CEM-14/MI-8 – A Gigaton Opportunity and the 21st Century Innovation Ecosystem
During CEM-14/MI-8 in Goa, India, the Mission Innovation NCI side event focused on the Gigaton Opportunity, to discuss the shift from traditional sustainability work to an expanded innovation agenda with a focus on bringing the entire solution ecosystem together to enable transformative change. The approach targets both a bottom-up approach through solution providers and start-ups, and enablers that facilitates new solution providers. The event saw representation from some of the most forward-looking stakeholders globally that covered:
- Promoting a human needs driven innovation ecosystem delivering sustainable avoided emissions
- Building and supporting incubators and accelerators
- Enablers and tools for transformative system solutions
Panelists:
Massamba Thioye, Project Executive, UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub
Dennis Pamlin, Executive Director, Mission Innovation NCI / Senior Advisor, RISE
Jay Hennessy, Director for Mission Innovation's Net-Zero Compatibility Initiative, RISE
Smita Rakesh, Partner, Social Alpha
Pourya Salehi, Head of Urban Research, Innovation and Development Team, ICLEI
Joe Griffiths, Founder, Global Innovation Initiative Group
Thomas Kösters, Managing Director, DEEP Ecosystems
David Eklund, CEO, Icebug
Dr Ganesh Das, Chief – Collaboration & Innovation, TATA Power
Aimée Aguilar Jaber, Programme Lead – System thinking and transformative change for nature & resilience, OECD
Smita Rakesh, Partner, Social Alpha, said,
– The way we define our problems will guide the way will solve them. Therefore moving away from a sectoral problems statement approach, to actually looking at what are some of the basic needs […] and where are we going wrong in meeting them right now.
Pourya Salehi, Head of Urban Research, Innovation and Development Team, ICLEI, said
– We recognize that progress in addressing the climate emergency is way too slow, and to speed things up we need to apply three strategic principles of [an] expanded innovation agenda: putting human needs at the center stage, leveraging emerging technologies and creating new ecosystems of innovation.
Joe Griffiths, Founder, Global Innovation Initiative Group, said
– There are thousands of these solutions, waiting to be discovered, scaled and mobilized. Solutions that will enable 11 billion lives to flourish. Solutions that will ensure the next generation, and the next, will flourish.
Thomas Kösters, Managing Director, DEEP Ecosystems, said
– It’s not only about venture capital and the right entrepreneurs, but it is about creating new markets for sustainable solutions, creating a new society and a new economic market, where we can see different solutions than in the past.
David Eklund, CEO, Icebug, said
The purpose for Icebug, and many others in the outdoor industry, is to allow people to get out in nature and have a healthy, flourishing life, that is often very resource and energy efficient.
Dr Ganesh Das, Chief – Collaboration & Innovation, TATA Power, said
– The endeavor is to get the customers, the general population, to believe that even a small change can make a huge difference and play a role in getting to the sustainability targets.
Aimée Aguilar Jaber, Programme Lead, System thinking and transformative change for nature & resilience, OECD, said
– We want to support policy makers and other stakeholders in below the surface so that they can see the system characteristics or structure, and even the ideas and mental models that have led us to develop these unsustainable system, so that then policies can actually be focused on transforming these systems, dealing with root causes.