The UK Government’s Roadmap for Smart Data, published in April 2024 (and supported by the Smart Data Council’s non-government member’s response), sets out a pathway to create a world-leading smart data economy. Smart data is the secure sharing of personal or business data, with the customer’s permission, with authorised Third-party Providers offering innovative services. The UK has led the world in the development of this field with the groundbreaking smart data scheme, Open Banking. Smart data schemes are also in development in the energy sector (Open Energy), the wider financial sector (Open Finance), carbon accounting (Perseus), water (STREAM), Property, and Transport.
Building from principles tried and tested under Open Banking, the Roadmap identifies needs and opportunities to build a wide range of interoperable smart data schemes. It particularly highlights the banking, finance, energy and road fuels, telecommunications, transport, retail, and home-buying sectors for further development.
These changes represent a clear direction for the future of UK smart data, presenting a vision of decentralised, interoperable schemes based on common, open standards and supported by strong governance. These are changes that we strongly welcome and will continue to support.
Our work shows that smart data schemes which align with the principles of the Government’s Roadmap are both possible and successful. Our work also exemplifies why smart data schemes are vital in the transition to net zero (e.g. Perseus).
Around half of UK business emissions are produced by 5 million SMEs. Perseus is creating new rules and processes to unlock access to green finance. It does this by making automated sustainability reporting possible for every SME business in the UK and, with trusted controls, empowering SMEs to share reporting data with banks. This will help unlock £billions that the banks are looking to deploy to enable a faster net zero transition, helping SMEs to action affordable, personalised, data-enabled insights on how best to improve efficiency and decarbonise their business.
Perseus exemplifies how smart data schemes can support innovation and advance a progressive vision for financial services in the journey to net zero. Our work also highlights two opportunities for value creation which will multiply as the UK’s smart data economy grows.
Firstly, Perseus creates both economic and environmental value for businesses by connecting smart data flows across sectors. We are starting with energy data and this will expand as the project connects with other sectors holding key data such as water, transport, agriculture, and the built environment.
Secondly, Perseus demonstrates the value of an interoperable approach to smart data sharing in the transition to net zero. Use cases which elevate the connected power of data to address environmental change cannot be neatly divided along sector lines. Without change, the potential of data and digitalisation to support positive environmental action will continue to hit arbitrary limits.
In both cases, value creation hinges on the instigation of decentralised, interoperable and trusted smart data schemes at scale across the economy.
At IB1 we go one step further, choosing to operate with radical transparency about our own journey towards implementation. We openly publish and licence as many aspects of our process, research, and resources as possible (including success stories and the bumps in the road!). We further prioritise collaboration and knowledge exchange, encouraging other organisations to use our resources for collective benefit in developing the UK’s smart and environmental data sharing ecosystems.
To get involved in Perseus, please contact us at perseus@ib1.org or join online today at ib1.org/join/perseus.
If you would like to discuss other programmes, sector or place-based work, please email partners@ib1.org or join as an IB1 member at ib1.org/join.
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