On 14 September, I'll be facilitating one of the theme discussions at the Sustainable Finance Forum, held at The Studio, 7 Cannon St, Birmingham B2 5EP, and organised by Co-Labs Global.
Sarah Sinclair, Co-Labs' founder, built the event around a simple idea: the hardest problems facing businesses and regulators are shared problems, and they get solved faster when practitioners, regulators, academics and technologists work through them together in the same room. Microsoft and Maxwell Data are among the partners taking part.
Four themes will shape the day's facilitated discussions: Is AI Too Thirsty?, Resilience and Regulating Cloud Providers, Priorities, Strategy and Incentives, and Data, Tech and AI for Sustainability Solutions.
I've been asked to facilitate the fourth: Data, Tech and AI for Sustainability Solutions. Given my work advising businesses on responsible AI adoption, and writing the Safe AI SME Series, it's a natural fit.
How do we move from "we should use data and AI for sustainability" to specific, fundable research questions that businesses and universities can actually take on together?
That question is also the shape of the day itself. Morning keynotes set the context, two workshop sessions let each theme group surface real problems and turn them into research topics, and an afternoon session tests those topics against potential academic partners. The goal is a concrete output: research questions with a home, not just a good conversation.
If you work on the data or AI side of sustainable finance and have a view on what's actually holding progress back, I'd like to hear it before the day.