LAUNCHPAD The future is electric, and tasty. Here’s to an enlightened 2022

Will you be driving an electric vehicle this year? More people are. Plug-in vehicles accounted for around 17 per cent of all cars registered in 2021.

And with Boris’s announcement late last year that all new homes and buildings, as well as those undergoing major renovation, must now install electric vehicle charge points, the early-adopters of EVs will soon be able to charge their vehicles as easily, and as quickly as charging their mobile phones. Goodbye range anxiety.

Technology is going further. Imagine that your electric vehicle could also power your house? It’s already a reality and could help to take the load off the National Grid at peak times. You can read about this and other electric technologies in our main feature: Our Friends Electric on page 12.

But the internal combustion engine won’t disappear overnight. And there is an argument that it could be better for the environment to carry on driving your oldfashioned car for as long as it’s roadworthy, rather than investing in an electric vehicle until you really need to.

Because extracting the raw materials, such as lithium, cobalt and others to make the technology for EV batteries requires quarrying and large quantities of energy and water. While our scientists are already on the case, and major research continues around the world to look at alternative, greener and cheaper battery technologies, they’re not there yet.

Much of that research is going on across the region. In our Small Giants feature, we tracked down some of the most exciting early stage businesses in all sectors which we predict could grow into the blockbuster businesses of the future.

And if they do, will they have invested in Intellectual Property to protect their ideas?

Received wisdom is that one of the first calls an inventor should make is to an IP attorney.

And that’s true in many cases, but you don’t necessarily need IP to secure financial investment in your business, or to grow it successfully. Read our IP feature to find out more on page 64.

Our two interviews in this issue involve innovators in entirely different fields.

Adam Barmby is a true visionary who has developed an innovative electric assisted vehicle which could banish vans and HGVs from urban areas for ever, significantly improving air quality in our towns and cities. He’s now manufacturing these in Oxfordshire and exporting them across the world.

We also meet former banker Nigel Whitehouse who discovered that what many of us mistake for unpreposessing clods of earth are in fact truffles, one of the world’s most desirable culinary ingredients. His business is now making truffle condiments and crisps, and selling them across the world, all from a production facility near Cirencester.

Finally, another new year, another raft of resolutions that most of us will have already broken. But wait – we can help. We’ve kick-started 2022 with a new feature series showcasing: COOL companies and brands.

This issue we’re introducing you to 10 cool health and fitness brands born and thriving in the region.

Here’s to a happy, relatively Covidfree 2022, a return to the office, albeit perhaps not five days a week, and the opportunity to network safely among friends and colleagues without having to think twice before shaking hands.

Nicky Godding Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher

Kirsty Muir Commercial Director and Co-Publisher

FEATURE: OUR FRIENDS ELECTRIC 12

We look at how the UK can achieve net zero

FEATURE: SMALL GIANTS 72

Today’s business behemoths started small. Who will be the giants of tomorrow? We list 60 ambitious businesses