, strategic partnerships, public-private partnerships or open-source models - that help them to scale their impact.
• Rigorous research and evidence of impact underpin the delivery model: Impact startups evolve, pivot and change course based on feedback from clients, partners, investors and other stakeholders. Through listening to their end-users and collecting data and evidence, they have iterated on their models to scale impact.
• They have exceptional leadership: Impact unicorn leaders have tremendous grit and persistence, with a remarkable capacity to listen with humility. Their commitment to the issues they are solving and their desire to build networks and collaborations around them contribute to their ability to engage others about their mission and goal to achieve massive impact.

As you have to design for impact at scale, you have to aim for it and be strategic about.

Taking on the World's Biggest Problems

Social entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to drive public value creation by addressing society’s most pressing issues. Through innovative business models and a clear focus on solving social and environmental challenges, they generate value across economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions.

By centering their efforts on public value, social entrepreneurs are proving that businesses can be a force for good - and that solving societal problems can go hand-in-hand with sustainable, long-term success.

Impact unicorns can take on the world’s biggest problems, if they have the right set of resources, powering the right endgame. As the world grapples with unprecedented global challenges, the role of social entrepreneurs is becoming ever more critical. They are not just business leaders; they are architects of a better future, designing solutions that uplift communities, protect the planet, and create a more equitable society.

As a GreenTech startup we can be part of an incredible story about the evolution of humanity, we can and we have to work relentlessly to overcome the obstacles that could prevent us from continuing to bend the curve of environmental degradation and resource scarcity.

Being part of those 7% of all humans who have ever lived and are alive today, what will be your impact on the trajectory of human life?