Skip to content
Greenknight
  • Home
  • Services
    • Resource efficiency
    • Strategy
    • Stakeholder alignment
    • Materiality & risk
    • Audit and review
    • UN SDGs
    • Engaging people
    • Supply chain
    • Consortium building
    • Conferences and Events
    • Chairing and facilitation
  • About
    • Associate organisations
    • Publications
  • Contacts
  • Blog
  • Testimonials

Now For The Science Bit

A week of engagement with learned bodies in the worlds of chemistry and industrial biology. I’ve been involved on the Committee of the Agriculture Sector Group at the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) for several years, and last week we met to plan activities for the next 12 months. The Agriculture Sector Group overlaps with many other groups within the RSC and one of the events is a joint conference in November with the RSC Water Science Forum looking at some of the issues around water quality arising from the use of agrochemicals. We plan to cover the issue from a number of perspectives including regulators, practitioners and researchers, focusing primarily on the impact of crop protection products rather than fertilisers which have been well covered elsewhere. There is a nice link with one of the core strands of the Sustainable Futures project which I’ve discussed in earlier posts (see “Farms, Forks & In Between” and “Watershed Moment” below) and I’m looking forward to some shared learning. Unfortunately, I’ll not be able to attend the event as I’ll be at another conference which will be examining the impact of Brexit on the UK’s agri-food system. At a second RSC meeting this week I joined a Council Meeting of the Environment, Sustainability and Energy Division (ESED) within which the Agriculture Sector Group sits. I was there for an update on the RSC’s broader activities around sustainability, but the main reason was to represent the Agriculture Sector Group’s Committee and present more detail on the Group’s plans. As well as the conference described above, we’ll be working more with other scientific and technical organisations to maximise our reach and impact. The chemical sciences impact on many of the SDGs, and in working together we’ll be delivering on the spirit of SDG17. Agriculture specifically is directly relevant to a number of the Goals and they provide a useful lens for looking at risk and opportunity as described in an earlier post (see “Owned Goals” below).

In between the two chemistry meetings, I was in Edinburgh for a spot of biology at a strategy workshop involving members of the 3 Boards of the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) based at Strathclyde University. Industrial biotechnology (IB) is an enabling technology that uses biological substances, systems and processes to produce materials, chemicals and energy. One of a number of Innovation Centres funded by the Scottish Funding Council, IBioIC are creating new companies and enabling others to expand their portfolio or reduce cost and environmental impact. Based around 4 themes – membership, impact measurement, direct funding and indirect funding – the workshop brought together the Governing Board (which sets the strategic direction of the Centre), the Scientific Advisory Board and the Commercial Advisory Board (which I joined earlier this year) to help review and develop the next 5-year business plan for the Centre. The membership of the Boards comprises academics, industrialists (from SMEs to multinationals) and funding agencies which bring a wealth of experience to support the IBioIC executive in a variety of ways. The funding landscape is becoming ever more competitive at the same time as environmental challenges such as ocean plastic are becoming ever more pressing, so the workshop was well timed. The group came up with an impressive array of suggestions and challenges for the Centre which the executive team will work up into proposals for further discussion later in the year. It was a privilege to play a part in the day and I look forward to the next stage.

Think Global, Act Local
Something In The Air

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Ethical Corp newsfeed

  • Society Watch: Drive to make ecocide an international crime gains momentum

    Ecocide is an emotive word. First used to describe the human and environmental devastation caused by the use of the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, it became the subject of regular discussions at the United Nations throughout the 1970s. In 1998, the destruction of the environment was proposed as an international crime against peace, but ultimately wasn’t adopted as part of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Rome Statute, which includes genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression.Image: Channels: Climate and EnergyNatural CapitalTags: Stop ecocide internationalInternational Criminal CourtRome statuteEU Environmental Crime Directive

GreenBiz newsfeed

  • Building the Circular Buildings Revolution
    on April 20, 2023 at 7:15 am

    Join GreenBiz for our conversation covering the approaches building product manufacturers are using to make products more circular and keep materials in play after their first use. The idea of buildings as material banks is not new, but deserves examination as it hasn’t taken hold at the scale we would expect.

Theme by Colorlib Powered by WordPress
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT