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On Thursday 11th of February, the Future Economy Network hosted a lunchtime event entitled ‘Tech Innovations for a Sustainable Future”. The event welcomed speakers from Network members Digital Detox, Spherics Technology and UK Behavioural Economics. The event was attended by a wide range of delegates who enjoyed some pre-seminar networking before the presentations began.
Katherine Piper, Director of the Future Economy Network, welcomed attendees to the event and highlighted the benefits of joining the Network. Katherine also shared updates about their carbon neutral Hub in Bristol, Future Leap, as well as briefly running through plans for the Festival of Sustainable Business.
Liam Snelling, Co-Founder and MD at Digital Detox, kicked off presentations by discussing technology as a powerful weapon in the fight against climate change. According to the World Economic forum, digital technology can be utilized to cut emissions by 15% in industries such as energy and manufacturing. However, all potential solutions have an impact and need to be understood through awareness, taking responsibility and providing a choice to ensure we are not adding to the problem. Liam talked through what he has learnt over the last 2 years at Digital Detox as they kicked off the decade of action and updated their outlook to a world with COVID. Because it’s not about building more technology, it's about creating smarter solutions.
Next, we invited George Sandilands, Co-Founder at Spherics to present on their new platform. 60% of all greenhouse gas emissions within the EU come from SMEs (EU, 2014). With the clock ticking on the human response to climate change, Spherics have built a tool to respond to this large and complex problem, supporting a range of different business models and user groups. Currently in development, the Spherics platform helps businesses understand and reduce their environmental impact, suggesting behavioural changes and creating rewards for action that drive emissions towards Net-Zero. George gave a quick overview of the Spherics system, how it works and what is planned for the future. He invited small companies to take part in the BETA testing, which can be done here.
Last but certainly not least, we welcomed Yolanda Berry, Principal Consultant for UK Behavioural Economics and Director of Earth Sentinel, to talk about her most recent and most exciting project, Earth Sentinel. Using ground breaking AI algorithms and low earth satellite images, Yolanda showed how they can identify small changes in environmentally sensitive areas, and mobiles teams to go and address the threat, before the damage is too great. This includes threats to both land based assets (rainforests) and water based (Blue Carbon). Earth Sentinel can also be instrumental in supplying verification of supply chain providence for both land based and water based crops. Earth Sentinel is also honing the ability to identify water based threats, like plastics in the oceans, to both determine where they came from and where they are going, to aid in cleaning up the oceans.
The audience were encouraged to ask questions and engage with the speakers throughout the event leading to interesting discussion on the role of businesses and nature-based solutions for combatting climate change. Multiple attendees including, ADLIB/Green Tech South West, Tumelo and Green Tech International made use of the 60 second pitch opportunity.
A final networking session allowed for further discussion in smaller groups before the event finished. Thank you again to the speakers and the attendees who made this event possible.