SEI Science Forum 2018: Innovating for a sustainable future

With partners from the policy world and industrial sectors the Forum highlighted the latest research, impacts and achievements on sustainability and debated the latest trends. The programme included high-profile guest speakers from the research and policy world together with expert SEI researchers from four continents. The evening concluded with refreshments and networking opportunities.

Programme

12.15: Registration opens

13.00: Welcome to SEI Science Forum 2018

Speaker: Måns Nilsson, Executive Director of SEI

13.10: Session 1

Innovative tools: For visualizing, enabling and activating the Sustainable Development Goals

This session will look at enabling action on the SDGs using data, tools and technology. Speakers will explain how data and transparency can and are driving accountability in supply chains and reducing deforestation, present the NDC-SDG connection tool, which assists decision makers understand and visualize how climate action supports the SDGs, and describe how the SDG interactions framework is being used to highlight the most critical SDG action areas facing governments and stakeholders. The session will also ask how far the application of these tools and technologies can take us in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Moderator: Henrik Carlsen (SEI Stockholm)

Speakers:

• Lena Meintrup (SEI Stockholm) – trase.earth
• Karina Barquet (SEI Stockholm) – Mapping the interactions between Sustainable Development Goals
• Georgia Savvidou (SEI Stockholm) – NDC-SDG Connections
• Ebba Dohlman (Senior Advisor, Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development at OECD)

13.40: Session 2

Unlocking innovation for a sustainable future (followed by Q&A)

How do we unlock innovation to match the level of ambition of the SDGs? What new business opportunities do the SDGs present? Green finance as a means to boost innovation and deployment is in the spotlight now, but is it undermined by controversial finance?

Moderator: Åsa Persson (SEI Stockholm)

Speakers:

• Mårten Görnerup (CEO of Hybrit) – Transition to low carbon steel
• Margareta Groth (Head of Industrial Technologies Department, Vinnova)
• Luca De Lorenzo (SEI Stockholm – Stockholm Sustainable Finance Centre)

14.40: Coffee break

15.00: Session 3

Impact stories through the lens

See the impact of SEI’s work through the medium of film.

15.10: Session 4

Innovating on climate policy: taking on the supply-side

This session will outline cutting-edge developments from the global to the local scale on managing the decline in fossil fuel production required to meet global climate goals. Panelists will address questions such as: What policies can government and non-government actors pursue to scale down extraction in an effective, efficient, and equitable manner? Who are the leaders in this space and what have they done? How is the topic being addressed in the global climate negotiations? How do we ensure workers and communities are supported in the transition to a fossil-free economy?  What can we learn from experiences in Columbia and Indonesia about the challenges and opportunities of moving away from coal?

Moderator: Michael Lazarus (SEI US) will introduce the questions with reference to activities in California and the US, and SEI’s fossil fuel initiative and upcoming conference.

Speakers:

• Harro van Asselt & Cleo Verkuijl (SEI Oxford) will describe the policy space and what national governments and the UNFCCC are doing, and touch on the importance and challenges of reducing subsidies.
• Claudia Stambo will bring insights from the recent Colombia workshop on the political economy of transitioning away from coal.
• May Thazin Aung (SEI Asia) will discuss the challenges and opportunities for managing coal in a country with a broken policy process (Indonesia).

15.55: Session 5

Promoting equality and human rights in situations of resource conflicts (followed by Q&A)

This panel discussion will shed light on the multiple dimensions of equality and how they impact human rights. The panel will present examples of how individuals and communities have confronted and overcome inequalities and to identify clear approaches to research and policy that reduce marginalization, increase participation and ensure that sustainable development has a human face.

Moderator: Rasmus Kløcker Larsen (SEI Stockholm)

Speakers:

• Annika Ben David (Swedish Ambassador for Human Rights)
• Rocio Diaz Chavez (SEI Africa)
• Albert Salamanca (SEI Asia)
• Per Nordlund (Lead Policy Specialist Democracry – Sida)

16.55: Concluding remarks

17.00: Networking mingle with refreshments