Sustainable Spring

Join us for two days of insights, ideas, and innovation as we explore why it pays for businesses to be green. Hear from pioneering start-ups, established businesses, and forward thinking green innovators who are tackling sustainability challenges by building commercial solutions. Discover fresh perspectives, and explore emerging opportunities that come with building your business to a greener future.

Day 1: 24^th March 10am – 4:30pm

Venue: NTU City Centre Campus, Newton Building

Hear from a dynamic mix of forward thinking businesses driven by sustainable goals. From ambitious start ups and green entrepreneurs who have secured Innovate UK funding to develop ground breaking green products, to eco conscious micro businesses and early stage businesses responding to customer driven needs where sustainability is priority in their buying decisions. You will also hear from established SMEs providing scalable profitable green solutions to key sectors.

Day 2: 25^th March, 10am – 4pm

Venue: NTU City Centre Campus, Newton Building

Get inspiration from the days panel and keynote from Tris Keech, Creative Director at The Imagination Factory, a cutting-edge design, engineering, and innovation studio. Tris will take us on a journey through Observing Human Experience, Analysing Challenges & Opportunities, and Envisioning Future Possibilities, sharing how creativity and sustainability shape the products and solutions of tomorrow. Tris will provide real world insights, and thought provoking ideas that challenge the way we see design, innovation, and the future of sustainability.

Enjoy fully flexible access – come for one session or the whole two days! Book your spot today.

Day 1 Agenda:

10:00-10:10 - Welcome to Nottingham Business School (NBS), Ben Wilson (PIEMA)

10:10-11:00 - Welcome: The Business Case for Sustainability

Charlotte Turner (AIEMA) is an experienced sustainability consultant, educator, commentator, advisor and mentor.

The business case for sustainability: Building sustainability strategies

11:00-11:15 - Coffee and Comfort

11:15-12:00 Market Changers – Panel (45 minutes)

Panel and fireside chats of change makers and next gen innovators who will share their experiences and talk about their journeys.

• Lance Hill - Co-Founder - Eight Group: Based in Nottingham, operating internationally, working under the four sub-brands of ‘Eight Days’, ‘Eight Plus’, Eight Digital’, and ‘Eight Create’ to offer added value to customers through all channels – connecting the dots of your Print and Marketing. We are a committed sustainable, carbon-neutral business and proudly B-Corp Certified.
• Dan Lawrence-Eyre - Co-founder & COO at Diode: Digital user journeys to drive net zero technology adoption. Smart software to maximise net-zero sales. Insight-driven customer experiences and powerful sales intelligence – customised to support delivery of your net-zero sales strategy.
• Tristram Keech - Creative Director - Imagination Factory: The Imagination Factory is a London-based product innovation consultancy, working across the consumer, industrial, health and transport sectors. With a focus on MedTech and NetZero clients, it simultaneously explores and exploits ideas for its clients and for itself.
• NTU Sustainability Team: Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is one of the most sustainable universities in the world. Our Embracing Sustainability and Net Zero Carbon strategy enable a culture of sustainable development across the NTU community.

12:00-12:45 Market Makers – Panel (45 minutes)

Our panel of eco-innovators will share their experience of developing more environmentally-friendly product and services – and their plans for disrupting traditional markets.

• Eden Harrison - CTO and Co-Founder - Carbon Cell: Carbon Cell is dedicated to providing a sustainable alternative to traditional polymer-based foams. Our high-performance expandable foam is fully compostable and locks in carbon for centuries. We are on a mission to make polystyrene waste a thing of the past.
• Josephine Liang - Co-Founder - Cauli: Cauli is a robust tech-enabled reusable food and drink packaging solution for workplace and event dining, earning recognition and awards along the way. We are on a mission to empower the foodservice industry to eliminate single-use food packaging through our expertly designed, AI-powered Cauli Reuse System (CauliRS) that eases operations, cuts costs, and saves the planet.
• Tayla Evans - MD & Founder - EnviroTent: Eco-friendly festival living. Your pre-pitched, non-polluting, personalised tent, make your next festival greener and cleaner. It’s our mission to revolutionise camping by providing 100% recyclable cardboard tents at festivals – challenge convention, embrace natural materials over plastics, and foster a sustainable camping culture.

12:45-13:15 - Networking Lunch

Vegan lunch and insect snacks! Wellbeing activities etc.

13:15-14:45 - Sustainable Marketing and Communications: Lessons from Fashion (Part 1, 1.5 hours)

Anne Peirson-Smith, Professor of Fashion, School of Design, Arts & Creative Industries, Northumbria University. Former Head of the NTU Clothing Sustainability Research Group (CSRG) focused on sustainable fashion management.

This interactive workshop will address the key foundations of sustainability principles and sustainable communication aligned with current thinking in consideration of existing and emerging regulatory frameworks. It will explore the ways that organisations can engage with consumers and stakeholders about their sustainability efforts, alignment with regulations and reduced environmental impact by using responsible communication.

The focus will be on understanding how to avoid greenwashing and greenhushing by devising and applying effective sustainability messaging in corporate climate communications for consumers and stakeholders. It will offer the best ways to locate relevant channels to disseminate considered brand narratives as a way of ensuring clarity, compliance, comprehension and transparency, embedded in an effective business strategy.

14:45-15:00 - Coffee and comfort

15:00-16:30 - Sustainable Marketing and Communications: Lessons from Fashion (Part 2, 1.5 hours)

Day 2 Agenda:

10:00-10:10 - Welcome to NBS, Ben Wilson (PIEMA)

10:10-11:40 Innovation for People, Planet & Profit (Part 1, 1.5 hours)

Tristram Keech - Creative Director - Imagination Factory

This two-part session promises to inspire and challenge traditional views on Design’s role in Innovation, and how Value Creation is crucial to a collective, sustainable future. Tristram will provide the context for Innovating today, revealing insights into the following:

• The Key to Innovation (and a useful definition)
• The Value Equation (and the Perception of Fair Exchange)
• Innovation Methodology (triangulating the needs of People, Planet & Profit)

If we are to create the desirable, viable and feasible products and services of tomorrow we need to start innovating today using the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.

11:40-12:00 - Coffee and Comfort

12:00-13:30 - Innovation and Design Thinking for Sustainability (Part 2, 1.5 hours)

13:30-14:00 - Networking Lunch

Vegan lunch and wellbeing activities in the garden.

14:00-16:00 - Practical Positive Steps for Carbon Reduction (2 hours)

Dr Rose Deakin, Carbon Management Consultant at Nottingham Business School, NTU

A practical workshop session helping you plan, reduce and manage carbon emissions within your small business – all supported by a Carbon Management Toolkit.

• Introduction to Carbon Management and the Business Case – why this is important to you
• Carbon Accounting – what is it, what are the scopes, and how do categorise your business activity (without actual calculations!)
• Strategic Action Planning for Decarbonisation – helping you identify opportunities to reduce emissions, set achievable targets, and gain the practical insight to reduce your impacts

Gain the carbon knowledge to ask better questions, interrogate your suppliers, and help you win business.

16:00 - Event Close