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There is growing realisation about the need to move to towards a greener, low carbon and resource efficient economy in Europe.
The transition from high carbon and material intensity to a more sustainable future will produce both challenges and opportunities.
To enable this will mean the implementation of 'top down' policy changes as well as the stimulation of 'bottom up' eco-innovation.
In addition, there is a need to develop new and re-design existing technologies and products to take account of growing environmental and social concerns from retailers, government, companies and consumers. This will provide opportunities from large companies but also importantly for fast moving eco-entrepreneurs. How we build the infrastructure to support this will be key. It will mean that better pipelines will need to be designed to enable good ideas to move through to commercialisation and for eco-enterprises to move from start-up to business growth. To seize the opportunity new eco-innovation orientated networks, labs, incubators and business parks will need to be built to catalyse Europe’s creativity, ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit.
Martin Charter is the Director of The Centre for Sustainable Design (www.cfsd.org.uk) at University for the Creative Arts (UCA) and a former Visiting Professor of Sustainable Product Design at UCA before joining full-time. Since 1988, he has worked at director level in 'business and environment' issues in consultancy, leisure, publishing, training, events and research. Prior to this he held in a range of management positions in strategy, research and marketing in gardening, construction, trade exhibitions, financial services and consultancy including Save & Prosper Group, Reed International, Creative Marketing Group and Kiveton Park (Holdings) Ltd. Martin was the launch Director of Greenleaf Publishing, Marketing Director at the Earth Centre, former co-ordinator of one the UK's first green business clubs, more recently he ran a regional network on green electronics (www.cfsd.org.uk/seeba) and currently he directs a network focused on eco-innovation (www.cfsd.org.uk/eco-i-net). Martin is former editor of the Journal of Sustainable Product Design, The Green Management Letter and Greener Management International (GMI) and is presently a member of the Editorial Boards of GMI, International Journal of Sustainable Engineering and International Journal of Sustainable Design. Martin is a member of international advisory board of CARE electronics network, judge on the Association of Chartered & Certified Accountants (ACCA) sustainability reporting awards (2001-2007) and a member of South-East England Development Agency (SEEDA) Waste Market Development Group, BREW South-East advisory board and was an assessor on the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) Technology Programme. Martin has previously been an advisor on sustainable innovation to Hampshire's Natural Resources Initiative, an advisory board member of the Sustainable Trade and Innovation Centre (STIC), SEEDA's Environmental Technology Taskforce and a member of the UK Design Museum's judging panel of Design Sense. Martin is presently convenor of ISO 14006 (eco-design management systems) and was the previous UK expert to both ISO and BSI groups on 'Integrating Environmental Aspects into Product Development' (ISO TR 14062). Presently, Martin also sits on sustainability advisory boards of P&G and InterfaceFlor in Europe. Martin Charter is also the producer of the ‘Sustainable Innovation’ series of international conferences now that is its 15th year. He is a regular international conference speaker and author and editor of various books and publications including Greener Marketing (1992 and 1999), The Green Management Gurus [e-book] (1996), Managing Eco-design (1997), Sustainable Solutions (2001) and System Innovation for Sustainability (2008). Martin has an MBA from Aston Business School (UK) and postgraduate diploma in marketing.
Oriol Pascual holds a bachelors degree in Environmental Sciences from Farleigh Dickinson University (NJ-USA) and holds a masters degree in Environmental Management at the Business Community from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). From a professional perspective, he has been assessing companies on environmental management issues as part of his responsibilities at the consultancy ERM. Currently he is a PhD candidate at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, Business Developer for the Dutch foundation Enviu – Innovators in Sustainability (www.enviu.org), and Pre-Incubation Manager at the Dnamo Incubator (www.dnamo.nl).
The workshop is free of charge. Please complete the registration form below and return it to Ros Carruthers on rcarruthers.t1@ucreative.ac.uk or on fax on 01252-892747.