A prototype does not save the planet. A working pilot might.
This stark truth underlies one of the great challenges in the fight against climate change: it’s not enough to invent a clever new climate solution in a lab – we must prove it works in the real world, at scale, and fast. As global temperatures rise and climate impacts accelerate, we have no time or capital to waste on innovations that never leave the drawing board. Every year, governments and companies announce bold sustainability targets, yet the gap between ambition and action yawns wide. Bridging that gap means turning prototypes into pilots, because only then can promising ideas translate into tangible emissions cuts.
The stakes could not be higher. We are entering an era of climate consequence where every sector of the economy must decarbonize or face irreparable harm. While renewable energy and electric vehicles often dominate headlines, the built environment – the offices, homes, and infrastructure all around us – accounts for about 26% of global carbon emissions . That makes our buildings and construction sites a critical front in the climate battle. Imagine slashing a quarter of the world’s emissions by making buildings greener and more efficient – it would be a game-changer. Technologically, we’re not starting from zero: innovators have developed low-carbon concrete, smart energy systems, new insulation materials, and countless other climate-tech prototypes for buildings. And yet, too many of these breakthroughs remain stuck on the shelf or in proof-of-concept purgatory, never implemented at the scale needed. Why? Because getting any new technology out of the lab and into a skyscraper or construction project is hard. It requires money, yes, but also willing partners and a tolerance for risk that traditional investors and industry players often lack.
In the startup world, this is often called the “valley of death” – the perilous phase where a product is proven in principle but hasn’t yet been proven in practice. For climate-tech companies, especially those focused on hardware and infrastructure, that valley can be especially wide. It’s one thing to show off a single carbon-saving device in a controlled setting; it’s another to integrate it into a city’s power grid or a real building without unforeseen hiccups. Pilot projects are the missing bridge between innovation and investment, the step that convinces stakeholders a new solution isn’t just exciting on paper but effective in reality. A successful pilot can unlock the funding and customer buy-in to go fully commercial. Without pilots, even the most brilliant green technology risks dying as a science experiment. With them, a scrappy prototype can become a world-changing product.
Encouragingly, momentum in climate tech is building. Investors are waking up to the scale of the opportunity – and the need. In the first 11 months of 2023 alone, Southeast Asian climate-tech startups raised US$685 million in equity funding, signaling keen interest in new solutions to our environmental crisis. Globally, too, venture capital and governments are pouring billions into climate innovation. There’s no shortage of brains coming up with novel ideas, from carbon-sequestering building materials to AI systems that optimize energy use across entire cities. The entrepreneurial energy is there. The capital (while it could always be more) is starting to flow. This is all good news. But funding and ideas won’t reduce a single ton of carbon unless those ideas are deployed. What’s missing are more on-ramps to deployment – more pilot opportunities where theory is put into practice. Every climate-tech founder and funder knows this quietly: a pilot run in a real factory, building or community can make or break a fledgling solution. Yet such opportunities are still far too rare.
That’s why a new ethos is emerging among forward-thinking companies and institutions: treat the world as a living laboratory. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Singapore, where an unexpected partnership is helping climate innovators leap from the lab to real life. The Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition (LKYGBPC) – one of the world’s largest deep-tech startup challenges – has teamed up with Kajima, a construction and engineering firm founded in 1840, to turn climate-tech prototypes into working pilots. It’s a striking alliance of new and old: a global startup competition known for nurturing young entrepreneurs, and a nearly two-century-old industry giant known for building skylines. What unites them is a shared recognition that solving the climate crisis in the built environment requires action, not just ideas.
Kajima, through its innovation arm in Singapore known as The GEAR, isn’t content with simply writing a cheque or issuing a press release about “supporting innovation.” Instead, it has effectively thrown open its doors – and its construction sites – to climate-tech startups. Together with LKYGBPC, it created a “Kajima Built Environment Accelerated Commercialisation” prize, which offers a winning startup not only funding support, but something even rarer: a chance to deploy their solution on an actual project under real-world conditions alongside other climatetech and construction start-ups under the newly launched The GEAR Startup CoLab Programme.
In practical terms, this means if you’ve invented, say, a cutting-edge energy management system or a greener concrete formula, Kajima will literally let you test it in one of their buildings or construction sites, with guidance from their experts. It’s hard to overstate how valuable this is. Instead of being stuck in months of hypothetical modeling and pitching, that startup gets to prove their tech works in a live environment. And they get to do so hand-in-hand with a major industry player, gaining credibility and insights that would be impossible in isolation.
Real examples are already emerging from this approach.
An early beneficiary of this approach is Wattif Technologies, part of The GEAR’s Community Access Programme. Wattif’s flagship platform, Notch, converts building-system data into verified intelligence—identifying energy hotspots, streamlining sustainability reporting and enhancing asset value. Seeking its first commercial proof-of-concept, the company required a complex, live environment. Kajima provided exactly that.
Over recent months, Wattif has equipped Kajima’s living lab facility in Singapore with a network of energy-monitoring sensors, capturing consumption patterns down to individual chillers and lighting circuits. The initial insights have already highlighted unexpected power drains—such as appliances that were unused 80% of the time yet still consumed energy—and informed corrective measures. For Wattif, this pilot yielded more than just data; it became a compelling proof point demonstrating tangible ROI potential for investors and future clients. For Kajima, it was a low-risk way to explore cutting-edge innovation while identifying immediate opportunities to reduce both costs and carbon emissions.
Beyond physical access, Kajima supplied a full suite of support: appliances for controlled testing, engineering feedback on product refinements, and presentation slots at The GEAR’s industry events.
Photo source: The GEAR website
“The opportunity to pilot within Kajima’s facility has accelerated our development dramatically,” notes founder Dharani Malladi. “Kajima’s guidance and real-world data have positioned Notch for commercial launch far sooner than we could have achieved on our own.” This is precisely the programme’s purpose—compressing the distance between prototype and market-ready solution while delivering immediate efficiency gains for the host facility.
What’s powerful about the LKYGBPC-Kajima partnership is that it marries aspiration with pragmatism. Aspiration, because it casts a wide net for bold ideas worldwide – the competition draws innovators from across the globe, all vying to tackle big challenges like climate change. Pragmatism, because it insists that those bold ideas be tested in the real world before declaring them victories. In doing so, it aims to de-risk innovation. A shiny prototype may inspire hope, but a working pilot inspires confidence – the confidence for others to invest, adopt, and build on that success. In essence, they are building a pipeline where winning the competition is not the finish line, but the start of a journey toward implementation. It’s a model that other corporations and institutions should note, because we need many more bridges like this across the climate-tech landscape.
Time is of the essence. The latest science warns that our window to limit global warming is shrinking, and every year of delay pushes us closer to irreparable thresholds. We cannot afford to let promising climate solutions languish in PowerPoint slides or prototype warehouses. The world needs more companies like Kajima, and more startups, to blaze the trail – and many others to follow. This is a call to action, and an invitation.
If you are a startup with a technology that could cut carbon or bolster resilience, seek out these partnerships, these “living labs” where you can pilot your ideas. Don’t be satisfied with just building a prototype; build a prototype that can be tested and proven.
Likewise, if you are a corporate leader or policymaker, open your mind (and perhaps your facilities) to new ideas. Be willing to host an experiment or a trial run. Yes, it involves risk – a pilot might not succeed the first time – but standing on the sidelines is riskier in the long run, as the climate continues to warm.
In the quest to avert climate catastrophe, action is the only currency that matters. Every successful pilot is an inflection point: a moment when an abstract promise turns into a concrete solution. We need those inflection points in every city, every sector, again and again, until the curve of emissions finally bends downward. The message, then, is simple: Startups and corporates, innovators and incumbents, must connect and collaborate like never before.
Build those bridges. Test those ideas. Treat our workplaces, buildings and communities as proving grounds for the sustainable future we desperately need. A prototype, by itself, changes little – but a pilot can change everything. Let’s get to work.
