Laurence Kemball-Cook’s path into the world of clean energy and “smart” cities began with a walk through Victoria railway station in London during rush hour.

As he jostled among commuters, he was struck by the large amount of kinetic energy generated by the heaving throng. “About 38,000 people pass through Victoria every hour at peak times,” he says. “I thought: there must be a way of harnessing all that energy.”

This lightbulb moment led to him developing a floor tile capable of “harvesting” energy from people’s footsteps to generate electricity. The technology, which uses electromagnetic generators in the springy tiles, has been deployed by Mr Kemball-Cook’s company, Pavegen, at 150 locations around the world. These range from Heathrow airport in London to Lagos, Nigeria, where tiles laid under a football pitch help power the floodlights.