SPEAKERS
DAY 3
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
LORD HOWELL OF GUILDFORD
David Howell, Baron Howell of Guildford, PC is politician, journalist, and economic consultant. Having been successively Secretary of State for Energy and then for Transport under Margaret Thatcher, Howell has more recently been a Minister of State in the Foreign Office from the election in 2010 until the reshuffle of 2012. He has served as Chair of the House of Lords International Relations Committee since May 2016.
Keynote
In his keynote speech, he will talk about the new politics of energy and global transition, and identify the international winners and losers and the skills and priorities required to navigate the dangers ahead.
DR. RENATA KONADU
Sustainability Reporting Lecturer – Southampton Business School
Renata’s background and interest in sustainability has consistently been the pivot of her career and research in the last 10 years. She is currently a lecturer and researcher in sustainability reporting at the Southampton Business School and also a volunteer Programme Coordinator of Climate Finance for Pan African Centre for Climate Policy. As a GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) Certified Sustainability Professional, Renata is currently involved in a project to help SMEs in South-East England to produce their first sustainability reports using the GRI standards. As part of her project, Renata has been instrumental in training students to work with SMEs to prepare their reports.
Why focus on SME's?
It is apparent that the transition to a net-zero economy requires all organisations to be fully committed. The recent requirement of the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting in UK is set to see large organisations measure and report their energy consumption and carbon emissions. Though there is no such requirement for SMEs, they cannot be overlooked in such practice of measuring and reporting. According to a survey by British Business Bank (2021), SMEs contribute 50% of GHG emissions by all businesses and 30% of UK National emissions. With such a massive impact on emissions, it is unsettling to know that just one in ten UK SMEs measure their carbon emissions as reported by 02 and British Chamber of Commerce’s survey, 2021. This is not to suggest that SMEs are not taking actions to reduce their emissions but rather an indication of possible challenges or barriers to measuring and subsequently reporting their impacts.
Senior Consultant, Global Transition Model Lead, Baringa Partners
Xingliang leads the Global Transition Model team at Baringa. The Global Transition Model is a core part of the market-leading climate change solution that Baringa develops in partnership with BlackRock and has been used by clients with over $38 trillion of assets. Our climate modelling expertise supports financial institutions on net zero commitments, TCFD and regulatory reporting, investment and capital allocation strategies and climate risk management.
As a quantitative modelling expert, he has also led the developments of energy system and power market models for clients in various markets including UK, EU, UAE, Australia and China. Prior to joining Baringa, Xingliang worked as a corporate strategy analyst at Landis+Gyr. Prior to joining Baringa, Xingliang worked as a corporate strategy analyst at Landis+Gyr and supported the executive managers to make strategic decisions in projects such as IPO, M&A and JV by providing analysis on markets, technologies and competitors. Xingliang has a Master degree in Energy Science and Technology from ETH Zurich in Switzerland.
About Baringa:
We are one of the world’s top-rated energy and environment consultancies, with 20 years’ experience advising governments, the energy industry, and financial services on climate strategy. We have rated as the Lead Consultancy for Energy, Utilities and Environment with gold medals awarded for 4th consecutive year in the Financial Times Poll.
XINGLIANG FANG
KAVITA DASS
Kavita Dass nee Sarin, is a raw material sustainability, innovation and sourcing specialist, in the Textile and Apparel industry. She works extensively, in the sustainability strategy, ESG and circularity space.
An alumni of CISL, University of Cambridge, Kavita has helped brands like Asos, NBrown and many smaller start-ups to formulate and implement their sustainability strategy and source more sustainable materials for the apparel that they sell.
Kavita also works with brands to help understand and implement circularity in their business.
She firmly believes that systemic change is the only direction of travel, for any industry, to mitigate the impacts that humans have, on the world we live in.
She is known to be creative as well as technical and her expertise and over 30 years of experience, in the Textile and apparel industry, has helped her become an influential voice in the industry and in the arena of Sustainability.
Kavita was born and grew up in the Himalayas in Palampur, in the state of Himachal Pradesh, in India. Her association with nature is a part of who she is and drives her passion for sustainability.
She grew up in an environment where her parents were already involved in environmental and social activities. The symbiotic relationship that the local tribes of the region, had with forests, was breaking down under the pressure of the modern industrial world. They worked in collaboration with European organisations to accelerate reforestation and fight air and water pollution caused by local wood burning practices and soil erosion. Innovation and tailored communication, were at the heart of these very successful programs.
That understanding has been the foundation of Kavita’s tryst with sustainability and the environmental and social interactions that drive these relationships.
Kavita started her career over 30 years ago, as a textile designer in India.
She worked on ground, with the semi-automated loom sector, with great success, to help them compete with the emerging sophisticated looms being established at the time.
The brands she worked with at TCNS in India included Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Old Navy, Mervyns, Dillard’s, JC Penny and many others.
This came with global travel and exposure whilst working with different stakeholders across the brands, textile manufacturing and apparel trade.
She soon gained immense experience in supply chain management, material design, trend analysis and material sustainability, working with global brands, mills and the various sources of fibres and fabrics.
The move to the United Kingdom happened in 2006 and she has since, worked with the brands Jaeger, Marks & Spencer’s, VF/Timberland. And ASOS. She has also worked with suppliers like Dewhirst, Courtaulds, and now is working with Poeticgem (PDS Group) a leading supplier of apparel to European and American brands.
At ASOS Kavita set up their Fabric department and very successfully, formulated and implemented their material sustainably strategy, roadmap and SOP’s.
She also works as a consultant, under her brand SMAC (Sustainable Materials Agility & Circularity) and has helped independent start-ups, as well as brands like the N Brown group ,with their sustainability strategy and material sourcing and implementation.
Now working at Poeticgem, a sourcing platform with a difference, she is the Head of Sustainability and Fabrics, and leads the business to make the right choices, formulate and implement their sustainability roadmap and ESG strategy. She leads the material management process to make responsible sourcing, systemic and business as usual.
Aditi Khodke is an independent consultant and researcher working in the field of urban sustainability for more than 10 years. Aditi started her career as an architect designing energy efficient and disaster resilient buildings. Since, she has expanded her scope of work to policy research and consultancy to integrate climate adaptation and mitigation in built environment.
Presently, Aditi is a research fellow with the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) in Japan, lead expert on urban strategic planning and transnational capacity building for URBACT, universal accessibility consultant for the World Bank, and urban resilience and climate action consultant for the UNESCAP. She is a fellow at the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
Aditi holds two master’s degrees in sustainability science and sustainable urban development from the United Nations University and the University of Oxford. She is pursuing a part-time DPhil in Sustainable Urban Development at the University of Oxford examining policy instrument choice to accelerate the transition to low carbon societies.
Presentation:
Transition to 1.5C Lifestyles: experiences from six cities
Sustainable lifestyles are often used interchangeably with a handful of practices like vegetarianism, veganism, buying green labels, etc., that helps to reduce carbon emissions. But what if we were to consciously adopt a lifestyle that would help for keeping global warming below 1.5C by the end of the century?
A 1.5C lifestyle is one that simultaneously reduces carbon emissions in the areas of food, mobility, housing, goods, services, and leisure. It advocates the simultaneous realization of behavioral and systemic change relevant with the local circumstances and accentuate the need for collaboration among citizens, city administration and businesses rather than placing the entire responsibility for curbing global warming on individuals.
This presentation will introduce how city governments committed to climate action could pilot locally relevant 1.5C Lifestyles concept to promote sustainable consumption, as well as how individuals could devise a low carbon lifestyle that suits their personal circumstances, along with sharing experiences of people from six cities, who tried the 1.5C Lifestyles.
ADITI KHODKE
MIKE FAULKNER & D-FUSE
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Mike Faulkner is Founder and Director of D-Fuse – a collective of audiovisual innovators working with environmental storytelling. Active since the mid-1990s, D-Fuse has created immersive installations, experimental film, animation, live A/V performances, and VR/XR. Recognised as pioneers of VJ-ing, D-Fuse has embraced new technologies to engage audiences with social and environmental issues through individual stories and detailed narratives.
D-Fuse has collaborated with musicians, researchers, and organisations, including Steve Reich, Beck, Hauschka, Scanner, Immersive Media Lab/USC, British Film Institute, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Kevin Walker (Immersive Media, Coventry University), Mark Maslin (Earth System Science, UCL), Danny Dorling (Geography, Oxford University), among many others.
About Nine Earths:
Nine Earths is an immersive environmental documentary that explores the relationship between everyday events and humanity’s excessive demand for the Earth’s resources. Nine Earths reveals global consumption patterns through the lens of climate justice. The artwork features a mosaic of day-to-day life, using footage shot by collaborators from around the world.
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Originally commissioned by the British Council to mark COP26, the UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, Nine Earths takes audiences on an audiovisual journey through multiple locations, highlighting individual voices and stories. Instead of presenting overwhelming scientific data and stereotypical imagery of climate emergency, Nine Earths takes a closer look at daily routines of people across the world and draws attention to the accelerating consumption—the driving cause of climate change. Using visual ethnography, imagery, sound, and candid interviews, Nine Earths presents people’s perceptions of consumption and reveals lifestyle choices that, often unwittingly, impact our planet.
Mike’s presentation will include a screening of Nine Earths and the behind-the-scenes of producing it.
Mike’s/D-Fuse’s social media accounts:
Twitter: @D_Fuse
Instagram: @dfuse_av