To get to a net zero world urgent action is needed now to create and scale up new technologies. The UK has all the ingredients to play a key role. This could bring huge benefits for our planet and for the UK economy and jobs. Prosemino’s new labs at British Land’s Canada Water campus will give a unique boost to climate tech startups.

At the moment, our world is a long way off reaching net zero carbon by 2050. According to the International Energy Agency, half the technologies required are only in early-stage development today.¹ McKinsey estimates that low-emissions spending will have to grow to around $7.0 trillion a year, every year until 2050.² We’re on the cusp of the build out of this new world. It will be the biggest pivot since the industrial revolution.

The UK and London need to play to our expertise and do everything possible to accelerate change. We have fantastic universities and academic institutions. London is a global centre with a rich diversity of talent from around the world and a mix of backgrounds, not only in science and tech, but also in marketing, design and the investment community. Energy transition is within our culture and abilities, including access to low-lying, continental shelves for wind power, historic pumped-storage and the ability to connect to hydroelectricity from Norway.

Catalysing growth

At Prosemino, our mission is to protect the environment and lower the cost of energy by creating and accelerating clean energy technologies. Our expansion to Canada Water will catalyse our growth as this will be the first time we’ve had our own dedicated wet lab, which means that we’ll be able to build a much broader range of sustainable startups that require specialist wet chemistry space.

This will solve one of the biggest challenges facing clean energy ventures in their earliest stages – giving them their own R&D facilities to get going straightaway. Instead of founders wasting valuable time finding the right premises, negotiating a lease and fitting out space with specialist equipment – which all takes months – they’ll be able to launch their scientific and engineering programmes on day one.

The mixture of lab and office space we’ll have at the Paper Yard, Canada Water, is a major plus, along with access to shared facilities, meeting rooms, breakout space and chemical waste facilities. There are no facilities like it within our sector at the moment. It will be a unique boost for early-stage companies.

At these new labs, we’ll support three to four ventures at any one time, not only with space, but also with hands-on scientific, legal and business expertise – from running complicated battery testing equipment and storing materials, to writing risk assessments, launching websites and ordering chemicals. Startups will also be able to access our global network of contacts.

Partnering for growth

British Land is a great partner for growth. Our relationship is very collaborative. We share a vision around sustainability and growth in London and the UK. Our values are very aligned. When we met the British Land team, we understood each other straightaway. What they’re creating at Canada Water is exciting.

Some of our startups could become British Land’s future occupiers. When you look at the sectors that we’re trying to disrupt, they’re among the biggest in the world, including automotive, chemical and energy. Prosemino companies now provide more than 40 jobs across its core team and its startups, including Oort Energy, which was the first company to graduate from the Prosemino programme.

Our first venture at Canada Water will be Redoxion. Co-founded by a world-leading British battery materials scientist, it will make an important battery material of the future, at scale – creating low-cost and sustainable Li-ion cathode active materials (Li-CAMs).  We’re focused on net zero solutions grounded in electrochemistry – encompassing batteries, fuel cells, hydrogen production, carbon capture, utilisation and storage.

Creating an ecosystem

When we founded Prosemino, our vision was to fast-track academic innovations to commercial reality.  Working in this lab-ready space, we’ve identified an important gap that is not filled by academia or industry. This requires a new innovation mindset, looking at emerging problems and optimising materials and processes to solve ‘here and now’ industry challenges.

Prosemino is bridging this gap. Working with early-stage ventures, we’re creating an ecosystem,  growing clean-energy technologies and businesses as efficiently as possible. If we get even a small fraction of this right, the importance of these new technologies will be enormous, for the wealth and wellbeing of people in the UK and across the world.

Prosemino was founded in 2020 by leading innovators in electrochemical energy technologies and advanced materials.
More on Canada Water.

¹ International Energy Agency, ‘Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector’ (2021).
² McKinsey, ‘An affordable, reliable, competitive path to net zero’ (2023)