Sustainable Innovation Starts Here: Looking Back on the Creative Catalyst Challenge Fund Recipients

We re-use the waste heat from our  compute network to provide free hot water to people who need it. 

Heata began as an innovation project with British Gas; how could we help people living in fuel poverty? At the time there was a lot of coverage of Bitcoin mining and the vast quantities of energy miners were using, and the vast quantities of waste heat they were generating.

We wondered if we could utilise that waste heat to help, so we put a miner in a barrel of mineral oil and connected it up to a radiator to demonstrate the idea. 

But radiators are only used for part of the year. 

We re-engineered the system to work with domestic hot water cylinders where demand is fairly constant all year round, and switched from Bitcoin mining to general compute so it could support the decarbonisation of a rapidly growing industry. 

“The support from Creative UK has enabled us to apply our heat re-use technology to the VFX industry and build important new cross-industry connections. Working with Dupe VFX and Kensa, the grant will enable a direct reduction in carbon emissions and genuine social impact, as well as providing a beacon for the wider decarbonisation of the post production industry.” 

Charlie Beharrell – Commercial Director 

Intrapology is a new project in interactive online theatre and performance.

Our custom-made web app allows the audience to influence what the performers say and do.

We tell stories that neuroqueer science fiction, and we share our software with other artists telling stories of their own.

 

“Digital arts play a vital role in creating and modifying our relationships with technology. Communities of practice in the arts can help steer a cultural shift away from wasteful and extractive tech industry practices, and towards something like permacomputing. I’m therefore absolutely thrilled to get the Challenge fund grant, which will allow us to continue building relationships with artists spanning the worlds of games and theatre, as we further develop our open-source software for interactive online live performances.” 

 

Jeco’s mission is to reduce the gaming industry’s carbon footprint by monitoring energy use and carbon output per game for players, and by utilising anonymised data to empower developers with an innovative Green Software Development Kit. Our SDK will provide ease of access to performance data and optimisation tools, democratising optimisation development for game and software developers. 

Our ultimate goal is to revolutionise the software industry: from gaming to expanding across all platform holders, cloud, enterprise and AI sectors; with our software at the forefront of sustainable software development practices, with millions of carbon saved each year due to greener-software.  

Quote from Emily: 

” We’re so thrilled to receive grant funding from Creative UK. This funding will enable us to accelerate our mission of reducing the gaming industry’s carbon footprint, with Creative UK’s support we’ll empower game developers of all scale and resources with automated tools to increase performance and optimisation for their games. This funding is a crucial step toward realising our vision of a greener, more sustainable future for all technology sectors: Creative UK will be instrumental in our journey to democratise access to sustainable software practices, helping us reach our core goal of transforming the software industry to reduce the huge carbon impact across gaming and beyond” 

Emily Bailey – Co-Founder 

“We are incredibly grateful to Creative England for the fantastic Challenge Fund grant! This generous support will allow LaundRe to continue our journey towards delivering circularity right here in the UK. With this funding, we will collaborate with UK textile recyclers and industry partners to bring our ReBorn process to life, transforming discarded jeans into ‘as new’ garments. Our pilot, which we proudly showcased to the denim industry at Kingpins in Amsterdam in April 2024, generated a lot of excitement and interest. Most importantly, this award brings us closer to our vision of delivering a sustainable, denim refinishing solution in the UK. Thank you, Creative Enterprise, for believing in our mission and supporting our ambition to deliver a new groundbreaking circular solution.” 

Salli Deighton, Founder of LaundRE

“I am thrilled to have been awarded funding by Creative UK.  This is the catalyst that is needed in order to deepen our understanding of emotional influences behind decision-making in the home.  The project will see the emergence of more expansive conversations with clients at a point where we can have most impact on reducing carbon, before project inception. To have the weighty support of Creative UK behind this project gives this new approach an incredible boost at a pivotal and important moment for the climate and for our industry.”

Tam Landells – Architect

 Ratliff/Landells

Studio Sam Causer is an RIBA-accredited conservation architecture practice specialising in researching and adapting complex, sensitive, and historic buildings and environments. Our work combines an interest in social behaviour with conservation philosophy, believing that architecture can both record and shape daily human interaction and broader political systems. We think architecture and architects should support the public good. Our team and collaborators are deeply invested in sustainable resource management, food politics, and urbanism. 

We are fortunate to be partnering with Counterculture Creative , a multi-disciplinary practice with extensive expertise in creative, strategic and business modelling within the creative industries and cultural sector. 

Our ambition is to unlock the industrial-scale composting of food waste via a natural phenomenon. The Creative Catalyst Challenge grant will allow us to produce a Lean StartUp Package, which will strengthen previous self-directed work and act as a crucial stepping stone toward securing prototyping funding for the production of biologically safe compost from food waste. This will ensure chemical and physical quality improvements for enhancing soil health, crop production, and contributing to major carbon sequestration. 
We are excited by the grant’s focus on decarbonising the creative industries, and we will be targeting arts and creative sector hospitality businesses, recognising the significant role these businesses play in leading sustainable practices.