S4E15: Decarbonising Industrial Heat with Caldera's James Macnaghten

What if the key to unlocking the next phase of the energy transition isn't about building more wind and solar, but about completely rethinking how we use industrial heat?

In this episode of Sustainability Forward, we are joined by James Macnaghten, the founder and CEO of Caldera. James shares his journey from leading early grid-scale energy storage at Isentropic to tackling one of the most invisible yet critical sectors of global emissions: industrial steam. We explore why low-temperature industrial heat is actually much easier to decarbonise than the headlines suggest, and how electric thermal storage can bridge the gap between surplus renewable energy and factory floors.

What You’ll Discover

- The Invisible 10% of Global Emissions: Why low-temperature industrial steam used in food, drink, and pharmaceuticals accounts for more emissions than every car on the road combined, and why it has been left until last.

- The Power of Hybridisation: How factories can seamlessly switch between gas and electric storage boilers to take advantage of cheap, surplus renewable energy without disrupting their daily operations.

- Surviving the Hardware Valley of Death: The realities of building a climate-tech hardware business, why minimum viable products rarely work in heavy industry, and why perfect timing beats genius every time.

Building a sustainable future requires us to look beyond the obvious solutions and tackle the hidden infrastructure of our modern world. By redesigning industrial demand to match our clean energy supply, we can make massive strides toward net zero without waiting for a miracle.