Growing innovation, one tree at a time

In this blog, Mark Elliott, Divisional Director at CivTech, charts the six-year journey from a 2019 CivTech Challenge to the opening of Forestry and Land Scotland’s world-leading tree glasshouse in Newton, near Elgin — a facility set to grow millions of healthy seedlings for Scotland’s future forests — and shares lessons on innovation, collaboration, and creating impact that lasts for generations.

In early August 2025, the First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney MSP officially opened Forestry and Land Scotland’s (FLS) new tree glasshouse in Newton, near Elgin. Both I and CivTech’s Deputy Programme Director, the brilliant Barbara Mills, were honoured to be invited to what was a thoroughly good event - a chance to celebrate the opening of what is a world-leading facility boasting tree germination and growth technology that is simply out on its own. We lead the world!

Barbara Mills (far right) and Mark Elliott (second from right) pictured alongside colleagues from Forestry and Land Scotland and the Tape4Trees team.

I’m not going to talk a lot about the event itself nor the massive boost the facility will give to Scotland’s forestry sector because there’s comprehensive coverage of both these things in the press [if you’ve not seen any, you could start here]. But a little backstory might help…

FLS came to us in 2019 with a challenge: they wanted to improve germination and survival rates of new trees, to make the best use of Scotland’s valuable seed bank. The product that emerged - Tape4Trees - not only delivered a massive increase in germination and survival rates but made the entire process – from germination to planting out - vastly more efficient.

But even that isn’t what I want to write about [you can find out more about the CivTech Challenge and solution here].

Josh Roberts, Innovation Manager at Forestry and Land Scotland, speaking on stage to present the Challenge at CivTech Demo Day.

Because thinking about CivTech’s involvement in the project culminating in FLS’s £27 million glasshouse investment, a number of things emerged that I think are worth reflecting on…

The first is that – if it’s not blindingly obvious by now – great innovation is not just about digital. It comes in all forms and can positively impact every aspect of life. Indeed, Some of CivTech’s greatest successes are as far from apps and digital as possible. And all of them involve things that no piece of tech [even Large Language Models] can emulate: deep creativity, deep collaboration, and the meeting of minds.

The second is that looking at the brilliant new FLS glasshouse, it would be easy to think that it was a simple case of problem, solution and “hey-presto!” - a shiny new facility! But it wasn’t like that. Innovation rarely is. Rather it was years of hard work and deep collaboration between all the parties involved. Parties who trust one another, and demonstrated huge amounts of determination, perseverance and resilience because the process was sometimes bumpy and always a rollercoaster.

That’s what great innovation is, most of the time.

That leads to the third thing: truly worthwhile innovation is rarely an overnight thing. Yes, the tech industry’s emphasis on companies going overnight from zero to mega-success is an attractive one, but the truth is that narrative is largely driven by investors and in reality is rarely the case. Overnight success is often achieved after years of hard work.

Inside Forestry and Land Scotland’s world-leading tree glasshouse in Newton, near Elgin, showing rows of young trees in a controlled environment.

It took six years from the problem statement being defined by FLS and CivTech to that opening event…

And that leads me to the final point. Six years might seem a long time, but the technology FLS and Tape4Trees have developed with CivTech is set fair for many decades. The millions of tiny seedlings I saw yesterday will grow first into saplings and then young trees, then they’ll continue to grow until – long after I’ve gone – they’ll be standing tall and strong across the length and breadth of Scotland. Some might even grow to be hundreds of years old and take their place among the venerated ancient trees of the land.

And this is the truth about innovation. It should be - and for me the best innovation always is - a downpayment for a better future. And in these often-troubled times, I think that’s something worth going for.

If you want to join us building a better future, we’ll be launching CivTech Round 12 in early 2026, we’re putting the Challenge cohort together right now, and you can get hold of us at civtech@gov.scot. Let’s get started!