Richard Templer is the August von Hofmann Chair of Chemistry and the Director of Innovation for the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. Over the last 8 years he has helped 65 new start-ups to raise over $1/4bn to establish their businesses and fight the causes and effect of climate change. In his role as a London Sustainable Development Commissioner he has led policy work on the development of London as a leading climate change innovation cluster. His interest in the use of plant matter to replace petroleum as a feedstock for renewable chemicals led to an abiding interest in the relationship between agricultural methods and climate change.