Inside the Minds of Sustainability Entrepreneurs

Across industries and continents, sustainability has moved from optional virtue signaling to an urgent business imperative. Yet as companies chase green credentials, the path from innovation to real-world impact is rarely straightforward. Five leaders, each tackling environmental challenges from cocoa farms in Colombia to the skies above, from skincare jars in the UK to off-grid Himalayan schools, reveal what it truly takes to transform ideas into systems, impact, and jobs—and the barriers that still hinder meaningful change.

Turning Waste into Value
In the sun-baked cocoa fields of Colombia, the majority of the fruit -the pods, pulp, and husks – is discarded. For many, this is a byproduct of inefficiency. For María Paula Rodríguez, Senior Business Innovation Manager at Luker Chocolate, a Colombian B Corp chocolate manufacturer, it is an opportunity. “Turning a significant industry waste issue  – the 81.7% of the cocoa pod that is usually wasted – into economic and environmental value,” she says, is the core of her work.

At Luker, a B Corp producing cocoa for some of the world’s leading chocolate brands, Rodríguez has overseen the transformation of this waste into ingredients for the food and beverage sector. “This came from sustained R&D, pilot testing at one of our own farms, and working with partners beyond the chocolate sector – and it’s now in the market thanks to the creativity of a number of clients.”

Her approach embodies a principle that resonates across sectors: sustainability cannot be an afterthought. “Sustainability is something you always design into the system, not something you add on later,” she asserts. Beyond the chocolate factory, her ambition is systemic: “A real shift would be farmers benefiting from more of what they grow, so that cocoa remains a viable livelihood despite mounting climate and economic pressure.” By finding ways to use the whole cocoa fruit, Rodríguez is helping create models where economic and environmental benefits are more evenly shared, while consumers gain the ability to choose products reflecting sustainable practices, not just taste.

Aviation’s Green Horizon
From the fields of Colombia to the high skies, Andrew Symes, CEO of OXCCU, a University of Oxford spin-out developing scalable sustainable aviation fuel, is tackling a different challenge: the carbon footprint of aviation. “The most meaningful impact has been taking years of academic research and progressing it into a technology that can be tested and validated beyond the lab,” he explains. OXCCU, a University of Oxford spin-out, is developing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from waste carbon. The OX1 demonstration plant has already generated operating data for the larger OX2 facility, set to produce fuel for further testing in 2026.

Symes emphasizes that aviation decarbonisation depends on scalable, credible solutions. “Each stage of development is grounded in evidence and can support the next step towards commercial deployment,” he says. Transparency, he notes, is key: “Being open about both progress and remaining challenges builds trust, and that trust allows partners, investors and policymakers to get behind the technology and move it forward.”

His vision for the next decade is ambitious: “I would like to see sustainable aviation fuel treated as essential infrastructure rather than a constrained alternative.” He welcomes regulatory expansion into pathways such as power-to-liquids and gasification, which promise greater resource availability. For Symes, the lesson is clear: systemic, evidence-driven innovation, coupled with long-term regulatory support, is what separates fleeting hype from transformative impact.

Rethinking Beauty: Education and Sustainability in Skincare
While Symes focuses on the skies, Julie Macken is revolutionising what people put on their faces. In an industry dominated by over-formulation and marketing hype, Macken, founder of Neve’s Bees, a natural skincare brand, advocates for simplicity and education. “Most skincare products are around 80% water, plus processing chemicals used to keep that water stable. Water isn’t a moisturiser -it evaporates – and many of the added emulsifiers, preservatives and stabilisers can actually disrupt the skin barrier,” she says. Her innovation lies in concentrated, waterless formulations that treat skin as a living organ. “The most meaningful impact of my work has been educating people about waterless skincare and redefining what healthy skin really is,” Macken explains. By promoting barrier health and simpler routines, she reduces both environmental waste and unrealistic beauty pressures.

Everything she does starts with education: “If people understand why something works -and why it matters – they make better choices without needing to be persuaded.” Over the next decade, she hopes the industry will mirror the scrutiny applied to ultra-processed food, moving away from over-formulation, unrealistic beauty standards, and misleading marketing toward skin literacy and thoughtful product design. For Macken, sustainable entrepreneurship is inseparable from consumer empowerment.

Heating Homes with Waste Heat: The Long Game for Net Zero
Back on the ground, Simon Kerr, Head of Heat Networks at EnergiRaven, an energy management company and platform focused on helping organisations monitor, analyse, and optimise energy use, highlights systemic failures in the UK’s approach to decarbonising buildings. “Failing to connect that heat to homes and communities is a missed opportunity,” he warns. The UK’s Future Homes Standard, once a potential turning point for green housing, has been diluted, and even small measures like mandated batteries risk rollback.

Heating buildings remains the UK’s largest single source of carbon emissions, yet massive investments in data centres and industry could provide abundant usable waste heat. Kerr argues for treating heat as core infrastructure: “A Net Zero built environment would look like homes and neighbourhoods heated by clean, locally sourced heat…Gas boilers would increasingly disappear, replaced by Heat Interface Units connected to publicly owned heat networks.”

Crucially, financing must be patient and long-term. “Small, fragmented projects struggle to attract serious capital, whereas large, coordinated schemes can unlock institutional investment and deliver impact at pace,” Kerr explains. For him, the challenge is less technological than systemic: aligning finance, regulation, and planning to ensure that climate-positive projects are investable and scalable.

Power to the People
Nick Spicer, CEO of Your Eco, a renewable energy company, extends this focus on systemic solutions into humanitarian terrain. In the Himalayas, he reconnected a school cut off after an earthquake; in the Caribbean, he supported an off-grid media centre. “The most meaningful impact has been using clean infrastructure to restore capability and dignity where energy access is the difference between opportunity and isolation,” he reflects.

For Spicer, sustainability scales only when treated as core infrastructure. “The players I respect most in this space are converging on the same playbook: electrify what you can, generate clean power on-site where it reduces risk and cost, and instrument everything so performance is visible and financeable.” His vision extends beyond individual projects: smarter grids, integrated design, and robust delivery frameworks could generate thousands of skilled green jobs while reducing global emissions.

A Pattern Emerges: Systems, Patience, and Scale
Across these diverse sectors, a pattern emerges. Innovation alone is insufficient. Real change demands:

• Integration: sustainability must be designed into systems, whether a chocolate supply chain, an aviation fuel process, or a heating network.
  
• Evidence and Transparency: Symes’ SAF plant and Rodríguez’s cocoa upcycling are grounded in pilot data and R&D, building credibility that attracts investment.
  
• Patient Capital: Kerr’s heat networks and Spicer’s renewable projects highlight the need for long-term financing rather than short-term gains.
  
• Education and Trust: Macken’s waterless skincare demonstrates that consumers and communities can be allies, not passive recipients, if equipped with understanding.
  

Yet obstacles persist. Policy inconsistency, regulatory fragmentation, short-term finance, and cultural inertia continue to slow adoption. Rodríguez notes that for cocoa farmers, climate and economic pressures threaten livelihoods; Kerr warns of diluted home-building standards; Spicer stresses that infrastructure projects fail without disciplined delivery and alignment. Even with clear solutions, translating ambition into action remains a struggle.

For these entrepreneurs, sustainability is not a marketing slogan or a CSR checkbox – it is a framework for reshaping value, infrastructure, and opportunity. Across sectors – from upcycling cocoa waste to producing sustainable aviation fuel, from redesigning skincare to building resilient energy systems – the lesson is consistent: meaningful environmental change demands systems thinking, long-term commitment, and disciplined execution. In their hands, sustainability becomes more than a technical or commercial challenge; it is a blueprint for resilient economies, empowered communities, and a planet better equipped to face the decades ahead.