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4IR: How Cities & Businesses Can Transform their Infrastructure & Supply Chain
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Nov 9, 2023
Panel 4IR: How Cities and Businesses can Transform their Infrastructure and Supply Chain with Society 5.0, AI, Blockchain and Sustainability Frameworks Hilton Supra | Moderator | Vice Chairman ztudium & citiesabc Kiran Fernandes | Professor and Associate Dean Durham University UK - https://www.dur.ac.uk/business/research/management/profile/index.php?mode=staff&id=11444 Michael Stanley-Jones | Programme Management Officer at United Nations Environment Programme - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael_Stanley-Jones Rhona Morrell | Founder and Director Coco Airlie Consulting - https://www.cocoairlieconsulting.com/ Monika Kočiová | Director of Slovak Chamber of Commerce & Industry- Kosice regional chamber - https://hetfa.eu/v4network/slovak-chamber-of-commerce-and-industry-kosice-regional-chamber/ at openbusinesscouncil Summit #obcsummit FULL PROGRAM https://openbusinesscouncil.org/summit/ JOIN THE CONVERSATION https://twitter.com/openbusinesshq https://twitter.com/citiesabc__
View Video Transcript
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Good morning, good evening, and good afternoon
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My name is Hilton Supra, and I'm moderated for Fourth Industrial Revolution
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How Cities and Businesses Can Transform Their Infrastructure and Supply Chain with Society 5.0
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AI and blockchain, and sustainability frameworks. Thank you very much to our esteemed panelists who are joining us today
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We have an hour to go through some of the issues. revolved around and centered on cities and businesses and their transformative journey
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in particular looking at infrastructure and supply chain. I've got Kieran Fernandez, professor and associate dean of Durham University with us today
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He's the internationalization and professor of operations management at the Durham University
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Business School. He's also an Executive Director of the Northern Powerhouse Innovation Observatory
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and a Fellow of the University of Durham and the Wollstone Research Institute. He's held academic
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positions at the Universities Warwick and York and is a Professor Invité in Lyon in France
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and a Special Advisor and Consulting Professor at the Cabinet Office Civil and Contingency
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Secretariat. He has been appointed by the UK Secretary of State for International Development
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and a non-executive director of the UK National Commission for UNESCO, with special responsibility
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for a higher education, and in 2017 was elected vice chair of the UK NC. He's also a director of
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Global Gateway Federation, and he currently sits on a range of advisory panels covering various
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aspects of operations and innovations management, academic advisory council members and Chartered
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Management Institute and is a member of a variety of editorial boards. Welcome Professor Fernandes
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We've got Michael Stanley Jones. He's sitting in Nairobi having left minus two degrees in Bohemia
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very close to where one of the other panelists are, and he is the program management office for
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for United Nations Environment Programme. As a Programme Management Officer for the United Nations
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he supports knowledge management and digital transformation within the ecosystem integration branch based in Nairobi
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and a co-secretariat of United Nations in Lands for Sustainable Fashion from 2018 in July
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until September this year. Michael is an advocate for engagement with the textile and apparel industry
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and based on the 2030 agenda, I think it is for sustainable development
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And if you probably know Michael, he's also a very, very interesting poet
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We've got Rona. Rona is a founder and director of Cocoa Airline Consulting Limited
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which is a consulting business that puts brands at the heart and creates effective return on investment
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They've worked with some of the biggest brands, working with the likes of Red Bull, Heineken, Rugby World Cup
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to the UK's best-known names like Green King, NEC Group, and Carling
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to name a few. She's managed significant companies and particularly most of the
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that are still in the market today, and most importantly, guided senior leaders through change
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by addressing the challenge head-on, by creating effective new strategies and corporate goals
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She's negotiated at incredible levels for asset purchases and large deals, and a very positive impact everywhere that she goes
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in terms of her business acumen. And working very much and focusing on work across all areas
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particularly FMG, MCG, retail and sports sectors. Then we've got Monika Kočeva
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who's the director of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Kozice Regional Chamber
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She's responsible for the operations of the chamber, which is basically for the second largest region of Slovakia
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managing a large team and cooperating with a significant number of foreign diplomatic represent countries I think it's about 30 plus in the European region and 20
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chambers of commerce industry-wide she's been basically managing and working with lots of NGOs
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in various countries in Europe and also focusing on cross-functional projects with multiple domestic
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partners and in terms of attending and organizing conferences and forums and working with all the
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delegations and professional training and seminars that she was actually involved in
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Thank you very much for joining us. I'd like to start by saying that advanced leading edge
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solutions like augmented reality, the cloud and big data, which are technologies pertaining to
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Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0. Now these technologies improve work conditions They create new business models and increase both productivity and company quality production
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However, they can also improve life and society as a whole. The new perspective oriented towards social and global well-being is called Society 5.0
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where we put the citizen in the center of all this industry 4.0 development
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So my first question to the panel is, how can cities and governments create a policy to enable the adoption of 4.0 technologies in terms of society 5.0 and frame it in terms of infrastructure and supply chain
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So, Kiran, can you just, because we talked about this a lot, can you talk a little bit about how governments can create policy to enable this adoption
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Thank you very much and thanks for the invitation to be on the panel Hilton
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I think you asked a very interesting question and the question is how do you bring about
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interaction between a number of stakeholders and in this case particularly policymakers
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To answer that perhaps what we might want to talk about briefly before answering is
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what is Society 5.2? Because at the heart of this particular society is a mechanism that will allow
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policymakers to engage and create this Society 5.2. Now, there are various definitions and, you know
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this whole event has covered a lot. So broadly putting it in sort of a few words, you know
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some of them call it a super smart society. Super smart society is an ecosystem. It's an ecosystem
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of a number of things that come together. And the way I like to look at it is a place that connects to technology which connects to business and then it connects to knowledge which again connects to play so it like a circular system
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and at the heart of this is one enabler and that's policy making so to answer your question you know
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how can policy makers or how can policy affect i think policy can affect how a place is organized
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and this is where issues of not just economics but issues around how you organize a space in
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terms of technology connectivity sustainability education etc all come together and then
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what also policymakers can do is connect to how technology can play a role in this place
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how businesses can then feed from this technology and how policies can affect
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effective knowledge transfer in this space. So I think in a number of ways, policy makers can engage
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in several dimensions and there are several examples where you can see very pragmatic
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policy making on how you can create this space. For example, if you look at the northeast of
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England, the region where I'm currently located, you can see how policymaking is bringing together
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knowledge along with the industry as well as the business ecosystem and technology together
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the triple helix, to make a system that works. And it's based around an open innovation policy
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And this whole idea of an open innovation policies, you allow these stakeholders to engage with one another and create an ecosystem from which policies emerge
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Because having a generalized policy will never work. Policy has to be targeted
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Policy has to make a place which is at the heart of society 5.0, a particular situation where this ecosystem can be enabled
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So I think the future of policymaking is going to be far more open. It's going to be at the heart of it is how these stakeholders can come together to create policies along with policymakers. So that's my view on how policy can engage with place in a 5.0 system
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Thank you. Monica, you do deal with lots of the chambers of commerce and of course very
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much integration with governments. But what is your experience of policy making in this
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particular context? Well, what we have been seeing recently, it's more interest of the governments, either local
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or our national in the qualified data collection and also in the more participative models of
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engagement with the society and with the citizens. So I think what's the future, apart from the
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cooperation and the effective ecosystems that Professor Fernandez has been mentioning, which is the cooperation of academia, research and development, businesses, and also the
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governments. It's also a very innovative systems that would collect the data and also the willingness
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of the governments to base their decisions and policymaking on qualified research
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And so I think that we are in a good way in our space in the Central Europe, for example
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and also in the city and the region where we are currently
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I think that it's very important that we focus on certain parts
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that we do not generalize everything, that we suggest the priorities where we want to cooperate
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and we want to go forward. And first of all, that we include the citizens in the decision making
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Thank you for that. Michael, you've been working very much at the United Nations level
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in terms of developing policy and dealing with many governments in terms of putting that policy in place
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What's your experience in that area? You know, it actually builds directly on my experience in Kosice, Slovakia
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which was my last event that I helped United Nations Development Program and United Nations Environment Program co-organize with the Danube Environmental Forum
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which was a 10-country coalition of green groups, of grassroots organizations, of environmental advocacy organizations
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who came together to support implementation of a newly adopted convention, the Danube Environmental Protection Convention, the Danube River Basin Convention
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which Slovakia is a member of. And Košica, the city, hosted with the university and local NGOs a forum of 10 country green groups
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And we helped craft policy statements that governments could consider when they convened the first meeting of the parties to the Danube Convention shortly after this adoption
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I then returned to my home in Silicon Valley, California, and joined a new coalition called the Silicon Valley Environmental Partnership
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And here, I think we really followed the model of bringing the civil society together with local government
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leadership from municipalities, from cities, county leadership, regional leadership, and state leadership, along with the business community. So it was a partnership of business, government
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and civil society that helped craft the agenda. Eventually, the partnership morphed. It evolved
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to become a new organization called Sustainable Silicon Valley, which helped advocate for smart
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growth in the cities, for energy reform, and for clean water, among other issues. It was one of the
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first groups to work with the governor's office, then Governor Schwarzenegger, on the climate
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agenda to cut the carbon footprint of California society. So these are examples of how we brought
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together, really, Silicon Valley's IT leadership and applied emerging technologies like GIS
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like internet clearinghouse platforms. Still early days, we didn't have mobile telephony in those days
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but we were talking about community monitoring of the environment where information gathered by the grassroots, by the public
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could inform decision-making by regional and state and eventually international authorities. Because I then went back from my grassroots neighborhood
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where I worked on issues of toxic pollution and of energy conservation, transport and clean water
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to join the United Nations Environment Program eventually a decade later. So it's really this transiting of activism between the real actors in our communities
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which are businesses local leadership and civil society citizens with the governmental processes and structures like the intergovernmental organizations I work for now and the legal instruments
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the Danube Convention, the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation
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and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, to which Slovakia is also a member state
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and larger instruments like the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. I'll stop there, but I think that there needs to be this fluidity between society and governance that works at all levels
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Thank you, Michael. And Rona, with your work that you did with ARC 2013 and particularly your engagement with the Princess Trust, in terms of your engagement with policymaking, can you explain a little bit more about ARC 2013 and that context
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Yeah, I think first and foremost, in terms of bringing it around infrastructure and supply chain and policy, policy always scares people
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So I think it needs to be education, build confidence and give clarity
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We all know that when we put the people at the heart of something and we equip them with those tools, that they will absolutely thrive
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And to Michael's point, there's a strong piece here around education. so for example I became a founding member of ARC 2030 which is part of the UN decade of change
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in the summer mainly because of their audacious goals but because of the the action that they're
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taking but as part of that we are going to be educating free of charge over 1 billion
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students globally around kind of that crisis now what's important about that is anyone listening
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who may have children or nieces and nephews. I learn an awful lot when it comes to digital and tech from my kids
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albeit they're 11 and 7. But what I've found is that by engaging youth minds
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it's really powerful in terms of looking at the diversity and decision-making roles, but also a consideration for having
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like, a youth board, a silent exec team, where you've got people from all walks of life and much younger who can kind of challenge the norm
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So I'm bringing it back down to that lower level. But I guess sometimes, like anything, it's about keeping it simple
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Thank you. Professor Fernandes, is there, in terms of policymaking and the framework of policymaking
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is there anything that you want to add? Do you have any couple of slides that we could look at
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that you could frame some of this discussion? Possibly, yeah. I mean, you know, what I could perhaps talk about
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is how we are perceiving society 5.0, if that would help. So, I mean, so I'll see if I can share
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I'm sorry to put you on the spot because I know you're incredibly resourced. No, no, that's fine
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That's fine. Okay. Not a problem. Can you see that? Can you see the screen there
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Not yet. Can you see it? This is the good thing about doing things live on the fly
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There you go. It's saying it's sharing. One second. Let me try
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but while you're doing that in the past we've worked together looking at
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particular frameworks in terms of policy and it's very very important to have a baseline
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and a context you talk about the triple helix and you talk about
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how all the different stakeholders are interacting with each other and I think it's really across various
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aspects and various industry verticals and very very important that some of the things are some of the the the elements of that of that that policy impact
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not just particular areas but actually a much more broader not sure if you can see the screen
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but if not then uh i think we will that that's abandoned that i apologize yeah okay no that's
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fine that's fine okay uh basically you know the example which i perhaps can give is um how we are
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trying to look at an ecosystem. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, an ecosystem is a fairly rich
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concept. And the reason why it's rich is if you think about a place in isolation, and you then
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start, so for example, you know, the Northeast, the Northwest of UK, or for the matter of UK
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and other parts of the world, you generally tend to see policymaking that typically covers
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the entire state or the entire region or in most cases the entire country
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Now, while this works for certain type of policies, what we argue is if you are particularly focused
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on the concept of society 5.0, where you are trying to create these so-called super smart
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societies. So this is where you're trying to come, you're trying to bring these stakeholders to create
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what is a form of a business model which we call a sustainability equilibrium business model
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now broadly what this model argues for the business models argues for is on on the extreme
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traditional way of looking at business models you have on the extreme right if i use that term
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you know traditional businesses that operate to create profit and on the exact opposite side what
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you have are businesses that are traditionally non-profit and the entire focus of that is around
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social value creation and on the right hand side is economic value creation
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What Society 5.0 needs is a business model that operates in the center so almost in between a
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social enterprise on the left and a socially responsible business which is perhaps the most
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common type of businesses today you rarely have any businesses that only operate traditionally
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for profit or you have businesses that traditionally operate for non-profit i mean it would
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fair to say majority of businesses are socially aware of what they're trying to do with csr etc
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and on this side what you have is a non-profit organization but clearly understand that income
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generation is an important aspect of it but what society 5.2 demands is this sustainability
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equilibrium, a business model that operates in between these two types of paradigm
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And to achieve that type of paradigm, what is absolutely essential is you need to understand
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how that particular place is operating. So the northeast of England, almost what we are arguing here, is different to the northwest
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of England, which is different to Yorkshire, which is different to Midlands, which is different
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So what you need is a vehicle in policymaking that can cater to these different regions Now every country tries to do it in some form For example in the UK you have economic boards And what the economic boards try
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to argue is they're trying to somehow enhance regional policymaking. But that's not the same
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as genuinely making the policy work. Because in a way, what you have a tension here is you have
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businesses that are global operating in this space, but you're trying to make a regional policy to
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encourage businesses to engage in a global market. So this is a fairly complex picture
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And there are a number of models which, you know, at some point, perhaps I can talk in more
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detail. But at the heart of this particular policymaking is a simple concept called smart
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digital webbing. Smart meaning the business models that you generate and the policies that
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support the generation of this business model has to take into account and understand the place
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so that is where the smartness comes the second element of that the decision-making strategies
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you need to understand that there are companies that operate in a region that are global and
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hence digital becomes a central element of it and the last but not the least element of how you bring
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the things together is this idea of trying to connect different islands of information across
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the world, which is where the word webbing appears. So it's smart digital webbing is at the heart of
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how you come up with regional policies. So that's really what I was trying to perhaps put forth as
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an example. And this is something we are trialing in the Northeast. This is how we make regions
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not just competitive, which is absolutely important for businesses, but you bring this
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sustainability equilibrium business model. So it's not on the other extreme, but more importantly
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it's something that caters to society 5.0. Thank you. Feel free to jump in, Rona
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Monica, or Michael, on how in particular this smart digital webbing could be as an infrastructure
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based on policy useful in the environment that you work in? Well, if I could continue the story and illustrate how the governance frameworks
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and the stakeholder engagement can actually lead to innovations and applications of technology
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the creation of data sources that inform policymaking and the use of tools that were
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unknown when the processes I'm describing began. I'll return this briefly to Silicon Valley
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where some green groups had sued the local governments under the Federal Clean Water Act
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for impairment of the lower South San Francisco Bay, metal contamination principally, but some
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other impairments. And under a resolution of that lawsuit, a process was launched, a multi-stakeholder
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process to develop action plans to protect that water body. And part of the action that was
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triggered by this was creation of a community board of scientists and citizens called Emerging
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Contaminants Work Group. And that group found and documented a phenomenon we hadn't thought of
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when we started this watershed protection process. And that was micro plastic pollutants
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microfibers coming into water bodies, into our oceans. Now, fast forward 20 years, we now have
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a global process called the Ad Hoc Expert Group on microplastics and marine litter and microplastic
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pollutants. And that group has called for global mapping of plastic pollution. And that global
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mapping is supported by technologies like Earth Observation Satellite data that is helping us
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understand where the loading comes, where the leakage of plastic comes. And through that
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we also have discovered the products, the consumer products that we have in our everyday lives
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that are problematic for protecting our environment and protecting human health. In particular, microfibers, microplastics coming from the apparel that we wear, the synthetic fibers that we use to make approximately two thirds of the clothing that is sold internationally, globally
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And so, again, we're looking now to new technologies from Industrial Revolution 4.0, monitoring through the Internet of Things, using blockchain to certify the materials that go into product streams, using it to facilitate trade so that those producers, those designers know what they're buying when they buy and know what environmental qualities
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those products, those textiles in particular, have, and then can use that information to
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remarket new products to show that they are more sustainable, that they are more eco-friendly
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that they do not harm other environmental values like water quality or human health from the
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contamination that is associated with these products. And what I'm describing, in fact
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is an integrated approach to sustainable consumption and production, one of the key
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17 sustainable development goals that were framed up, again, by a stakeholder process
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the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which Hilton introduced a few moments ago
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That was a process to define a 15-year horizon, a kind of blueprint for the planet
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and was adopted by universal consensus. 193 member states of the United Nations adopted that agenda in 2015
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following a stakeholder engagement process that accumulated 3 million voices. You know, the greatest experience the globe has ever had of coming together
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and coming together with one voice to define an agenda through 2030
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So I've taken you from the grassroots, from a local governance issue
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through science, through technology, and through global governance to get back to where we are today, building toward that successful agenda
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Thank you. Rona, I mean, you've worked with a lot of large, global, consumer-driven companies who produce incredible levels of product
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What initiatives have you been working on or with them in terms of, as Michael said, coming up with new products to really minimize that impact on society
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Yeah, absolutely. And I think I just wanted to pick up on something
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Kieran had said, and I think what is always going to be a challenge is this shouldn't be a non-for-profit versus making a billion dollars
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It's actually about bringing it together. Fundamentally, I know infrastructure and supply chain is important
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but most businesses will go to supply chain first and they'll look at where they can save water
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where they can increase efficiencies, where they can source their products more sustainably
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But I think there's a wider piece around this, around whatever the brand, product or service is
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in the communications. So I spent some time last year in Africa, in Ethiopia, and also Bangladesh
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working with a global apparel manufacturer, looking at all the great initiatives that
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they were pulling in around sustainable fashion, new materials, fabrics, women's rights
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And I think until we get that level of demand, it's still seen that it's the luxury brands that
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can kind of attain this this sense of um social awareness however you know interestingly in this
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covid year we have a uk shortage of cardboard because amazon has literally just taken up all
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the entire supply um in the uk so i think a lot of the brands that i work with historically so
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you know a while back now will may have had a sustainability agenda but I think what's
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what's wakening people up now is that no longer can they just have it to greenwash
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they are exposed very rapidly by consumers and clients if they're not doing what they say
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and I think it's part of that agenda that it has to sit culturally from the senior leadership teams
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chairmans right through to all the amazing people that make a business happen. Sustainability needs
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to be injected culturally across the organization. And it's okay if you're not 100% green right now
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every business is in a different stage of its life cycle. But showing the intent of where you
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are now being honest, and then showing that that growth and platform of where you're going to get
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to in the next three to five years, I think is really, really important
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And so working with clients at the minute and kind of helping them expose what they are
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and they aren't doing, I think sometimes is the best thing and often easier to do when
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you're outside looking in. Monica, I mean, you sit at the centre of Europe, you know, the Slovakia, Hungary area
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and with lots of traditional industries and a lot of developments. How does your engagement with the policymakers and the businesses that you work with in the Chamber
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what efforts are they making to move forward or accelerate forward in terms of their sustainable development
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Well, the important fact is that our region has been traditionally, as you mentioned
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very traditional, focused on heavy industry, which means metallurgy and electrical engineering
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for example. And for the past decade, there has been a huge change and transformation of the businesses
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and it's gone much more to IT and research and development. So a lot of employment, it's now coming from the IT sector and R&D
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And as we do have four major universities, international universities, and as well three research centers, it's a crucial point where we can start
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For example, the international cooperation, which is not only in the area of Central Europe, but it's also with, for example, Russian Academy of Science with China, with Taiwan, etc
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So we as a platform, we do the networking and the interconnection between businesses, but also between straight to the governments of different countries and also the technological parks
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and we see it as a huge potential also for the advancement and for example the startups
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the cooperation of startups. We had an initiative with Serbia lately, for example
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so I think there's a huge potential now with the global interconnection of different stakeholders. Yes. Yeah
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So, if I can add one point to the conversation, if that's okay
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I think Michael brought an exceptionally good point. And the point on particularly the SDGs, if I take that as an example, because it also
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brings attention. And the tension is around when you use data-driven policymaking
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are some benefits clearly because you're making policies based on a lot of data but it also brings
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in in issues so for example on the spg you know uh the classic example there's 17 of them 190 plus
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countries have signed up to it and uh regular data is provided on an annual basis um by countries
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and there are various league tables that as a result of it emerge which then broadly speaking
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rank countries and give you benchmarking and so on so forth. So this is a classic example of
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how you would collect data to come up with where the gaps are and the intention of this is of course
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to try to help countries that are perhaps not in the top quarter and put energy on countries that
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are perhaps at the bottom of the scale. Now with such a data-driven system or policy making it also
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brings unintended consequences. For example the unintended consequence here is whenever you create a league table that always gets translated into as policymakers will like to do
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into money pounds or dollars and what this picture always shows you is so if you present this to a
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policy maker and uh the unesco report which i have written is exactly on this issue uh which perhaps
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which can also be as you know uh it's on the city's abc webpage and that is what it the tension
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here is when you present such data, the first question a policymaker will ask on this data is
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are you asking me for more money? Because there's a huge gap between the top and the bottom
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Is that what you're presenting this data in a nutshell? And the answer is, in some form
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that is an outcome from this exercise, but that's not necessarily the intention of what the data is
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collected for. So the tension we have to be very, very mindful of using data-driven policymaking is
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While the intentions are to create accurate reflection of what's happening and then use
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that intelligence to create policy, the unintended consequences of such data-driven mechanisms
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are the... So what you then end up doing is and this is a live debate at least as far as UNESCO is concerned you have to constantly justify this is country by country and this is happening as much as in the US In fact it happened in the US some time ago with UNESCO in particular with other countries
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And that is why are we members of an organization? Why are we putting money into this pod, etc, etc
37:45
So what society 5.0 needs as a decision making strategy, I'm not saying get rid of data driven
37:51
There are merits of data-driven, but I think a lot more focus on smart citizen-driven policymaking
37:59
And I think citizen-driven policymaking is where you try to view what the outcomes are
38:05
Now, if you ask me collectively, does everybody agree with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals
38:11
And the answer is yes. So the question now becomes, why are we creating this boundary, i.e., this data-driven
38:18
because they, for example, if I pick up SDG1, no poverty is as an issue in UK as much as it's an
38:26
issue in any other country, for example. Okay. Now, the fact that you create this data-driven
38:31
track on it, all of a sudden creates this hierarchy because all of a sudden people say
38:36
oh, nobody in UK is earning below $1.50 and therefore we are okay. And the answer is it's
38:42
not the point the point of sdg1 is to ensure that there is no poverty in a place in a smart society
38:49
so the point i'm trying to advocate here is perhaps we need both for different reasons but i think we
38:56
need to push for far more smart citizen driven policy making sorry to jump in there no no i think
39:03
you're absolutely right and i know rona rona i know exactly from your body language wants to say
39:08
something because it resonates with you no no absolutely and you know I'm I'm a simple human
39:16
being and I think that um the citizen policy making and kind of touch on that a little bit more um
39:24
here and is around this kind of mass awareness and actually the word consumer itself means waste
39:30
so I think that the the thing that's always frustrated me and people that I've dealt with is
39:37
is kind of the action side of it. So it's great having everyone signed up
39:41
and it's great having all these policies. What I want to see is what are the outcomes
39:45
and what's the action. And I guess that's why I kind of became part of ARC 2030
39:53
But there are so many people and so many apps all trying to do the same thing
39:58
Whereas we all now know with COVID that when everyone comes together
40:03
and to Kieran's point, no one argues with those points in the UN that need to be done a rich community a poor community so I've always envisaged and maybe
40:13
I'm just deluded but this kind of what if scenario where when everyone gets together like COVID okay
40:21
there's still the blooming competition around who did it first and whatever but we've done it we've
40:26
nailed it so what if for 12 months globally we worked on those 17 initiatives I you know that's
40:33
just a thought to drop out there, but it's about the action, not the policies and the
40:38
sign-ups, it's who's doing what. But what you said before, Rona, was very interesting, is engagement from the stakeholder, and the
40:48
stakeholder being young children and the younger generation, it's much more of a bottom-up
40:52
policy rather than a bottom-up meets top-down policy, and digital engagement can do that
41:02
I mean, we are able to crowdsource an incredible amount of information on behavior, opinion, action, consumption, and lots of things like that
41:14
So we do have the dynamic data. I mean, a lot of data sits in silos, but if we have access to that data, it becomes, and it's put in a framework, as Kieran mentioned
41:28
so that you don't get this disparity between league tables where the top of league tables are cities like Amsterdam
41:38
Boston, New York, London, and Kigali and Nairobi are languishing in the doldrums
41:45
Yeah, and for the youth, if you're growing up in that world
41:51
you're always forever going to be going, well, that's never going to be me. That's never going to be my village or community
41:57
or country. So, you know, I was on a call last night with the CEO of Tusk
42:03
You know, we know that we need about $600 billion annually. Michael, I think you may have been on that call last night
42:11
Annually, and we've probably got about $100 billion. So, yes, we need the youth, but we need these big players
42:19
who have got the dollar, let's be honest. I mean, I think Jeff Beesoff could probably buy Amazon
42:24
um that's that's what we need give them the tools and the youth will bring it in
42:30
let me uh try to illustrate that with one one of the goals which of course is uh to to address the
42:37
carbon crisis the climate emergency um and we have we have a sustainable development goal
42:44
that addresses that in fact the 17 goals are backed by 169 targets but if you want to talk
42:52
about action, if you are an enterprise, if you're a company or community that is hosting a company
42:59
a factory town. I grew up in Cupertino, which turned into Apple's headquarters as I was growing
43:06
up and transformed the landscape. So if you live in such a place, you want to understand how those
43:12
17 goals translate down to actions that you can take as an entrepreneur, as a citizen, as a consumer
43:19
And it turns out to be really tough. It's hard to disaggregate the 169 targets and bring them down to the level where a CEO, a board of directors, an investment group, and managers of enterprises know which actions to take
43:38
So coming back to the carbon goal, we have a goal of setting by 2050 the planet on course to be carbon neutral
43:47
To do that by 2030, we need to cut 2018 carbon emission levels, greenhouse gas emission equivalency levels in half
43:56
And then between 2030 and 2040, we have to cut them in half again
44:01
For that first milestone, we know 60% of the solution is picking the right energy source
44:07
Use sustainable energy, you're going to get more than halfway there by 2030
44:12
20% has to do with consumer behavior. And that's where education and consumer choice will be decisive in moving the needle so we can achieve carbon neutrality
44:23
The remaining 20%, really that's up to the producers. That's up to designing for the environment
44:29
That's up to instituting circular economic business models. And those will be data driven
44:35
We have in the United Nations system, the United Nations Alliance for Sustainable Fashion
44:40
the interagency coordinating body, working with UNFCCC, the climate change secretariat, they've developed a playbook for enterprises to help them set science-based targets
44:55
So they know what their pathways are to achieving at an enterprise level carbon neutrality And at a regional level like the region of Silicon Valley or Northwestern or Northeastern UK there are initiatives that can use those benchmarks and promote the education the training the knowledge sharing even among competitors
45:21
Because once someone finds a solution to improve performance, we need to ensure those solutions are rapidly shared
45:29
And the data platforms will help us. The United Nations Environment Program is about to, it has proposed for its new medium-term strategy, which will be launched in 2022, digital transformation as a new area of foci among our sub-programs of UNEP
45:49
And the United Nations General Assembly and the Secretary General has asked UNEP to come up with a global environmental data strategy by 2025
45:59
Those are processes that stakeholders can engage in. We already have 30 partnerships with Alibaba, with Google, with other major players in the global economy on how to build the digital tools that will transform our performance on the environment and support the 2030 Agenda
46:19
Thank you. Monica, how much of this resonates with you in terms of your engagement with your members in all the different chambers of commerce in terms of their adoption of digital transformation within the framework, the United Nations Sustainable Goals, and how, as you mentioned, technology is the new industry rather than the old industry
46:47
What impact are you seeing from that side? Yeah, I would like to add to a few points that have been mentioned
46:57
And I think the most important word in all of it is balance
47:01
It's a balance between different industries, initiatives, points of view, etc. So when Rona was speaking about the youth, I think that's a very important thing
47:12
and education is one of the crucial systems and frameworks that need to be sustained from the government
47:21
And we need to educate the young generation in a way that they feel
47:26
and they do require the values that we are talking about and they consider it as something very natural
47:34
So what I see from my work is that the new entrepreneurs
47:41
and the young generation, they already incorporate the ideas of eco-friendly and sustainable technologies within what they do
47:52
And they do not want to continue in the old pathways, and their businesses are going green
48:00
So that's very important. And I think we should continue and support it, support the innovation
48:06
and also the sustainability via different incentives and also fundings. Other thing which I think is very important in the terms of sustainability and businesses
48:20
it's an environment, it's the EU leadership in this question. And what we have been witnessing, what has happened
48:29
it's also the unfairness that the companies, for example, within the EU feel comparing to the third countries
48:36
uh which gives the advantage to the countries outside of the eu uh which do not happen to not
48:43
have to comply with the requirements of the united of the european union right so the prices and and
48:50
supply um it's very different so that is something that i believe we have to face and change uh
48:59
because we are losing all the tradition not only traditional but a lot of business and industry
49:03
within europe um and outsourcing outsourcing it outside uh which during the covet 19 um
49:12
we have seen uh as problematic right because the supply chains have been cut the global
49:19
supply chains so i think that is uh also a crucial uh point in our work uh and which we talk about
49:26
a lot inside the circle of the chambers of commerce and industry and a topic which has been
49:34
faced recently is also the circular economy so that is something we i think we can within
49:42
not only europe but also worldwide share our experience in and and the know-how and that is
49:49
something that we have seen uh in the chamber and within the uh the frameworks that we are active in
49:55
as very positive and the contribution has been huge on the national government level
50:04
but also on the level of the universities, for example, and exchange programs and common initiatives
50:12
Thank you for that. That segues very interesting onto our final question. We've got 10 minutes to
50:17
get through this. We've talked about policy, we've talked about frameworks, We've talked about initiatives and we talked about the technology in order to put those initiatives into place and also to monitor and build the framework
50:34
There's a lot of talk about blockchain in terms of creating a truthful environment for the supply chain
50:44
We look at AI, which is a great way of enabling and creating less friction within the supply chain
50:54
Kiran in the work that you're doing and dealing with governments and
51:00
policymakers and even the education system the tools are they really like
51:08
the the minor discussion where the major discussion is still policy was the
51:14
other way around I think I think there's a debate on both
51:23
uh ilton and so you know the the one of the challenges is technology is emerging at a pace
51:36
which policy cannot catch up with and will never be able to catch up with okay for example you know
51:43
we talk about ai as a general contact but if i specifically look at uh augmented artificial
51:49
intelligence this is where machines are talking to machines the question there which is an
51:55
unanswered question yet till date is what is the ethics that governs when you have machines talking
52:01
to machines okay there's no framework there's no policy for it and broadly what's happening is
52:07
machines are talking to machines it's not like machines are going to stop because of the lack of
52:11
policy but machines are are talking to other machines so in a way i think policy will always
52:18
lack technology. And it really, therefore, asks the question, the fundamental point is what is policy Do we see policy as purely rules and regulations that have been set by an authority or by a government which we must obey and follow
52:38
Is that what we mean by policy? And if that is the case, there will never be a point when policy can never catch up with technology because the pace of change of technology is at such a level that you just cannot make this happen
52:53
So what we need is a social framework, broad guidelines, which we all, you know, we are having this conversation and we have an unwritten social contract, which is that when one speaker is having a conversation or making a point, the other speakers don't necessarily interrupt or talk while the first speaker is speaking
53:15
Now, this is an unwritten rule. It's a social contract which we all collectively buy into to make this particular debate something of value to the listener
53:26
So we don't need a policy. We don't need rules. We don't need governance. We don't need somebody to monitor and say these things
53:32
So what I'm trying to say is if we try to curtail technology, and this is one of the issues that creates a marketplace for all sorts of technology to go outside your traditional boundaries to operate, is because of policies that don't match with the pace of how technology is moving
53:53
So what is needed, in my view, is you need to have conversations and you need to have framework
53:58
Now, the classic example on which I'm particularly involved with is the entirely better on ethics of artificial intelligence, because UNESCO having a role, particularly around culture, having data freedom, being one of the remits
54:11
This is a live conversation. And the direction of travel here is we have professional bodies like the IEEE that have a stake in it
54:20
We have companies that have a stake in it. We have citizens that have a stake in it. And we have also businesses and regions that have stake in it
54:28
So rather than saying the rules of AI are going to be ABCD, what we are trying to think is, can we come up with a framework that is a social construct on how we can behave in this particular system
54:44
Now, I'm not saying it's a foolproof system and you need an element of policing for such frameworks
54:49
You can't just have this. And clearly we can see loads of issues. So to answer your question, you know, what is the debate
54:56
Is it only about technology or is it only policymaking? What I'm trying to say is you need to have a debate where you look at the place and see what fits in the place
55:05
There will be no two places where this concept is going to work
55:08
You know, the rules we govern it, for example, in how we operate in the UK cannot be copied and pasted as a mirror policy in other parts of the world
55:18
Now, this is where we have gone wrong. You know, Michael gave example of his from Silicon Valley. Every country has tried to copy and paste the ecosystem of what Silicon Valley disease as an innovative ecosystem. And I've tried to replicate it unsuccessfully. And then the million dollar question after spending literally a million dollars into setting up an ecosystem. Why are we not the second Silicon Valley? Or why are we not the third Silicon Valley
55:44
So I think there is a debate going on on how to make this social framework to work
55:49
And I think that's the answer in the future. No, that's very, very clear
55:54
I mean, even what Monika was saying, that the challenges that Slovakia is having compared to the challenges that you're having in North, Eastern Europe, UK
56:05
to the challenges that Michael's seen from California all the way to Nairobi
56:09
and the challenges that I know your travels with ARK2030, Morona, have highlighted how different it is to Ethiopia
56:18
to the different parts of the world. So it's very, very interesting in terms of there's different stages
56:25
of technology. Technology can be very frugal and have incredible impact in certain places like Bangladesh or whatever
56:33
But that frugal app won't have any impact in London because it's much more sophisticated even though they might actually be
56:41
collecting the same sort of information but it's it's the app it's how does the
56:47
the the user interact with that how does the information feed through to the
56:53
policymakers now does do things change going forward yeah and I think just one
57:03
thing to put out there I know we're very short on time now is just really when
57:07
you say blockchain to people um it scares it scares them um it's a bit like people don't
57:14
understand their own pensions so you know on my recent podcast i interviewed an expert because
57:19
i didn't understand it and i i don't think i'm a stupid human being but i it it was new to me and i
57:26
didn't get it so therefore if we can start integrating this type of education early but
57:31
most people are scared by these i wish i wish we didn't call it blockchain i wish we would call it
57:36
internet of trust. Yes. You know, when you want to sell a good, you don't sell its materiality
57:43
you sell the benefits that flow from that. You know, so you sell beauty, you don't sell cloth
57:48
In any case, if I could, if I could end by mentioning three strategic actions that we at
57:55
UNEP, the environment program proposed to take. One is to build digital data ecosystem
58:01
which is an inclusive global data architecture and digital ecosystem to support environmental change
58:08
The second is digital applications to deploy transformative applications that can harness environmental digital public goods and help inform and transform markets
58:19
supply chains, and consumer behavior. And lastly is digital literacy. We need to help citizens understand the digital environment
58:26
because it is the world that is here now and will transform everything we do from employment to
58:33
governance to the environments we live in. So let's help the people understand the language
58:41
of the future. One final word quickly, Monica. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. If I just may conclude from
58:48
my side, I think it's very important that the government and the businesses take as a priority
58:53
the advancement of technology which serves the people, not the people who serves the technology
59:00
And I think because it's possible and if we take it as a strategic priority
59:06
And I also think that we need to create systems and frameworks within which we don't create more gaps
59:14
within different regions and countries, but also within different or among different parts and groups of the society
59:23
is not to create more tensions. Brilliant. Thank you very, very much indeed for that
59:31
I've really, really enjoyed this hour. It's been incredibly engaging and very intuitive
59:37
I've really, really learned a lot. And I really want to thank all of you for your participation
59:44
Thank you, Monica. Thank you, Rona. Thank you, Michael. And thank you, Kieran
59:50
It's been incredible. I really, really enjoyed this. And I'm glad that we're going to be recording this
59:54
I'm going to have to rewatch it in the comfort of my own home later on
59:58
But awesome. you very much indeed and goodbye
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