Collaborative Innovation Platforms

The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and The Crown Estate announced on 16 July 2025 the launch of the Entopia Living Lab, a major partnership designed to accelerate sustainable innovation and collaboration across the UK built environment. As the founding partner of the Living Lab, The Crown Estate will work with CISL to fast-track the adoption of real-world solutions by convening businesses, researchers, innovators and policymakers within the Entopia Building—a deep-retrofit 1930s telephone exchange in Cambridge that meets ultra-low carbon standards. The Living Lab will generate insights that can be applied to new builds and retrofits alike, with the ultimate aim of scaling best practices and informing industry and policy frameworks.

The Entopia Living Lab will initially harness the retrofit as a platform for experimentation and validation pilots, testing interventions in areas such as energy efficiency, material circularity and nature-based solutions. It will also serve as a collaborative learning environment, enabling capacity building across disciplines and value chains while benchmarking innovations against future partner sites. Through shared data collection, open-access protocols and engagement with industry and policymakers, the initiative seeks to establish replicable models for sustainable building and to inform new standards for the wider sector.

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