I first heard about being shortlisted for the Good Entrepreneur Competition sitting in my car, in a traffic jam, (on a hands free of course) in what felt like a tropical downpour, in Bristol a city in the south west of England. In fact, July and August turned out to have been the wettest on record, but that didn't dampen my enthusiasm in any way for the news.

Rain is quite significant to ModCell, especially in summer, for two reasons. Firstly, it affects the key components of ModCell - straw, hemp and timber and how they grow. Secondly, we have just finished building a BaleHaus at Bath University. Building anything in the rain is difficult, but building with straw and hemp takes a bit more care, and that is what we have done. Building traditionally with straw is weather dependant, but because ModCell is prefabricated offsite, we can build the superstructure of a BaleHaus and get the roof on in just 3 days.

So while the rain is a pain, we can work through it. But it's not just the rain that's significant, its the reason behind the rain or, for others elsewhere in the world, the lack of it. It is what's driving the extremes in our weather that's the bigger issue, climate change. Climate change is a global issue and cares not a jot for borders or which continent you come from. Stern has described climate change as "the greatest market failure the world has ever seen". It took an economist to get, what ecologists have understood for a long time, on the agenda of most governments around the world. Stern has given climate change the frame of reference that economists needed to understand the reality of the impact it could have on our economies. And it dwarves the current credit crunch.

This is where CNBC and the Good Entrepreneur start to do their work, the first thing they set up to see how the concept of ModCell would stand up to scrutiny, was not to have someone from the world of construction look at what we we are doing. Oh no! They ask a former economic advisor to the White House to! ModCell has had a number of 'dragon's den' type grillings and we're still standing, but we've never had anyone with a CV like Dr Philippa Malmgren do it!

On the day of the meeting with Dr Malmgren, I met up with the camera crew from CNBC on the train into Paddington, they wanted to get my thoughts on how I was feeling about the meeting. Nervous, but looking forward to hearing what Dr Malmgren had to say and her challenges about the ModCell concept. I wasn't allowed to meet Dr Malmgren straight away, instead we were to be filmed meeting at her office for the first time on camera. So I was sent to the Italian next door for a cappuccino and told to wait until everything was ready.

I was shown in to Dr Malmgren's company board room to await her arrival. Maps of the world covered the walls and two framed documents, one signed by the Chief of Staff of the White House, the other by the president. All really impressive and adding to the significance of the meeting, and then we started. The first thing Dr Malmgren insisted on was that I call her Pippa, which set the tone for the rest of the discussion. First off she said how good it was to meet an entrepreneur, saying a lot of her work involved her meeting with economists or meeting CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, rather than people involved with small to medium sized enterprises. SME's she described as the engines of the economy. So far so good.

She raised the issue of climate change immediately, and challenged me on whether we had other good arguments for our business case other than CO2. Until recently, climate change has been a hot topic for debate in America and that was the financial case for the ModCell concept. Fundamentally it is about resource use, whether that be carbon, water or raw materials, we need to be using them efficiently. In doing so, we also reduce costs across the triple bottom line - social, economic as well as environmental.

It was great to be quizzed by Pippa on our business plan and in particular how we might grow the business. Should we seek investment or grow the business organically? A key challenge was to ensure that I understood the different audiences we will have deal with, and that an investor speaks a very different language to a bank. The investor is interested in the return on investment, a bank, risk, a client value for money. All good advice.

It is a privilege to be on the shortlist and to be asked to present the ModCell story to such interesting people. It also fascinating to know that the other shortlisted pitches are going through a similar process of challenge and mentoring. I look forward to meeting them and comparing notes on their experiences.

Next Blog a trip to Berlin to understand more about how we can license what we do internationally!