AS world leaders gathered at COP26 in Glasgow, a group of Cumbrian businesses got together to showcase new ideas, products and services they’ve devised in a bid to make the region greener.

Eight businesses from Cumbria’s food and drink sector joined forces at the beginning of summer to be part of Lancaster University Management School’s (LUMS) Innovation Catalyst pilot– a brand-new concept designed by LUMS to address challenges posed by the Net Zero Carbon agenda.

Unlike anything the Management School has run before, the Innovation Catalyst - which is being run as part of Eco-I North West, a £14m research and development project for North West businesses - is designed to create the space, freedom and environment for organisations to connect with one another and generate effective and sustainable solutions to the big issues that affect their organisations, region and environment.

Together they identified priority areas to tackle, and collectively created solutions which were shared with some of the county’s leaders in Brathay Hall, Ambleside in a bid to get more organisations involved.

During the event guests including fellow businesses, Cumbria Tourism, local authorities the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership heard from all of the businesses about the projects which are addressing the net zero agenda.

The Innovation Catalyst group also identified food packaging and land management as a big problem for sustainable business in Cumbria. Together the group are set to trial new food packaging later this month and, one of the businesses involved, Lake District Farmers, is also implementing a new methodology on a selection of farms within their supply chain, designed to stop ploughing which will in turn reduce carbon.

Dan Austin, Managing Director of Lake District Farmers, explains: “The Innovation Catalyst has been the inspiration behind a huge amount of positive change within our business, and will in turn will be the catalyst for a huge amount of positive change within our supply chain. “Now, with a government grant, further support from Lancaster University soil experts and with the backing of a multi-billion global catering giant, we are in an exciting position and anticipate that some of our farms could be carbon neutral within a 12-18 month period.”

After finding that small businesses are often overwhelmed by the move to sustainability, the Innovation Catalyst group also created a free toolkit for SMEs, guiding them through each step towards a Carbon-free business model. This is available from Cumbria Action for Sustainability and is already being used by others across the country.

The Innovation Catalyst will continue in the New Year for the next cohort – this time from the food and drink sector in Lancashire.