The Hard Truth About Climate Innovation: Lessons from the Ground

Innovation is the ability to conceive, develop and deliver new products and services that people want to use. It’s an idea that is embodied in a product or service. In the case of the Virtual Irrigation Academy (VIA), the first innovative step was to create monitoring tools that fit the mental model of farmers, not the mental models of scientists.

Take a look at the VIA, a technology platform assisting farmers in maximizing water resources by providing data tools and insights https://via.farm/. Over the last ten years of my career at CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), many strands of work came together to form the VIA. We developed a suite of soil water and solute monitoring tools that give output as colours, which are thresholds for action. Data is presented as colour patterns, which highlight water and solute dynamics, such as under or over irrigation, nutrient leaching and salt accumulation. Colour is a universal language that connects the knowledge domains of farmers, scientists and managers of water into a unified learning system.

However, the vast majority of irrigators worldwide don’t use soil water monitoring technology. If big commercial farmers are not engaged, then what hope is there for those who operate a smaller scale?   The VIA was set up to  design and build simple innovations for the 90% of irrigation farmers who are in real need of new tools  to assist them with irrigation, but for whom nothing is available

Innovation doesn’t fail because the ideas aren’t good; it often fails because the ecosystem around it isn’t ready. Think about it: if someone came to me and suggested installing solar panels on my roof, I might just point to the electrical socket and say, “I’ve been using this for decades. It works perfectly. Why should I change?”

That resistance to change is one of the biggest barriers to climate innovation. People tend to stick with systems that appear to work for them, especially when new solutions come with an upfront cost and a degree of uncertainty. With water, the problem is even further behind, some say by as much as 50 years, compared to the energy sector, which is starting to change rapidly. Many still ask, “Why should I measure the water I use? I just take it out of the canal.” There’s no perceived problem, so there’s no urgency to adopt a solution.

Reaching critical mass is key. Take irrigation in Pakistan as an example. If one farmer starts using less water, they don’t personally gain much. But if everyone starts using less, there’s more water available for all during times of scarcity. Innovation only starts to change things when it’s scaled and when entire communities, sectors, or systems change together.

Here are some of the barriers that slow down climate innovation:

1. Technological Hesitation – People are wary of new technology, especially when it comes with upfront costs, uncertain benefits, or requires a learning curve.
2. Financial Structures – Existing subsidies often support the status quo. Without redirecting financial incentives, it’s difficult for new technologies to gain traction.
3. Policy Gaps – Lack of government targets or institutional support slows adoption. Innovation needs frameworks that promote and reward change..
4. Lack of Collective Action – Most innovations in climate, especially in areas like water use, don’t work in isolation. They only work when enough people adopt them together. That means creating shared language, shared goals, and a shared sense of urgency.

At our organization, for example, we don’t just call ourselves a sensor company; we believe that we have created a whole new language for talking about water. Our sensors translate data into colours and patterns that people can understand and act on. Because unless we can talk about water in meaningful and accessible ways, change won’t happen. Disrupting a system isn’t just about dropping in new technology. It’s about helping everyone in the system learn, adapt, and move forward together.

The Chameleon Card is the simplest embodiment of the tech. One or multiple sensors are buried in the rootzone, with the wires lying on the ground. When the farmer picks up the wires and taps them onto a credit card sized reader, an LED light indicates the need for irrigation. If the LED light turns blue, it means ‘don’t irrigate’, green indicates ‘get ready’ and red means ‘you must irrigate’.

Similarly, the Wetting Front Detector captures and stores a water sample after irrigation, which can be monitored for nitrate and salt levels. In short, innovation is not just about making something new or cheaper. It’s about transforming the entire system, socially, institutionally, and financially, to support new ways of doing things.

It’s been said that the vast majority of research-for-development projects are unlikely to catalyse lasting systemic change. We’re surrounded by what I call “miracles on the shelf”, which means technologies that have worked in projects but haven’t scaled in the real world. This has been my experience as well. I’ve spent most of my academic career producing those very miracles, things that work technically but never manage to break into real-world systems at scale.

Scaling is our greatest challenge. And it’s important to understand that scaling is not just marketing. And that’s because the system itself resists innovation.

The VIA Journey: Although the idea of the VIA started in 2011, it took another 11 years to start the business. The aspiring young scientist on his impact pathway did not anticipate some of the obstacles he may have to negotiate along the way.  But the breakthroughs do come…

In Africa, smallholders embraced the Chameleon sensors even before they knew whether it was reliable or not. It was something that allowed them to talk about water. Farmers wanted a sensor with lights and output as colours and patterns that they could understand, because they inhabited a world of conflict over water. They found out for themselves that the VIA system works.

In South Asia, we’re beginning to see a few promising signs. For example, in Pakistan, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has been working with our equipment, the Virtual Irrigation Academy’s tools, which is a good starting point. IWMI has told us that farmers love the colours on the sensors. Previously, they were always unsure about when and how much to irrigate. Now, they can see the water needs in colour, making their decision-making easier and more confident.

Practical Barriers to Scaling: In the real world, one of the biggest challenges we face in scaling is exporting our sensors. Customs officials often don’t know what they are. It doesn’t fit into the global classification system and without a clear category, the equipment gets stuck at customs, incurring storage fees.

It’s as if the system is built to block innovation.

In some cases, the project team approves the use of our equipment, but the procurement team cancels it because a single source supplier is outside the rules. This is the paradox: the system itself is not equipped to support new tech start-ups which are sole suppliers by definition. In other cases, a local ‘Bureau of Standards’ has to give us the green light, but how do do they evaluate  technical, novel instruments like ours? So, the shipments just sit at the ports, waiting for the process to catch up. This shows how bureaucratic systems can actively prevent innovation from reaching the farmers.

Climate innovation is not a straight line from invention to impact. It is a constant negotiation between the technology, users, systems, and institutions. Real progress requires more than technological breakthroughs. It demands alignment across financial systems, policy frameworks, social dynamics, and cultural contexts. The hard truth is that even the most promising innovations will remain on the shelf unless we address the full complexity of scaling within real-world environments. Only then can innovation truly deliver the transformation we seek.