THE founder of Insight Futures, Doug Morwood, is to chair the sustainability summit at the CFJ Expo taking place online on Thursday 1 July.
The expo will feature an online exhibition-style system whereby attendees will be able to visit ‘exhibitors’ and see their latest products and ranges, as well as to speak to exhibitors at the expo.
The sustainability summit will be part of the expo and start at 3pm. It will last about an hour.
Doug forms one of a five-member panel which will discuss, in this year of COP26, what flooring companies are doing to show their commitment to the net zero targets, and what they’re doing to advance product recovery, reuse and recycling.
Insight Futures is a strategy, transformation, and innovation platform business – a collective of people aligned around common values and purpose to solve problems. It exists to shape a future where business, society and the environment prosper sustainably.
The other members of the panel include:
- Jane Thornback, sustainability policy advisor for the Construction Products Association (CPA);
- Adnan Zeb-Khan, manager of Carpet Recycling UK (CRUK);
- Carl Harper, managing director of Westcotes Flooring;
- and a panellist to be confirmed from Recofloor.
Providing some background for the debate, Jane says: ‘For COP 26, which the UK is hosting in Glasgow in November, government is now accelerating preparations and is urging large businesses to join the Race to Zero by setting net zero targets (by 2050 at the latest) and committing to credible short term action plans that are independently verified. Businesses can do this via the business ambition for 1.5 C campaign. For SMEs there is an SME Climate Hub which is perhaps more relevant to CFA members.’
The COP26 event is a global United Nations summit about climate change and how countries are planning to tackle it. It was due to take place in Glasgow from 9-19 November with more than 200 world leaders due to attend, but when coronavirus arrived, that all changed. It will now take place between 1-12 November this year.
As systems entrepreneur and originator of Insight Futures’ place-based innovation model, Doug says he enjoys supporting leaders, organisations, businesses, and wider ecosystems transition to more sustainable economic models for growth.
In a wide-ranging interview to be published in the Sustainability Guide next month, Doug says Insight Futures was created as a vehicle to essentially tackle the big unsolved problems in the world. ‘It’s a different type of business vehicle designed with that in mind that is more about creating a system to change the system.
‘We’ve historically helped an awful lot of businesses create new ventures whether they’re corporate or in the public sector, and also supported many start-ups to launch new ventures and through business model innovation, investment-readiness, and a design-thinking approach.’
Read the full interview in the Sustainability Guide 2021
