Charlotte Lee-Woolf

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Charlotte and her Social Responsibility and Sustainability team collaborate with a diverse range of talented academics, professional services colleagues and external partners. They are committed to devising solutions for issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and other related sustainability challenges.

Ten questions with Charlotte Lee-Woolf

When did you start at Edinburgh Innovations (EI)?

I started in January 2017.

How would you explain your job to an alien?

Planet Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. Modern humans flourished on earth with the arrival of stable environmental conditions in the Holocene era. During this time, society was transformed through the agricultural and industrial revolutions, which have in turn dramatically altered the natural world upon which all life depends. As a result, we are now living in an age in which humans are aware of the state of the planet and the effect our actions have on it. In fact, anthropogenic climate change, biodiversity loss, and natural degradation (such as water pollution and depletion of critical earth resources) now pose a major threat to the future of human society itself.

Action is urgently needed at scale to develop and implement solutions to these systemic global challenges. Institutions such as the University of Edinburgh have a responsibility, and a huge opportunity, to address these issues through their research and teaching activities. As the University’s commercialisation service, Edinburgh Innovations is responsible for supporting the University’s vision to make the world a better place by helping researchers, students, and industry to drive innovation in response to societal challenges.

I manage the Sustainability Business Development team at Edinburgh Innovations. We support the development of new opportunities that help to ensure the long-term future of people and nature on planet Earth by accelerating the transition to net zero carbon, nature-positive, circular economy.

What did you do before EI?

I am a sustainability professional with nearly 20 years of experience working on projects to inform policy and business sector decision-making. I have a track record in leading the design, commissioning, and delivery of cross-disciplinary projects in management and leadership roles I have held in higher education, consultancy, and the civil service. I have specialist knowledge of household consumption & waste behaviour change and of pro-environmental behaviours in the farming & food sector – developed through projects delivered for organisations such as Defra, Welsh Government, Zero Waste Scotland, Food Standards Agency, WRAP, Environment Agency, European Union, Soil Association Scotland, and WWF.

What’s the best thing about working at EI/the University of Edinburgh?

I am often asked what appeals most about working for Edinburgh Innovations. First and foremost, it is the opportunity to positively contribute to societal issues I am passionate about resolving. I want to live in a world in which people and nature thrive, and I want to help us get there. I work with a wide range of talented academic and professional services colleagues, who are dedicated to developing solutions to climate change, biodiversity loss, and related sustainability challenges. Many of the impacts from these activities will take years to realise, but it is very motivating to know that I am playing a small part in the journey towards a more sustainable future.

What's your favourite project that you’ve worked on? What did the project accomplish?

No two projects are the same and each brings its own rewards and challenges! That said, my favourite project to date is CloudEARTHi. Funded by the European Institute for Technology (EIT), the purpose of this collaborative project was to increase the capacity of higher education institutions as engines for innovation and entrepreneurship in the transition to a net zero carbon, circular economy. Edinburgh Innovations led the development and testing of a new tool as part of the project, which could be used to support early-stage start-ups to embed low-carbon, circular thinking into their business models.

It was very satisfying to create something that can add value to entrepreneurship activities in the higher education sector and that has directly benefitted several start-up companies who participated in the project. We have since received the Scottish Knowledge Exchange ‘Making an Environmental Difference’ 2023 Award for the Earth Centred Business Design^TM Tool and it is great to have been recognised in this way for the impact we had had. Another positive outcome has been the creation of new collaborative opportunities with consortium partners, and I look forward to exploring further opportunities to capture the legacy benefits from CloudEARTHi with our valued higher education and business partners.

What are you most proud of from your time at EI?

I am proud to have built a new team at Edinburgh Innovations, which has a reputation for adding value to sustainability-driven innovation activity at the University. We are a small team, which works in a dynamic area that spans a wide range of academic disciplines. In this context, I believe our success lies in the emphasis we place on collaboration and excellence in service delivery. We recognise the importance of working closely with our colleagues and external partners, of learning from our successes and failures, and of remaining focussed on opportunities to drive positive societal impact. Given the growing importance of sustainability-driven innovation, I am excited to see what more we can do to build on this in the years to come.

What does innovation mean to you? 

Innovation involves developing and implementing new ideas that create value for stakeholders. It could be a new product, service, approach, or business model. Society is beginning to adopt more holistic notions of value creation, which include environmental and social dimensions. As such, importance is increasingly being placed on the need for responsible innovation that takes account of wider impacts, avoids causing harm, and seeks to fully realise positive societal benefits.

Innovation is critical to the long-term success of organisations, as their operating context changes over time. Global sustainability challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss now present major risks and opportunities for all sectors of the economy and, therefore, they are key drivers of innovation. looking forward, all organisations will need to embed sustainability into decision-making to sustain financial performance and resilience over the long term.

If you had one more hour in the day, how would you spend it?

If I had an extra hour in the day, I would spend it in nature. The health and well-being benefits are well known, but I find it particularly helpful for creative thinking and problem-solving. Apart from this, being in nature and seeing the ways in which it has been degraded by human activity reminds me why I have taken my chosen career path and how much is still to be done to support research & innovation for a more sustainable future.

What piece of advice has stuck with you?

“Network. Network. Network.” Of course, strong networks are key to staying on top of the latest developments, understanding different perspectives, discovering new opportunities, and for accessing advice and support. What is good for individuals is also good for organisations that support innovation. Innovation ecosystems that comprise a wide range of strongly connected organisations, which are engaged in activities to deliver mutually beneficial goals are the most productive and resilient, which is why it is great to be part of such an environment at Edinburgh Innovations and the wider University.   

What would you really like to work on at EI/UoE

I am delighted that Edinburgh Innovations is committed to using its role as the University’s commercialisation service to drive innovation on climate change, biodiversity loss, and related sustainability challenges to 2040. I am really looking forward to developing a programme of work over the coming years that builds on progress-to-date, by embedding action on these issues across our services and operations, to deliver a step-change the work we do to drive innovation in the transition to a net zero carbon, nature positive, circular economy.

Charlotte Lee-Woolf

Business Development Manager

• Social Responsibility & Sustainability
• College of Science and Engineering

Contact details

• Work: 07969 486 277
• Email: Charlotte.Lee-Woolf@ei.ed.ac.uk