• twenty interoperable Smart Data schemes by 2035
• £36m of Industrial Strategy investment
• cross-sector Trust Frameworks and data sharing interoperability across the economy

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/smart-data-strategy

For IB1, this is core to our work – and features the Perseus programme. It underpins how we will help deliver our sustainable economy into a data-enabled digital-first era, building the load-bearing foundations for trust, protecting our data rights, and delivering impact.

Open Banking took a decade to get right: we can now move much, much faster. The opportunity isn’t just ‘switching’, it’s opening up new markets and connecting financial flows to real-world outcomes at scale. The time to engage is now: the schemes being shaped today will define the data infrastructure of the next decade.

The UK has a great team helping to lead this, with Samantha as co-chair, the Department for Business and Trade (Siobhan, Agnieszka, Priya, and a growing support team), and non-govt Smart Data Council members including Henk, Adam, Liz, Charlie, Marie, Chris, Ezechi, Ghela, Helen, Joe, Josh , Louise, Maria, Nicola, Stephen, Jane, Lucy, Sue and many others across industry and government now engaged.

At Icebreaker One it’s what we’ve been building with IB1 Open Energy Perseus, STREAM and our Data Infrastructure work and we will continue to lead on Open Sustainable Finance.

At the Perseus 2025 AGM it was reported that Perseus is:

• evolving from ‘financing green’ to embedded sustainable finance creating a potential addressable market of £5-10 billion
• adding gas, extending energy coverage from Scope 2 (electricity) to Scope 1
• estimated, via its existing members, to have potential reach of over 1 million UK SMEs and cover over 70% of use cases
• continuing to advance ‘Perseus Ready’ implementations with commercial members
• running a live sandbox (equivalent to production) for use by Carbon Accounting Providers (CAPs) and Energy Data Providers (EDPs) to develop solutions
• working with Perseus members to develop go-to-market capabilities to support hundreds of thousands of SMEs
• exploring integration with Open Banking to enable cross-sector interoperability
• producing XBRL outputs to enable integration with financial reporting systems
• pioneering the development of a voluntary, cross-sector Smart Data scheme, aligned with the UK Data Act and supported by an openly-licensed digital public infrastructure (DPI) architecture for secure data sharing 

“Perseus makes it easier for everyone to do their carbon calculations properly, and comfortably moves us years ahead of the most stringent proposed updates to the GHG Protocol. This is exactly why Sage intends to roll out a Perseus enabled product to make reporting easier for hundreds of thousands of UK SMEs.”

George Sandilands, Vice President, Sage Earth

From financing green to embedded sustainable finance

For much of the last decade, ‘green finance’ has focused on funding individual projects: a retrofit here, a solar installation there. Important, but limited. 

Perseus marks a shift to something far more systemic: it moves beyond financing green to embedding sustainable finance by integrating trusted, verifiable emissions data directly into everyday accounting and financial decision-making.

This evolution means Perseus can be applied across the whole SME market, not just specialist green products. Rather than expecting SMEs to seek out solutions themselves – something most lack the time or expertise to do – Perseus brings trusted insights to where they are (e.g. inside their existing accounting, banking and carbon applications). 

Perseus can support lending, credit and debit products, and even savings accounts, allowing sustainability performance to be reflected wherever financial decisions are made. The impact on SMEs is significant: personalised insights, lower reporting costs, easier access to capital for energy-efficiency upgrades, and new space for financial innovation. By making sustainability data usable at scale, Perseus aims to help turn ‘net zero’ from a niche ambition into a normal feature of how the economy works.

“As a leading smart data initiative, Perseus is developing guardrails for assurable data to support finance and supply chain decisions towards a sustainable economy.”

Hannah Gilbert, Director of Sustainability, British Business Bank

In December last year, Perseus entered its pilot stage which was launched to gather feedback on the technical, legal and user experience aspects of Perseus. As part of the Pilot, the Development Bank of Wales used Perseus in its due diligence processes for green business loan products.

Today, Perseus has progressed to the launch of the sandbox, which will allow Perseus members to safely and easily experiment with sharing energy consumption data.

How it works

The sandbox uses synthetic energy consumption data, meaning organisations can test and experiment without concerns over personal data. It also provides identical trust services (Registry and Directory) to Perseus in production.  

“Successful integration with the sandbox will make a business ‘Perseus-Ready’ – a sign that they are ready to provide the innovative new services enabled by automated carbon emissions reporting between data providers, businesses, carbon accounting platforms and lenders”.

Chris Pointon, Project Manager, Trust Services.

What does being ‘Perseus-ready’ mean for your business?

For Carbon Accounting Providers:

• First choice for Financial Service Providers seeking market-scale data powered by Perseus.
• First to market with Perseus-enabled products 
• Major visibility to all participating Perseus banks
• On-ramp to real-world case studies, leading to wider sector visibility 
• Prepare your teams, technology and processes to strengthen your competitive advantage
• Opportunity to launch a new revenue stream, and develop new tech capabilities for your business

For Financial Service Providers:

• Test technical processes for ingesting Perseus data 
• Inform product innovation, reporting and compliance
• Build relationships and technical partnerships with potential data partners for new sustainable finance opportunities
• Develop new tech capabilities to build scalable access to sustainability data ecosystem

If your organisation is interested in using the sandbox and becoming ‘Perseus-ready,’ please get in touch via Perseus@ib1.org

The Act (which covers both consumer and business data) places significant emphasis on Smart Data Schemes. These schemes, which enable secure, user-authorised data sharing between organisations, stand out as a transformative step for the UK economy.  

The benefits are far-reaching, with the potential to unlock innovation, enhance competition, and improve user control and choice. Backed by the UK Industrial Strategy’s £36 million investment in new schemes across financial services, energy, and beyond, these changes promise real-world impact. Open Finance alone is estimated to boost UK GDP by £30.5 billion each year.

Done well, the Data Act will mean:

• Data portability and control of your data 
• Better access to useful data
• Clearer rules and stronger protections for safety and fairness
• Greater empowerment and control for users to enable data sharing
• Foundations for better data sharing governance to enable real-world benefits of apps, AI and related tech services, while better addressing rights, consent and permission

This includes: 

• A statutory code on automated decision-making

Meaning the government will create a legally-recognised code of practice to guide organisations that use automated systems to make decisions. 

• Greater enforcement of the rules

More power to enforce data protection laws, making sure compliance isn’t optional and bad actors are held accountable.

• Increased emphasis on DPIAs (Data Protection Impact Assessments)

DPIAs are risk assessments that organisations must carry out before starting projects that involve high-risk processing of personal data (e.g., large-scale surveillance, sensitive health data).

• What about this whole AI thing?

Advanced software (such as AI and machine learning) is now being used to analyse data and in some cases to automate decision making. These systems are joining data together, in new ways across our economy. If we are to build and maintain trust, both voluntary and regulatory frameworks are essential to ensure they operate not only within the law, but also transparently and in the public interest. You can contribute to our conversation on this here. 

Why Smart Data Schemes matter for a Net Zero future

Smart Data Schemes aren’t just good for the economy – they are essential for our Net Zero future, because decarbonisation requires faster, smarter decisions powered by better data.

Over the past five years, we’ve been turning this vision into impact across energy, water, transport, finance and beyond. Our key learning so far? Implementation matters.

Our data infrastructure is maturing to deliver real-world impact. Initiatives like Open Energy are open, networked and verifiable to enable faster, better decisions to be made across systems. To deliver a net zero future we need data to flow as efficiently as energy itself. 

Through Open Energy, we’re creating a connected web of energy data and have already shown how better access to data delivers tangible, net zero-aligned outcomes. 

For example: 

• Our work with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), shows how improved data access can better align grid capacity with EV demand. 
• On the REACT project, we found that making data more accessible helps reduce delays in connecting green energy developers to the grid, enabling Transmission Owners to deliver critical infrastructure upgrades faster.

The Act also marks a major milestone for our work on Perseus, a national smart data initiative focused on enabling green finance for SMEs. Recently featured in the Willow Report, Perseus is a live example of how to operationalise Smart Data across sectors. Provisions in the Act (e.g. smart meter data infrastructure) directly strengthen our efforts to ensure every SME can access finance for the net-zero transition.

A decade in the making; the real work starts now

This moment is the culmination of more than a decade of work. In 2012, I was appointed founding CEO of the  Open Data Institute, as the UK became a global leader in open data policy. During my tenure, I initiated what became a founding paper asking Who owns our Data Infrastructure?. 

In 2015, I was appointed co-chair of the Open Banking Working Group that created the Open Banking Standard which proved that Smart Data Schemes could move from theory to practice, creating a blueprint for sectors like energy, telecoms, and transport. And, in 2023 I joined the UK Smart Data Council as its co-chair. 

It’s been over a decade since that initial work and the UK is once again setting the bar on data infrastructure. Legislation is just the starting line: to deliver real outcomes for our economy and our environment, we must now build on this foundation at pace, with the same ambition, urgency, and collaboration that brought us here.

Example:

The news is a significant milestone for the Perseus scheme, which makes it easier for UK SMEs to access green financing by automating their sustainability reporting and helps banks use assurable data to underpin their decisions. 

The innovation means the Development Bank of Wales is offering more favourable loan rates to SMEs by using assurable data to benchmark and check that they  comply with the terms of its green loans. 

With Perseus, SMEs can share accurate emissions data with their bank to access green loans. They can receive emissions reports generated based on their electricity smart meter data and share them with their banks or lenders to unlock green finance.

The Development Bank of Wales is among a group of leading businesses and non-profits taking part in the Perseus pilot – including Sage, Perse and SmartDCC.

Over the last year, the Perseus team has designed the key operational, legal and technical elements of automated sustainability reporting. It is guided by a group of over 180 people from commercial businesses, non-profits, public bodies and trade associations, with support from the UK Government. 

Matthew Kelly, Sustainability Manager, Development Bank of Wales, said: “This is a first of its kind pilot, using technology to drive down the business burden of reporting for SMEs and increase the accuracy of carbon abatement assessment and monitoring.

“We believe that Perseus will help scale green finance by giving us access to assurable, trustworthy data. It means that SMEs will get the capital that they need to boost their productivity while decarbonising, therefore helping us to get to net zero faster.”

Rebecca Evans, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Energy and Planning in the Welsh Government welcomed the announcement. She said: “The Development Bank being named as the UK’s first bank to use Perseus further demonstrates Wales’ commitment to promoting sustainable business and securing a low carbon economy.

“It’s an important milestone for the Development Bank and we are pleased to see them taking a lead role in making it easier for UK SMEs to access green financing so that we can support their productivity and reduce emissions.”

Gavin Starks, CEO of Icebreaker One, which runs Perseus, said: “This milestone takes us from use case to case study – showing that unlocking access to data, with the permission of the customer, can help get green finance flowing to SMEs. 

“It’s a major proof point that the Perseus Scheme can enable trusted smart data to flow between SMEs, carbon accounting platforms, and banks – and help accelerate access to billions on the race to zero. 

“Small and medium-sized businesses account for 50% of UK business emissions, but often struggle to get the capital they need to decarbonise. Even if they have the intent, they often lack the time, expertise and money to act. We want Perseus to help the market solve that: to go far, we go together.”

The Perseus pilot is still underway, working with banks, carbon accounting providers, small businesses, and others. Find out more about joining Perseus.

Icebreaker One founder and CEO Gavin Starks has been appointed co-chair of the UK Smart Data Council to bring the success of Open Banking to other sectors including small business finance and energy. 

Smart Data involves the secure and consented sharing (or ‘permissioned’ if business data) of customer data with authorised third parties to help improve services for consumers [reference].

It builds on Open Banking, the trusted technology that connects banks, fintechs and technical providers, which Gavin cochaired the creation of. It now supports over 7 million customers. In that time the data sharing services have boosted customer knowledge of their finances and enabled increased savings.

The Smart Data Council is run by the Department for Business and Trade has set up a Smart Data Council and will work on smart data schemes such as helping consumers and small businesses switch utility providers more easily.

It comprises key government departments, regulators, industry and consumer groups, and representatives from Citizen’s Advice, Innovate Finance and others.

Co-chair and Business and Trade Minister Kevin Hollinrake said:

“Our new Smart Data Council will build on the success of Open Banking and spearhead measures in sectors like SME finance, energy and telecoms, increasing competition and putting more money in the pockets of consumers and small firms.”

Gavin Starks said: 

“Frameworks for trusted data sharing have transformed the banking sector – I’ve seen that first hand with Open Banking. Now it’s time to do the same for energy and other utilities. 

“It’s why I founded Icebreaker One to make data work harder to get to net zero. Across all of the UK’s utilities, better access to data will help consumers, reduce emissions, and improve efficiency and innovation. I’m delighted to co-chair the Smart Data Council and help deliver positive outcomes for consumers and businesses.”

Council Members

• The Department for Business and Trade
• HM Treasury
• The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
• The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
• The Information Commissioner’s Office
• Ofcom
• Ofgem
• The Financial Conduct Authority
• The Competition and Markets Authority
• TechUK
• Innovate Finance
• Icebreaker One
• Citizens Advice
• The Coalition for a Digital Economy (COADEC)
• Open Data Institute
• Ctrl-Shift
• Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE)
• The Investing and Saving Alliance (TISA)

Click here to review and comment on the open discussion document
You also contact us at research@ib1.org with comments or if you can’t access Google Docs

How can we build trust in data: in the organisations supplying it, and those using it? 

How can we create a race to the top, building on existing lessons learned and a wealth of prior art? 

Today we are initiating a new chapter in Icebreaker One’s development: Assurance. We are seeking feedback and active engagement in its live development. Our work on this includes both organisational assurance and assurance for datasets. Assurance is being designed for both data publishers and data users. 

Our chosen approach is not to publish research papers but rather to launch a live service. This also supports our broader Trust Framework development. 

Our aim is to help two types of users. For data publishers, we want to give teams inside organisations a clear and confident path to support high-quality and standards-aligned publishing. This work will support the development of internal processes for data publishing.  For data users, we want to enable teams to have confidence that they have permission to find, access and use data from other organisations. To do so, we have heard people want to know they can trust the organisation’s processes as well as how they are applied to individual datasets. 

Preamble: Why are we doing this?

1. Because people have asked for help. Throughout our consultations on data sharing within and across sectors, practitioners in every organisation we’ve spoken to have expressed a need to build trust and confidence in data. This includes building confidence within data publishers about whether and how they should share data externally, and building confidence for data consumers that the data and its source can be relied upon. In response to this, earlier this year we announced that assurance would be the focus of the next phase of development on the Icebreaker One Trust Framework. 
2. Because data from the real economy is becoming subject to the same scrutiny and processes as exist in the financial economy. It has taken centuries to build processes around financial systems that are the basis of trust in our economy. Creating the basis for trust systems in the real economy is hard for many reasons: there are many more input dimensions (e.g. energy, resources, processes) and many more transformations (e.g. methodologies for carbon assessment). There are also many, many more sources, ranging from earth observation to soil sensors, and smart meters to self-driving vehicles. We are on a path of exponential change where the number of digital systems that need to speak to each other in a trusted manner will dwarf the current web. 
3. Because industry, governments and society need a way of joining up policy, finance and impact to address systemic challenges. We need systems that both humans and machines can use: we cannot (and should not) budget for a ‘technotopian’ future. While AI may take a lead role in many decisions, humans need to be able to trust the machines to trust other machines. Solutions must meet diverse user needs whether those users are policymakers, investors, data scientists, asset managers or startups; whether they are skilled professionals or interns. We need to design for people, not just things. 

Trust in data, and the policies and processes that surround data, need common points of value. To make them usable they need to be simple enough to be effective, and effective enough to be simple: we’ve seen many solutions that either over-complicate or over-simplify and are trying to strike a balance. We don’t yet know what ‘good’ looks like and we need your help to navigate towards that.

Our primary use case is to develop a market architecture that addresses climate change. To achieve our collective goals we must align data strategies with our sustainable development goals. We need better language, and deeper insights, to move these topics forward. We must address both private sector and public sector objectives. As data becomes weaponised, trust will become a foundational element of our data infrastructure.

Click here to review and comment on the open discussion document
You also contact us at partners@ib1.org with comments or if you can’t access Google Docs

Open Collaboration — we need your input

Over the summer we have consulted with members, reviewing substantial prior work from many sources, researching existing systems, and developing solutions to address the need for confidence in a manner that is both sector-agnostic and can scale. Today we are pleased to release the first version of the Assurance approach for open discussion and development.

The assurance approach will help organisations to demonstrate the level of maturity that they have reached in data publication. They set out separate requirements for organisations and individual datasets. These can be used by data consumers to assess the extent to which they can rely on the data being published. 

Membership of Icebreaker One will provide the contractual basis for assurance, including mechanisms to create redress and dispute resolution when levels are not met. By joining Icebreaker One, organisations can demonstrate their commitment to high-quality data sharing by aligning to an independent service. Membership also enables organisations to inform and shape the future direction of Trust Framework development through participation in our collaborative Icebreaking process.

Scope

The starting point for the programme is electricity. 

1. Users

Users are defined as:

A. Primary Users:

1. Banks
2. SMEs
3. Asset managers
4. Third parties (e.g. accountants, accountancy software firms, carbon accountants, auditors, consultants and advisors)

B. Data Providers:

5. Primary data providers (e.g. energy companies, utilities, smart meter providers, national grid, asset managers)

C. Stakeholders

6. Government and regulators (DESNeZ, Ofgem)
7. Standards bodies (e.g. PCAF, ISSB) 
8. Reporting bodies and users of outputs (e.g. CDP, LSEG, Bloomberg) 
9. Universities 

The ‘decision makers’ will vary across organisations, however, in this programme, it could be a regulator or code body or a voluntary code adopted by industry through the Advisory and Steering Groups. Summaries of the business case for each user are included in the FAQ https://ib1.org/perseus-faq/

2. Data needs 

The task is to identify which primary data links to material impact for each user. We also wish to gather a list of ‘all the data needs’ so they can be added to the long-term roadmap.

For electricity we want to know, for each user, what specific data is needed, and at what level of resolution. For example, 

1. Spend
2. kWh (total consumption and total generation)
3. kgCO2e (including methodology, supplier, time resolution) 
4. Time resolution (e.g. annual, quarterly, monthly, 30-minute, bill-based, smart meter) and aligned with reporting needs vs impact incentives and recommendations
5. Source
   1. Data (e.g. retailer, landlord, smart meter, aggregator, third party)
   2. Supply (reserve capacity, power factor, national grid, tariffs, renewable energy)
      1. Generation/contract information on the supply (PPAs, REGOs, generation mix)
6. Asset resolution (e.g. company, primary asset, sublet)

3. Reporting needs 

The task is to identify what the reporting needs are for each user, related to electricity. For example,

1. Which reporting framework is being used? (e.g. PCAF, TCFD, ESOS)
2. Which emission reporting models/methodologies are being used? (e.g. GHG protocol)
3. What emissions factors/algorithms are being used (e.g. national grid, supplier-source, Defra, DESNeZ, Ofgem)
4. What time resolution and formats are required for reporting? 

4. Impact and decision-making needs

The task is to identify ‘so what’. Specifically:

1. What impact or influence does assurable electricity data make to the risk profile of reporting on lending (Scope3 cat 15)?
2. What impact or influence does continuous access to this data have on the risk profile of lending and other financial products and incentives (e.g. tax incentives)? 
3. What impact or influence does access to assurable data have on reporting and standards? (e.g. PCAF, TCFD, ISSB)  
4. What impact or influence does access to assurable data have on regulation and policy? (e.g. DESNeZ)  
5. What impact or influence does access to assurable data have on users of reporting data? (e.g. CDP, LSEG)  
6. And, combined, what is the impact of these and/or influences on SMEs? 

Collective agreement on our assessment and direction

The core questions for this group are around impact and influence: 

1. Does it help unlock access to net zero finance for SMEs? (to help SMEs decarbonise; change behaviour; increase resilience)
2. Does it reduce risks for users?
3. Does it bring efficiency to users?
4. Does it help users to identify opportunities for energy efficiency?

For each of these questions, we wish to address

1. If not, why not? 
2. If so, why and at what scale?
3. What are blockers, incentives, and opportunities (e.g. benchmarking)?

Outputs

Outputs from this AG1 are to:

1. Summarise the needs of users.
2. Highlight the value cases.
3. Recommend and agree a cohesive (whole-of-market) approach for electricity.

These outputs will be used as direction for, and inputs into the other AGs, to enable the other AGs (technical, legal, communications, policy) to unpack what they need to do and prioritise the questions they need to address. The outputs of the combined AGs will be used as the basis for implementation in the demonstrator. 

Process

The process for each of these questions will be:

1. User categorisation and ecosystem map
2. User questionnaire on data needs 
3. User questionnaire on reporting needs
4. User questionnaire on impact
5. Interim synthesis report circulated
6. Discussion at AG meeting
7. Iteration on synthesis report 
8. Discussion at AG meeting
9. Snagging/iteration on synthesis report 
10. Formal sign off  

Changes and comments from v2023-05 AG1 meeting

• Regarding kgCO2e – it is important to discuss where and how the calculation takes place, i.e. pre, in, or post-platform, and ensure the methodology is open-source and robust. Need to differentiate between standard location-based, market-based and time-of-use carbon information.
• It is essential for banks to lean in and say what their compliance needs are to ensure reporting frameworks are the way in which bodies and regulators are collecting information on emissions are collecting the right information
• Formatting changes (clearer headings, adding specifics) 
• Adding in universities as a stakeholder to engage with 
• Note the importance of separating total energy consumption and total energy generation as it cannot always be used as a proxy.
• having the correct metrics in there and for the right time periods (e.g. annual kWh, year-on-year change) allows for the removal of manual reporting
• net zero finance is used to deliver value to SMEs through the mechanisms of decarbonisation, behaviour change, increase resilience

Background  

Assurable supply chain data is fundamental to fighting greenwashing

As $trillions flow to combat Net Zero, the future of green investment faces some tough challenges. These include alignment around common reporting standards, definitions of ‘green taxonomies’ and mandatory reporting frameworks. All of these processes include the assessment of ‘footprints’ of real economy businesses (e.g. Scopes 1, 2 and 3 – and soon Scope 4 in ‘avoided emissions’). 

The EU is also regulating against greenwashing. The Green Claims Directive would oblige Member States to enact legislation that ensures that traders can and should substantiate their “explicit environmental claims”.  This means the financial economy needs to be able to trust the environmental data from the real economy. 

The primary data feeding into these footprints are consumption data such as energy, materials, transport and goods. The level of rigour that we expect from our financial reporting systems is, however, not yet in place for non-financial data. 

We need to put in place the ‘rails’ to enable assurable data flow to connect from the real economy to the financial sector in a highly scalable, repeatable, and extensible manner.  To help design and implement these rails, we are picking a single starting point, electricity, as this is foundational to all GHG reporting, applies to every business and, arguably, is ‘the most digital’. 

The rails that we need to put in place don’t require the invention of new standards. To address the market needs we can build on existing standards and processes. These include:

• Impact: Reporting, and the data requirements related to impact;
• Technical: the technical and operational mechanisms and processes for sharing Smart Data;
• Legal: the legal basis, liability frameworks and consent processes for sharing Smart Data;
• Communication: the process for aligning on language that enables clear engagement; 
• Governance: the policy and regulatory frameworks that can support and steer controls for the market of Smart Data;

Together, these form the basis of developing trust in the market, laying the foundations to both automate GHG reporting and ensure that it can be assured. 

Endorsements

Gavin Starks (Icebreaker One – AG1 co-chair)
Duncan Oswald (Sage – AG1 co-chair)
Nick Carmont Zaragoza (Connect Earth)
Dr Yildiz Tugba KARA (Society 5.0 Institute)
Leon Jayasinghe (Tide)
Andrew Griffiths (Planet Mark)
Lee Freeman (Auditel)
Andrew Smithson (Paragon Banking Group)
Paul Clark (Smart DCC)  
Jaya Chakrabarti (tiscreport.org, projectvana.org)
Josh Couchman (Connect Earth)
Yentl Staelens (Connect Earth)
James Armstrong (Ciendos)
David Beer (Cogo)
Nika Safonova (Cogo)
Rebecca Harding (Rebeccanomics)
Hannah Gilbert (British Business Bank)
Ian Sutherland (Tide)
Peter Allen (Surple)
Jonathan Ward (Cogo)
Conrad Ford (Allica Bank)
Jarmo Eskelinen (University of Edinburgh)
Callum Campbell (Connect Earth)
Matt Bullivant (OakNorth Bank)
Ben Cotton (Dais Partnership LLP)

Pending endorsement

(from other AG1 members, subject to internal approvals):
Cerys Leff (Natwest)Tracie Callaghan (Natwest)
Dr. Kesavan Gopalan (St. James’s Place)
Sean Hanafin (Climate Bonds Initiative)
Julia Langley (Independent)

To join Perseus click here.

PDF copy of the letter

Copy of the text below:

“In 2019 the UK Government committed to reaching Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as recommended by the Climate Change Committee. Reaching Net Zero will require extensive changes across the economy and the government remains committed to working with the private sector to accelerate our journey to net zero.

Since the launch of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) at COP26 over $130 trillion of private capital has been committed to transforming the global economy for the transition to Net Zero. The UK has led the way in turning these commitments into action through Bankers for Net Zero, the first and sole Country Chapter of the UN Convened, industry-led Net Zero Banking Alliance. The initiative brings together banks, businesses, policy makers and regulators to define and implement the interventions needed to accelerate the UK economy’s transition to net zero.

A central part of this transition will rely on facilitating the decarbonisation of the UK’s 5.5 million SMEs. Over the last few years Bankers for Net Zero has created the foundations for an SME Disclosure Platform, Project Perseus, which is now moving to execution stage. This platform will support SMEs with sustainability reporting, and will facilitate net zero data sharing. I am grateful to the Bankers for Net Zero member institutions and leaders that have supported the project to reach this point.

The Government is supporting the Project Perseus initiative with its inclusion in the Green Finance Strategy 2023, and via the British Business Bank, which co-chairs the project’s Steering Committee. The project has already attracted immense international interest, with institutions including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Energy Council, the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative and the International Chambers of Commerce sitting as observers on the steering committee. Further international counterparts are in the process of joining. The project will also play a key role in supporting the work of the newly-established Net Zero Council, which I co-Chair with Shirine Khoury-Haq, the CEO of Co-Op.

Your participation and support is essential to ensure the success of the project. I encourage you to join Bankers for Net Zero and support Project Perseus to establish a scalable strategic framework for driving the decarbonisation of SMEs. The scale of the challenge is immense, but I am confident that it is achievable with commitment, collaboration, coordination and material support from the private sector.

We plan to showcase the work thus far and the pilot at COP28, and will work with programme partners as it progresses. I look forward to receiving your cooperation and showcasing UK leadership on delivering net zero.”

Rt Hon Graham Stuart MP
Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero

At Icebreaker One, we are building the foundations of data infrastructure for the benefit of the whole market.

Today, as part of our Trust Framework development, we are rolling out a verification and assurance programme for organisations who wish to access, share and use data (to make a shallow comparison—imagine an equivalent of the Twitter ‘blue tick’ on your data).

Assurance will give confidence both to people inside companies that they are allowed to share data externally, as well as those externally knowing that they have permission and confidence in what is being supplied.

The IB1 Trust Framework helps organisations both share and use data in a manner that can scale. By being part of a Trust Framework, organisations can verify who they are and assure that they are working in a manner aligned with existing and emerging standards.  This helps pre-authorise access to trusted data, streamlining secure data sharing and accelerating innovation. 

By joining IB1, organisations can also participate in the development of rules that build trust. Over recent years, IB1 has been building on the principles of Open Banking (which is used by thousands of organisations and millions of people worldwide), and Open Energy (which it has developed with public and private sector funding over the past two years).  

Based on extensive feedback from the market, it is now entering its next phase to enable data to be shared in a trusted manner, with common market rules for licensing, security, technical, and legal principles and standards. 

We are also delighted to announce today that we are moving forward with the water sector with the Stream initiative, led by Northumbrian Water and including seven leading water companies as well as supporting partners.

As with all IB1 work, we are co-developing solutions with the market, for the market with the objective to enable both sector-wide and cross-sector data sharing. If you would like to get involved, please contact us partners@ib1.org 

Our initial focus areas of development are: 

• Energy 
• Water
• ESG reporting (with an initial emphasis on Carbon/Net Zero)

We are now piloting Energy and Water in the UK. With ESG reporting, our focus is international (including cross-border data sharing).

Future development will include the built world, transport, and agriculture. 

NB:

1. the IB1 Trust Framework creates no ‘central database’ and IB1 never interacts with the underlying data being exchanged—it oversees a framework for trust between organisations and systems. 
2. IB1 founder, Gavin Starks was recently appointed to the UK Government Smart Data Council, whose mandate includes to “build on the success of Open Banking and spearhead measures in sectors like SME finance, energy and telecoms, increasing competition and putting more money in the pockets of consumers and small firms”. 

Examples

Tiers for verification and assurance will include verification and assurance at organisational and dataset levels: 

1. Organisational checks
   For example, are a legal company entity with a Membership Agreement, signed up to the ICO. Higher levels will include KYC checks.
2. Organisational alignment and/or compliance with policies and standards
   For example, alignment with regulatory guidance such as Open Data Best Practices; Published data strategy; Published Net Zero related reports (e.g. TCFD, PCAF)
3. Dataset alignment and/or compliance
   For example, license checks for Open Data licenses, machine-readable meta-data, usage of Open Data Certificates, alignment with Data Sensitivity Classes, compliance with IB1 Trust Framework License Agreements.  We fully support industry efforts to standardise data formats (preferably to open ones), models and quality measures, and expect to signal these as part of data verification as consensus is reached.

What a remarkable journey so far, and by way of celebration our latest programme, Perseus, has just been announced as part of the UK’s Green Finance Strategy. 

“The UK government is working with Bankers for Net Zero, the British Business Bank and a range of industry stakeholders, to automate SME sustainability reporting on a national scale…building on both Open Banking and Open Energy.”

Given that ‘unlocking access to demonstrable net zero finance by connecting real economy data to the financial economy’ was part of our founding objectives, I think we can declare some degree of success.

But, before we get into the details, I want to start by reflecting on people. The only reason any of this is possible is down to individuals who have chosen to lead, and to collaborate.

I would like to thank Gea Mikic (Icebreaker One’s cofounder) who worked with me from 5 Oct 2018 to work out how to bridge the data gaps to deliver a Net Zero Future. We spoke to hundreds of people around the world before starting — leading to a remarkable 7-figure kick-off programme (SERI) working with the insurance sector.

Kathryn Corrick began helping work out what and how we would deliver, with Emma Thwaites supporting on comms, and Michelle Prescott helping create the founding teams over many months before launch. It was of great benefit that we’d worked together over many years to help create the Open Data Institute. 

As with all initiatives we’ve helped to create, it involves a vast amount of work to understand the landscape in which focus is actually needed. This led to presentations at the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Global Platform in Geneva, at UN Climate Action Summit at the UN HQ, and the formal announcement of our launch IUK funding and partners at Davos in January 2020. 

This funding led to our formal operational start being 1st April 2020. Launching a high-collaboration programme involving senior financial leaders, the commercial sector and academia was obviously going to be too easy. So to make it more interesting, fate determined that we’d be a week into lockdown and therefore unable to do any of the in-person workshops we’d planned. 

It is an absolute testament to the dedication, tenacity and skills of the team and its ability to adapt, learn and grow that within nine months we had dozens of experts working across three national-scale programmes, involving many hundreds of participants and reaching thousands. 

This pattern has continued since to the point that “Above & Beyond” is a phrase that our funders and partners use to describe the team’s efforts: whether that’s writing over 500 pages of reports in our first year (which were peer-reviewed as ‘exceptional’), or delivering Open Energy (which gained ‘Above & Beyond’ ratings from its funders). 

There are many, many stories to tell and dozens of people to thank who have been instrumental in the existence of Icebreaker One: from Julie Calkins embracing the original idea and helping secure funding from Climate KIC to Volker Buscher agreeing to get Arup to join as a founding member, to Bryony Worthington hosting us at the House of Lords. This is a whole-team effort and everyone (past and present) has gone Above & Beyond to create a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts.

Ultimately, this is about how we best support people inside organisations to make a difference, and I would like to thank everyone across the private and public sectors who have contributed, engaged, and supported us throughout. 

So.  As we turn three, we are in the best position to make global impact since we began. 

Our partners SSEN have put Open Energy at the heart of their data strategy, Ofgem have now mandated the implementation of open data and data sharing for network operators, DESNeZ are exploring what may be needed to support Perseus, and we are feeding into the UK’s Data Bill which may create a legislative mandate for Trust Frameworks across the economy. Our work with the Future of Sustainable Data Alliance has helped explore the data gaps in the financial system, including for Sovereign Wealth Funds.

And, with our latest programme, Perseus, we have been included in the Green Finance Strategy.

“The UK government is working with Bankers for Net Zero, the British Business Bank and a range of industry stakeholders, to automate SME sustainability reporting on a national scale…building on both Open Banking and Open Energy.”

We’re using our combination of commercial mindset, our mission-driven focus on building public goods, and world-class expertise​​ to make impact at market scale.

Open Net Zero, our starting point for net-zero data infrastructure, continues to grow. We’ve recently indexed datasets from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the World Bank Water Database, OpenMateo, Climate Action Tracker, and many more: explore them here. 

And finally, our community is growing. We have newly launched offers to become an Icebreaker One Supporter (as an individual or business, starting from £4) or an organisational Member. With new investment in our community work, we’re regularly bringing together hundreds of people to discuss regulatory, market, and policy innovations that affect the world of net-zero data. 

To go far, we need to go together — join us

If you’d like to receive invitations to webinars and events, find out about our latest research & implementation programmes, and keep up-to-date with our progress, please join our (low volume) mailing list or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter, or join us as a supporter or member. 

Thank you, everyone,

Gavin

Previous updates

• https://ib1.org/2021/12/31/icebreaking-in-2021/
• https://ib1.org/2021/04/01/a-year-of-icebreaking/
• https://ib1.org/2020/12/31/185-days-of-icebreaking/
• https://ib1.org/2020/09/01/ib1-update-2020-09-01/ 

We see increasing evidence that data access is stifling our net zero future.

At COP27 I saw material recognition of the role of data in delivering net zero. Businesses, governments, and NGOs are also recognising the role of connecting – not collecting – data to get to net zero. 

Every part of the system is struggling. The knee-jerk reaction is to ‘build a portal’, but people are recognising that organisations don’t want (yet another) process to ‘push’ sensitive commercial data into another organisation/system. It is becoming apparent that to enable whole systems modelling, interoperability needs to be part of the systems design. 

Governments and regulators are recognising the role of access to data. Earlier this year, the Energy Digitalisation Taskforce, established by the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, Ofgem and Innovate UK published a series of recommendations to develop a modern, decarbonised digital energy system. They called for a new Data Sharing Fabric – “the governance, administrative and technological solution for the management of access to Shared Data across organisations” –  to form part of the networked Digital Spine covering the entire energy system. Read how our Open Energy work supports delivery of the Digital Spine. 

A recent report by the Energy Systems Catapult, which authored the Digital Spine report, said: 

“The regulator should mandate Open Energy as an industry-wide data sharing mechanism. Open Energy has, via a competition run by government, created a service that enables trusted actors to share data in a consistent way across the energy value chain. Mandating this solution would accelerate its adoption and make consistent an approach, reducing costs and barriers to entry.”

Further,  secure, efficient, timely data sharing was the vision at the heart of Ofgem’s RIIO-ED2 price control (a performance-based model for the spending and investment of energy network companies that determines how they will operate between 2023 and 2030). Read more about how Open Energy can help make this possible.

In 2022 we delivered breakthroughs that help connect net zero data

Icebreaking
We refined our Icebreaking process to help organisations and sectors work out how to make data work harder to reach net zero. This brings together stakeholders in a neutral environment with a focus on specific challenges, identifying priority value cases (e.g. finance, energy, transport), mapping out the data value chain, and prioritising actions and steps to delivery. It’s the starting point for organisations who know they need to engage in a net zero future. 

Research
We published standout research that built understanding of the data gaps holding us back from net zero, and how to improve access to data. Our work with FoSDA saw us produce new insights on sovereign ESG data. In Project Nimbus, we collaborated with SSEN and Ofgem to explore how meteorological data can be made available to energy networks to improve their efficiency, security, and resilience. And we published an explainer guide to the plethora of language around ESG, disclosure, and reporting. 

Open Net Zero
We launched Open Net Zero. It is a starting point for net-zero data infrastructure, built to address commercial, non-commercial, government, and public needs. While there is substantial Open Data related to net zero (e.g. company disclosures), we will help make this more discoverable and usable than it is today. 

We are improving access to both Open Data and Shared Data. Much of the data needed to drive net-zero decisions is not openly licensed or free for anyone to use, and will never be.
We are making this data discoverable and, to address its restricted usage, are co-developing (with industry) a Trust Framework for data sharing: enabling Shared Data to be discovered and licensed at scale.

Critically, Open Net Zero is not a ‘database of all the data’. We are working across sectors to enable data discovery using open standards. Anyone can make their own search engine or build their own data lake based on these open standards. Find out more about Open Net Zero and explore it today — let us know what you need. We have defined net-zero data as data that connects finance, industry, and our environment to inform net-zero decisions.

Community
We brought together key people on the journey to net zero. At COP27, we chaired a session with FoSDA, representing financial actors across the ESG data community. In collaboration with Climate Arc, in July we brought together over 60 experts and practitioners in the financial, investment, and data analytics sectors. Together they helped identify key gaps and innovative solutions to bring climate science into mainstream investment decisions. 

We’ve joined Carbon Call, alongside organisations such as XBRL (a global framework for exchanging business information) as part of an initiative to strengthen carbon accounting so it is both reliable, interoperable, and up to the task of measuring progress and challenges. 

We brought together Chief Data Officers for a fireside chat with Arup’s Volker Buscher to discuss how he designed Arup’s data strategy to help drive the company’s net-zero goals.  

We also contributed to the Climate Action Data group and the emergent Net Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU) including being listed in its white paper as a potential part of the solution.   

Our work is being adopted by businesses, government, and non-profits

This year, we’ve seen industry engagement on a bigger scale than ever before. 

We have run our Icebreaking process for a host of high-impact organisations. We’re working with SSEN to help them deliver net zero through better data and get more electric vehicles on the road. We’re working with STREAM to unlock the potential of water data to benefit customers, society, and the environment. We’re engaged with Lloyd’s Register to help improve data information flow across the shipping sector. Earlier this year, we worked with the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles to help build an understanding of data challenges and user needs in rolling out thousands more electric vehicle charge points. Finally, for this update, we’re beginning an exciting new collaboration with Bankers for Net Zero, the UK chapter of the UN Net-Zero Banking Alliance. We’re working on Project Perseus to automate GHG reporting for all SMEs –  read more and get involved.

Feedback from people we’ve worked with:

• “A tremendously successful initiative that has gone above and beyond what was expected”
• “We are delighted to have Icebreaker One as a partner — they’ve set the standard for what’s possible”
• “The most ambitious initiative we’ve funded”
• “Excellent delivery and technical implementation”
• “This consortium has been the best we’ve worked with”

Below are some highlights of our year, as well as an outline of our plans for the coming year, including Developing the Icebreaker constellation, Icebreaking-as-a-Service, Climate Finance, Open Transport and Open Energy. In the interim, if you would like to join our growing community, please do consider engaging as a supporter.

Best wishes,
Gavin Starks, Founder

Select highlights

Based on everyone’s feedback, we’ve created a new summary of what we do.

We’re creating a web of net-zero data – connecting financial, engineering and environmental data to help inform net-zero decisions. Much of this data is restricted, so we’re enabling this web by creating policies and guardrails that ensure data is comparable, machine-readable and trusted. To achieve this we are working across industries and governments.

Building Open Energy—a web of energy data 

Working with industry and government, Open Energy is co-developing ways to make it easy to find and use energy data. At the end of last year, Open Energy won UKRI’s Modernising Energy Data Access competition and, having completed Beta by July 2021 is now in Pilot phase. Development is being driven through industry-defined use cases: electric vehicle charging points and flexibility markets (https://energy.ib1.org/2021/12/01/open-energy-pilot-use-cases/).

We led a partnership with Arup and Hippo Digital to deliver the Energy Data Visibility Project (commissioned by BEIS).  The project took an industry-led, consultative, and collaborative approach to test and validate metadata standards, glossaries and test a prototype solution with the energy community, and feeds into the technical standards element of Open Energy.

Growing support for a web of net-zero data 

We were selected from over 4,000 proposals to present at COP26, speaking to a standing-room-only crowd on the power of energy data sharing to decarbonise the built world.

At OpenUK’s COP26 sustainability day, Lord Maude of Horsham said: “Icebreaker One are developing our national data infrastructure. It’s as important as our roads, rail, water and broadband networks”. Icebreaker One later won their Sustainability Award in the OpenUK Awards.

Expanding our global reach, we were invited to partner with the Green Powered Future Mission.  Its secretariat includes China, Italy and the UK, with the UK (BEIS) taking the lead on Data and Digitalisation for System Integration: how to accelerate the digitalisation of energy systems. We are taking the learnings of Open Energy forward into this decade-long initiative.

Data infrastructure for climate finance 

Our work to develop a data-sharing infrastructure for the insurance sector produced an array of research and solutions.  SERI’s expert teams developed Standard for Environment, Risk and Insurance, with foundational work on the principles and best practices recommended for the SERI Governance Framework, and a use case of a Climate-Ready Building Passport to explore how a data standard could catalyse Net Zero across the insurance and built world.

The Climate Financial Risk Forum (CFRF) is an industry forum jointly convened by the UK financial regulators (FCA, PRA) and the Bank of England to build capacity and share best practices—to advance the sector’s responses to the financial risks from climate change. The CFRF set up four technical working groups on disclosure, scenario analysis, risk management and innovation. Icebreaker One is featured as a case study in its Innovation track.

What next?

Developing the Icebreaker constellation
Throughout our work we help to connect the people who will deliver our Net Zero Future.

If you would like to join this growing community, please consider joining https://ib1.org/supporters/
For a summary of our commercial constellation, please see https://ib1.org/constellation/ 

Icebreaking-as-a-Service

We’ve launched a new service based on Icebreaker One’s characteristic way of bringing sectors together to break through problems and deliver results. We’ll be running a series of silo-breaking workshops on behalf of organisations in the new year which we aim to lead to a summit that convenes and catalyses development, and launches codesigned impact programmes.

Climate Finance
We will continue and expand our work on Climate Finance, including on SERI, with the Future of Sustainable Data Alliance (FoSDA) and the Climate Financial Risk Forum (CFRF).

Open Transport
Open Energy is the first service to use the IB1 Trust Framework. Working with the existing pioneers in the transport space, our next cluster in development is Open Transport. https://ib1.org/constellation/open-transport

Open Energy – UK and international
We will continue to develop Open Energy, bringing new members on board in the UK, and forging international partnerships.

Previous updates

• https://ib1.org/2021/04/01/a-year-of-icebreaking/
• https://ib1.org/2020/12/31/185-days-of-icebreaking/
• https://ib1.org/2020/09/01/ib1-update-2020-09-01/ 

Opening the OpenUK Open Technology for Sustainability day at COP26 yesterday, Lord Maude of Horsham said:

“Icebreaker One are developing our national data infrastructure. It’s as important as our roads, rail, water and broadband networks.”

Lord Maude of Horsham

Ofgem, BEIS and UKRI pledge support for Open Energy

Another highlight was the announcement of support from Ofgem, BEIS and UKRI as Icebreaker One’s Open Energy service enters pilot stage to prepare for public launch:

“UKRI, BEIS and Ofgem are supportive of energy data sharing solutions and we will work with industry over the coming months to ensure that these solutions can operate within the energy market.”

Ofgem, BEIS and UKRI statement

Read the full statement here.

Mission Innovation launches Joint Roadmap of Global Innovation Priorities

We celebrate the launch of the Mission Innovation Green Powered Future Mission’s Joint Roadmap of Global Innovation Priorities which took place at COP26. Mission Innovation is a global initiative convening international governments, public authorities, corporates, investors and academia to form new public-private innovation alliances – Missions – that catalyse clean energy solutions for all. The Green Powered Future Mission will demonstrate by 2030 that power systems in all geographies and climates can effectively integrate up to 100% variable renewable energy (VRE) in their generation mix while maintaining a cost-efficient, secure, and resilient system. The UK’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Icebreaker One are leading a core pillar of the global Green Powered Future Mission which is ‘Data and Digitalisation for System Integration’: how to accelerate the digitalisation of energy systems through development of interoperable data exchange and effective system integration to unlock the full value of VRE.

The Joint Roadmap of Global Innovation Priorities has been developed by Mission members to achieve the goal. It has identified 17 Research & Innovation (R&I) themes and the top 100 innovation priorities in order that will guide investment and upcoming activity across 2022-2024, as projects are launched to demonstrate a range of innovative solutions that enable up to 100% integration to VRE.

For more information about the Green Powered Future Mission please read our summary here.

Icebreaker One founder helps launch automotive initiative aligned with IB1 principles

IB1 Founder Gavin Starks joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to launch a partnership with the Catena-X Automotive Network, representing 62 automotive industry members as well as the Rocky Mountain Institute, to develop a shared approach to measuring and exchanging Scope 3 carbon emissions information in automotive supply chains.

You can watch the archive of our presentation and read more about this ground-breaking new partnership here.

Icebreaker One’s Green Zone event plays to a packed house

Our COP26 event ‘How can we decarbonise our built environment? Lessons from experiments around the world’ was a huge success. We enjoyed a lively debate with our global panel sharing their lessons from the frontline of decarbonisation innovation, and the role of net zero data in achieving it.

See the archive of our session here.

Icebreaker One wins OpenUK’s Sustainability award

Finally, it was wonderful to be announced as OpenUK’s Sustainability winner in the OpenUK Awards, Second Edition 2021, that recognise UK Leadership in Open Technology.

COP26 has been a fantastic event and we look forward to more openness, collaboration and innovation to come on the back of these important talks.

We started operating a week after the first 2020 lockdown and are entering our second year just as the world prepares for a critical COP26 summit and rolls up its sleeves for Covid-19 economic recovery. Here’s a brief update about what we’re working on right now.

Funding for the long-term

We’ve been awarded €370K unrestricted funding from Laudes Foundation to invest in our long-term strategy. We’ll be ramping up our communications efforts, scaling our operations, developing our funding pipeline and honing our commercial service offerings.

Laudes is an independent foundation joining the growing movement to accelerate the transition to a climate-positive and inclusive global economy. They aim to support brave action that inspires and challenges industry to harness its power for good. We’re delighted to be working with them. 

Building Open Energy 

At the end of 2020, we won UKRI’s Modernising Energy Data Access competition (£750K) against a strong field of competition. We’re working at-pace to develop both an energy data search service for Open Data and Shared Data, and a prototype governance platform for Shared Data, with finance-grade security, so all organisations in the energy data ecosystem can use it to search, share and access data.

We’ve built an exceptional multidisciplinary team – with skills ranging from information architecture, API services development, user experience and DevOps to energy domain specialists, policy and legal experts, and the team’s still growing. We’ve put our first beta user in place (Passiv Systems) and will be delivering a service that’s ready to go live over the summer.

We’re now working on how to make sure access to the services we’re building can be as inclusive as possible. The Energy Data Search will always be free and open access and link directly to Open Data without any form of ‘gating’. Links to Shared Data necessitate engagement with the Governance Platform to help connect organisations as rapidly as possible.

There will be a cost to this service and we are exploring a sliding scale so that no organisations are prohibited from engagement on grounds of cost. As an independent non-profit organisation, Icebreaker One is committed to developing open markets that enable access to data for everyone and avoid the creation of a new data-access monopoly.

Here’s the core use case we’re currently working on – but this is one of many. We’ve picked one to help everyone focus on working through practical implementation. We know there are many others and want to capture these as we go, add them to our development timeline and work out how to take them forward with industry. 

So what are your use cases? What would Open Energy help enable for your business? Drop us a line at openenergy@ib1.org or just add using this form.

To stay in the loop, subscribe to our low-volume, succinct mailing list here.

Developing a Standard for Environment, Risk and Insurance

Our work to develop data-sharing infrastructure for the insurance sector continues to evolve rapidly. Over the past year, our flagship SERI (Standard for Environmental Risk in Insurance) programme has been iterating through dozens of product ideas that could illustrate how better data sharing could create Net Zero innovation. Through this process, we have explored many challenges that businesses face when they are trying to develop a cohesive data strategy. We have also navigated through complex issues to define Climate-Ready in a material way.  

From many candidates, we’ve now picked one use-case — a Climate-Ready Building Passport — as a way to explore how a data standard could catalyse Net Zero in the insurance sector.

We’re now building Advisory Groups to guide our work. We’re already working with ClimateWise, Aon, Brit Insurance, Willis Towers Watson and Arup. To join them on the project, register your interest here. 

Growing our team and broader constellation 

Our core team is now over 30 and growing, working alongside a large constellation of domain experts in finance, industry, technology and climate.  

Collaboration between industry and the research community remains at the heart of what we do. Cambridge Zero have partnered with us since our inception, on the SERI programme. We partnered with the University of Edinburgh (GOFCoE) and University College Dublin on Project Cygnus. We’ve now also partnered with the University of Oxford to launch the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment. It was selected by UK Research and Innovation to receive £10M investment. Other members of the consortium include Imperial College London, the Met Office, the World Bank Group, COP 26, and the Alan Turing Institute.

We’re partnered with the Future of Sustainable Data Alliance (FoSDA), which is spearheaded by Refinitiv and the World Economic Foundation, and recently set out its initial recommendations to the financial community, addressed to both regulators and financial market participants. FoSDA’s aim is to “identify and accelerate the reliable, actionable ESG data and related technology that is needed for improved investor decision making on the global journey to sustainable development”.

Working with long-standing partners ClimateWise at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, we contributed ideas to their white paper on policy opportunities for Net Zero underwriting.  

Open collaboration is at the heart of what we do

We need your help to connect us to those working on Net Zero across the energy, built world, water, agriculture and transport. Equally, we want to connect with those working on climate finance (across insurance, asset management and capital markets).

We are continually holding public webinars and publishing documents for open comment (for example, our substantial report on the market architecture for Shared Data). I also put out more ‘raw’ thoughts on my personal blog, for example ‘Connect don’t collect‘ which is open to comment by anyone.

Finally, aside from thanking EVERYONE!, I want to ask you to act as our ‘critical friends’ — in the same way we take on this role with our partners. If there is something that you feel we are missing or needs course-correcting, please contact me directly — gavin@ib1.org 

Previously: https://ib1.org/2020/12/31/185-days-of-icebreaking/

Starting just after the first UK lockdown kicked in, we are closing out 2020 having secured over £4.3M in our first year of trading.

Working with our partners, we scaled and deployed over half of this across four major projects within 185 working days.

A growing constellation of experts

Our team grew from two … to a constellation of over 140 experts: 80+ industry specialists, 20+ subcontracted, 40+ in our Icecore team (with a 50:50 gender balance at all levels across that team).

Over 1,000 people engaged in-person via live interactive webinars (e.g. at London Climate Action Week) as well as workshops and 1:1 calls to help focus our development on user needs. 

A lot of learning, making and writing

On the 18th December (on schedule) we delivered ~500 pages of reports (over 120,000 words) detailing—for our funders—the vast amount of work undertaken: research, market engagement, designs, tools and services which we will be bringing to market in 2021. We will be translating these into more digestible forms in the coming weeks. 

A spectacular end to the year

At the end of the same day we secured £1M for 2021, winning a major contract (more on this soon) and closing our first unrestricted philanthropic grant award. 

Thank you 

I want to say a huge thank you to all the teams who have worked together, under challenging circumstances. Together, we have delivered joined-up thinking that spans policy, processes, analysis, market design, technology architecture, tools, communications and cross-sector collaboration. 

Finally, I want to thank you, for your ongoing interest, feedback and support.

I look forward to continuing to travelling with you to deliver our Net-Zero Future.

Quick links

• Events and webinar archives https://ib1.org/events 
• Net-Zero Covid recovery https://ib1.org/cygnus
• Standard for Environment, Risk & Insurance https://ib1.org/seri
• Open Energy http://energydata.org.uk
• Enabling data sharing https://ib1.org/report-nfdf

Share by default

If you’d like to help us, please forward this link. And, of course, please feel free to share and use everything we publish. You can see how our work is openly licensed here. If you’d like to receive updates from us in the future, please sign up here.

All the very best to you and yours for 2021, 

Gavin & the Icebreakers

Phase 2 video summary and slides

Rerun recording of our MEDA Phase 2 final presentation to the review panel

Summary slides below.

You can download our Phase 2 report here.

Comparison of Open Energy with Open Banking.

Icebreaker One curated three events at the November edition of London Climate Action Week, taking place virtually from 14-20 November.

Open Energy – creating a data infrastructure for the energy sector – Thursday 19th November, 10-11am (archive)

Towards a climate-ready insurance sector – Wednesday 18th November, 10-11am (archive below)

How can we deliver net-zero recovery from Covid? – Monday 16th November, 11am-12 noon (archive below)

We are ~100 working days into Icebreaker One (since our formal start on April 1, 2020).

We have now closed over £3M in grant funding and corporate membership fees to build out three major programmes

• SERI — Standard for Environmental Risk and Insurance
• Open Energy — an open energy ecosystem that works for everyone
• Cygnus — exploring how we can finance a net-zero economic recovery from COVID-19

Each programme is working on the Data Infrastructure needed to deliver net-zero, based on understanding the extremely diverse (business, government and social) needs of each community.

Our success is based on collaboration with partners. My call to action for you today is for Project Cygnus: please help us reach city and regional leaders and investors across the public and private sectors.  

We are developing outreach programmes and working groups and would like to connect with potential collaborators: please contact us. 

You can watch our introductory webinar on Cygnus here.

Please feel free to forward this link to anyone you think may be interested. If you are on LinkedIn, please share this; if you are on Twitter, please retweet this.

Best wishes,  
Gavin & the Icebreakers

3 JULY 2020

“I thought it might be good to send a summary on what we’ve been doing at the end of our first formal quarter of existence.  It has been, shall we say, “quite busy” over the last 12 weeks?

This will be an incomplete summary, but I wanted to reflect on a few things and highlight some very important news.

1. Team

Believe it or not, we now have a core Icebreaker team of 20 people: our Icecore team. This is quite a remarkable feat given the circumstances that 2020 has thrown at the world. I’m also very pleased that we have a 50:50 gender balance (including leadership and board).

I am very conscious that we’ve not been able to all meet each other in one place at the same time (even online) and so we are going to hold our first ‘virtual team offsite’ on July 14 from 2-5pm, followed by the consumption of things that you may wish to consume.  This will be our first opportunity to take stock of what we’ve all been doing as a team and plan for the future.

In addition, our SERI Partners add (at least) another 20 people to our broader constellation and the Open Energy project has a further 10 at-work. Our Advisory Board adds a further six, and we are working to better join up our thinking and communications with them so that we can make the most of their wealth of experience in supporting us.

We can reasonably claim to have a constellation of over 56 people working directly on impact. This is quite an achievement for just 12-weeks of operation. 

And during a global lockdown. 

2. Comms

We had a great session at London Climate Action Week yesterday [archive here] with over 300 people registered and 170 actually turning up. We brought in speakers from Lloyds, Arup and NASA/NOAA. We are in conversation with ■■■■■ about what may happen at ■■■■■ next year and are already in various UN reports. Our work is in the Climate Financial Risk Forum recommendations led by the FCA. 

Building on the successes that I will describe below, we will be substantially ramping up our communications efforts over this year.  The programmes, partnerships and initiatives that we are engaged with are pushing our reputation out into the world in a very material way—and changing the way people think. We will invest heavily in amplifying our work. 

Equally, we will significantly increase our investment in developing the underlying work to both establish and maintain a position as an organisation that delivers tangible outcomes—these are themselves, of course, the fuel for impactful stories. 

3. SERI

Today, we have successfully completed our Q1 independent audit, covering over £■■■■■ of spending since April. In addition, we held our first formal review with our UKRI monitoring officer, which also went very well. Our summary slides of that presentation are here (■■■■■ not public a selection of outputs are included below):

• What is “Climate Ready” https://ib1.org/what-is-climate-ready/
• What is “Shared Data” https://ib1.org/what-is-shared-data/
• What is “Net Zero” https://ib1.org/net-zero/
• What is “Data Infrastructure for climate-ready investment” https://ib1.org/2019/11/04/defining-the-data-infrastructure-for-climate-ready-investment

Our Product innovation, Policy and regulation, Systems and standards strands are all progressing well and we reported no changes to milestones or timelines (in spite of COVID) although we have now obviously added it to our risk register (it didn’t exist when our bid was written).

The teams are gearing up to our first major partner ‘show & tell’ on Tuesday, which will bring together the work of the working groups over the past months. In addition, the research team have been exploring initiatives used to measure industry and company net-zero efforts.

4. Open Energy

In June we added a £130K (ex VAT), 6-week contract into the mix to lay the foundations for what could be the future of energy data in the UK. We are working with partners Open Climate Fix and PassivSystems who, combined, add an additional team of 10 for that project. 

We’ll be submitting our Phase 1 report at the end of next week and hope to be shortlisted into Phase 2. We are up against Siemens and a company called Electron in this work. If successful, we will embark on a £216K, 3-month piece of work and, if that works, up to a further £750K.

5. Funding 

SERI is a £1M programme and our UKRI grant covers 70% of what we spend on it. We are grateful to have had early membership provided from our flagship corporate members, Arup, Agvesto, DAIS and our other commercial members who are joining via this programme.

This week, ■■■■■ have signed-off our first grant, for ■■■■■ which specifically addresses (and is equal to) the match funding for SERI for its duration.

This is really fantastic news and paves the way for us to establish long-term funding by giving confidence to commercial partners and opening up other grant sources (NB: it also means we must raise match funding each year for it at that the ■■■■■ level).

■■■■■ additional section of things that we can’t yet make public.

We will continue to develop our work on:

1. Data infrastructure and governance

Rapidly galvanizing efforts to unlock access to Shared Data and develop impact-focused, profitable and/or value-generating tools and services for our partner.

2. ■■■■■

■■■■■ [Ed: is this too much of a tease? ]

3. Policy

Developing policy positioning, learning materials and a framework for policymakers.

4. Communications

Developing clear, cohesive and inclusive language and communications to bridge across sectors, enabling collaborative and open transformation towards Net-Zero.

Summary

One of our new team members mentioned to me that they really “felt the pace” at Icebreaker.

This is something I’d like us to maintain while balancing our wellbeing: please look after your own energy and help your colleagues do the same. We cannot sprint a marathon and this is a long-haul project which will have many challenges. 

However, embracing the right pacing will enable us to achieve the unimaginable. 

We are 12 weeks old. We have raised over £■■■■■ against major pieces of work and have a strong pipeline for more.

We have a direct Icecore team including dozens of domain experts and over 400 more on our mailing list who we will be engaging in our development over the coming months. 

Please take some time to reflect and enjoy this moment and, as we gather our thoughts towards the 14th July, please also imagine what might be possible. 

Let there be no poverty of ambition. 

Best,

Gavin