Green Oil
Rising star Simon Nash
What’s so special? He is growing his business while saving the environment

Having started his business manufacturing environmentally friendly bicycle maintenance products in a garden shed two years ago, Simon Nash is aiming high this year. “We’d like to get the products into 75 per cent of all UK bike shops and at the moment we are in one per cent or 0.5 per cent. There are about 2,000 bike shops in the UK and we are in about 100 to 150, so we’ll try to get into the big chains such as Evans and Halfords,” he says.

Aged 24, Nash developed the green formula while he was at university and since launching the business his products have received widespread praise. This year he will begin using a bottling factory in order to increase production. Green Oil will use 100 per cent recycled plastic bottles, which will further reduce the carbon footprint of the product.

“I have always been interested in the environment and climate change already harms people so to do something about it is important, and for me doing something through business is essential,” says Nash.

Slicethepie.com
Rising star David Courtier-Dutton
What’s so special? His website connects artists with music fans and those looking to invest in the best new music

Slicethepie.com allows artists to upload their tracks that are then reviewed and rated by fans. The artists with the best-rated tracks will then go on to the showcase where anyone can choose the artist in which they’d like to invest their money. To date 26 artists have raised the magic £15,000 of finance to record an album, including one that has just signed to a major record label in the US.

But it is the filtering of unsigned, undiscovered music powered by slicethepie that makes this business one to watch. Courtier-Dutton says the reviews left on the site are used to generate in-depth market insight and analytical reports that can give an accurate prediction of how good a track is, who likes it and where to market it. So far it has partnered with eight international artist websites to sell the analytical product to millions of artists.

“Next year we will open up this database to the record labels, major music publishers and the radio and allow them to fish for the best unsigned content,” says Courtier-Dutton.

 
Oxford Geoengineering
Rising star Tim Kruger
What’s so special? His research group is exploring new ways to tackle climate change

Tim Kruger sees Geoengineering as an “airbag for climate change”. It’s not something you would ever want to use, he says, and if you do have to use it, it is pretty uncomfortable. “But you’re rather glad you have it in the event of a crash.” Kruger says the time to research an airbag is “before you are skidding on the ice”. It’s why he set up research group Oxford Geoengineering last September to investigate a whole range of scientific solutions to the problem of excess atmospheric carbon.

Oxford Geoengineering will provide an objective framework for comparing the viability of solar radiation management schemes, such as installing mirrors in space to reflect sunlight away from Earth, against plans to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—through planting artificial trees, for example. 

“We have to plan on the basis that we will get a worse response from the climate than we are expecting,” he says. “It was only a few years ago that the policy in the UK was for a 50 per cent reduction by 2050. Now we’re looking at an 80 per cent reduction by 2050. As science advances it could be that we need 90 per cent, 100 per cent, 120 per cent.”

Novacem
Rising star Stewart Evans
What’s so special? His start-up produces carbon-negative cement

Novacem chief executive Stewart Evans was at an awards dinner late last year. “We were shortlisted to be start-up of the year. We didn’t get it, but my perspective is that anybody who did a start-up in the last 12 months deserves to be start-up of the year.”

Evans is only half-joking. Novacem is an Imperial College London spin-out that is developing recyclable, carbon-negative cement. Considering that conventional cement already accounts for five per cent of global carbon emissions, Novacem’s environmentally conscious alternative has potential. But that didn’t help the company’s quest for funding. It took 11 months to raise £1m in capital—“twice as long as it should have done”.

But Evans isn’t unhappy with the quality of the investment team, which includes The Royal Society, Imperial Innovations Group and the London Technology Fund. Novacem is busy building a small, pilot cement plant on campus, where it can begin turning innovation into product. “It’s the first cement works in South Kensington since the Romans,” says Evans.

Proud Cabaret
Rising star Alex Proud
What’s so special? A knack for survival should see him expand in 2010

Alex Proud is a fan of diversification. Having launched his eponymous photography gallery in 1994, he moved into the bars and clubs business a decade later and now owns three London galleries and two clubs. As he explains, while people still need to eat and drink during a recession, they don’t need to sponsor photography. “The photography business usually breaks even, sometimes making a bit and sometimes losing a bit. But it is kept alive by sponsorship and this year we’ve seen an 80 to 90 per cent fall in sponsorship. Had we not had the bars and clubs we would have gone bankrupt.”

As it is, last year saw an expansion of his mini-empire with the opening of a City-based club Proud Cabaret and the new Proud Chelsea gallery. Proud is clear that next year will be even tougher. “The recession hasn’t even started yet and all the talk of recovery is absurd,” he says.

Even so, he is looking to expand further. Assuming his Cabaret venture continues to do well, he’s hoping to open one in west London and he’s also hoping to venture to New York, with a gallery, club and bar in Greenwich Village. In a way, his adventure will have come full circle because when he launched Proud in 1994, the New York photography scene was much more advanced than London. “In a sense we’ve helped the market mature. We created a market where one didn’t exist.”