Supporting green innovation and practical action

Last Updated: Sep 8, 2023 @ 7:22 am

To tackle the Climate & Ecological Emergency we need every green tool in our tool box – plus a whole load of new ones.  We need to fundamentally change the way we do business, moving from a consume and dispose society to a circular economy where impact on the environment and society is weighed equally against profit making. Supporting innovative start-up businesses is a fundamental part of the urgent action we need to tackle the climate & environmental emergency.

In an article in the Times newspaper (April 2023) Founders Forum: 96% of the most active angel investors are men (thetimes.co.uk), Julia Davies was one of only 4 women in a list of the 100 most active angel investors in the UK. Julia invests to accelerate potential practical and imminent solutions to the jigsaw puzzle of problems facing stable diverse life on earth. We call these environmental problems – but in truth they are businesses, practices, products and systems that are killing human and non-human life now or will kill life soon, through destroying the conditions needed for diverse life to thrive.
So diesel buses, single use PPE, single use packaging and takeaway containers, fast fashion, intensive meat and dairy, fossil fuels, air travel, harmful chemical based cleaning products, single use plastic period products …
There are a lot of pieces in this jigsaw puzzle.
Julia invests to help replace the pieces in that destructive jigsaw puzzle, with solutions that reduce harm to life on Earth.
Here’s a few of the innovators that Julia has invested in:


Emergency Action

Reuse & refill

Turning down the tap on new

The Cirkel

The Cirkel is a new womenswear resale platform using a ‘multi-cycle’ circular model. You can shop for great quality clothing, enjoy wearing it, and then when you feel like a change, provided its still in great condition, return it for a guaranteed price, to be bought and enjoyed by someone new.

Library of Things

Library of Things helps you save money and reduce waste by affordably renting out useful things like drills, sound systems and sewing machines from local spaces. You can also learn skills like DIY and repair.

Used & Loved

Used & Loved is a website which collates secondhand and borrow options into one place – connecting buyers and sellers in a fragmented market.

By giving shoppers all the second-hand sites that they love at their fingertips, they are helping make buying used over new the first choice for us all.

NuWardrobe

NuWardrobe is a community-centred online platform to share clothes with friends and other members.

Thrift

Thrift is an online shop to buy and donate the best second-hand fashion.

Buy Me Once

Buy Me Once only sell long-lasting products encouraging consumers to only buy things once.

Smile Plastics

Smile Plastics is a materials design and manufacturing house making exquisite hand-crafted panels from waste materials.

Bristol Wood Recycling Project

Bristol Wood Recycling Project is a social enterprise working to benefit community and environment by transforming waste into shared assets by providing a competitive wood waste collection service, timber yard for trade and public and a wood workshop.

Thriftify

Thriftify build powerful digital commerce technology which provides a full suite of e-commerce tools to charity shops, allowing them to sell clothing online.

Circular11

They take plastic that doesn't get recycled, and turn it into low-carbon building products that are designed to last a lifetime.

thelittleloop

The No.1 Kids Clothing Club. Why buy when you can borrow and swap whenever you want? The simple sustainable solution for fast growing kids.

Divestment – funding a green transition

Eating sustainably

Square Mile Farms

Square Mile Farms bring vertical farms to homes and workplaces leaving more land for nature to thrive.

Kindling Farm

Kindling Farm works with communities, farmers, health providers, activists and policymakers to challenge and subvert the industrial food system, a system which fuels the crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and economic inequity.

Better Origin

Better Origin converts food waste into animal feed preventing the environmental impact of growing animal food elsewhere.

Aardvark

Aardvark have developed dog and cat food that uses insects as the protein source and is nutritionally balanced, meat-free for minimal environmental impact.

Fishtek Marine

Fishtek Marine develops fishing gear technology that works for fishermen and the environment by reducing by-catch.

Albotherm

Albotherm have developed smart temperature regulation for greenhouses reflecting away unwanted light, preventing overheating and lowering the need for carbon and energy intensive cooling systems.

nibs etc.

nibs etc. are a revolutionary up-cycled snack company fighting food waste by making delicious and nourishing, sweet and savoury snacks from high fibre by-product ingredients that would otherwise be thrown away.

Entocycle

World-leading proprietary technology includes computer vision, automation, and machine learning to enable efficient and scalable insect farming.

Oddbox

Reduce food waste and rescue wonky fruit and veg that's "too big" or "too small". Fruit and veg boxes delivered straight to your door.

Restoring Nature

Green energy

Powervault

Powervault manufacture intelligent, economic and sustainable energy storage systems for homes and businesses.

Piclo

Piclo create technology to make our electricity grids smart, efficient, reliable, flexible and more sustainable.

Naked Energy

Naked Energy has developed the world’s highest energy density solar technology giving Solar heat and power.

Power Roll

Power Roll has reinvented solar to generate energy anywhere and everywhere, using any surface.

Rovco

Rovco supplying services and technology to the Offshore Energy Industry across the globe accelerating a clean energy transition.

Zeigo

Zeigo is revolutionising the way corporates buy energy accelerating the transition to renewables.

Dove Renewables

Dove Renewables owns and operates 2 hydro schemes which generate an average of 820 MWh of clean electricity each year – enough to power the equivalent of approximately 200 homes.

Schools Energy Co-op

Schools Energy Co-op installs community funded solar panel systems on schools across the country.

Dorset Community Energy

Dorset Community Energy has solar installations on schools and community buildings across Dorset.

Bristol Energy Cooperative

Bristol Energy Cooperative has been developing community-owned, green energy generation since 2011. In that time, they’ve installed solar and battery assets, and facilitated community benefit payments.

Solar for Schools

The Solar for Schools Community Benefit Society Ltd (CBS) was set-up in 2016 to enable schools to benefit from solar panels without having to invest themselves, yet share in the expected long-term profits, or surplus income generated by each solar project despite very low government subsidies.

Phycobloom

Phycobloom produce Algae based biofuels that are made out of the pollution from the sky, instead of the oil in the ground.

Ionate

Ionate is a technology company developing next generation Smart Hybrid Transformers revolutionising power flow control to enable the truly future-proof electricity grid.

Thrive Renewables

Thrive Renewables connects people to sustainable energy. They offer accessible opportunities for individuals and businesses to have a meaningful stake in clean energy projects.

Wavepiston

Making wave energy competitive. A non-intrusive, simple, robust and low-cost solution for harvesting the energy of the oceans.

Reducing greenhouse gases

Making stuff more sustainably

Reducing pollution

Community/Wellbeing