Dynamic Demand: one entrepreneur's recipe for success

Since 1996, Forum for the Future’s Masters in Leadership for Sustainable Development has been training the sustainability leaders of the future. We track the career of a Forum alumnus.

Joe ShortClass of: 1996-7Currently: Director, Dynamic Demand

Why I chose the MProfIt was the first of its kind. The placements offered a privileged sort of ‘grand tour of British society’, a chance to learn more about the response of all the different parts of the machine to sustainability. ‘Leadership’ sounded cheesy to me, but really it means the seeds that cause change.

Things my Masters taught meI learned how specialised the world is. I realised that we’re not going to turn everybody into sustainability enthusiasts – and that it would be inappropriate, because people are already enthusiastic about what they do. Instead, we have to build sustainability into the core.

“Be humble and ask silly questions.”

In a sense, sustainability isn’t a subject: it’s a challenge. There are seven billion people on the planet, all making decisions and organising themselves in different ways. The challenge is to get them to listen. Change doesn’t happen because it makes sense. It happens because someone champions it and makes it sound fun.

Career to dateAfter the Masters I did five years in campaign communications at Friends of the Earth and then an MSc at the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology(CREST). I felt I needed to reconnect with the core sciences I’d first learnt at university – with everything from aerodynamics to the national grid. Then I got a grant from Esmée Fairbairn to set up the NGO Dynamic Demand. My emphasis was on promoting demand control technologies that can manage and stabilise the electricity network. We started in a windowless office in Stoke Newington five years ago, but things have come a long way since then. In January, Gordon Brown referred to dynamic demand as one of six points in a low-carbon recovery plan!

What I plan to do nextI’m done with campaigns for the moment: I’m going into business. I’ve formed a company called Demand Logic, to implement dynamic demand in large building systems.

Advice for future leadersBe humble and ask silly questions. You can’t assume that there are good reasons for the way things are done. Often there aren’t.

Interview by Anna Simpson.