Data Bites #54 — Public Digital

April’s Data Bites - the fifth at Public Digital, following 49 at the Institute for Government - was themed around the environment and sustainability.

Digital sustainability - including thinking about the energy, water and resource costs of data, digital technology and AI - has been rising up the agenda recently: there was a recent conference on Think Digital Sustainability for Government, while ‘minimise environmental impact’ was added to the UK government design principles the day before Data Bites. And environment data has long been at the vanguard of data in government (for example, Open Defra).

You can watch this session just below (or on YouTube) or listen via SoundCloud.

Data Bites on Wednesday 4 June will also be themed around the environment and sustainability.

A speaker in a room with people where some people have their hands up requesting a question — Gavin Freeguard taking questions from the audience

Data Bites is a monthly meet-up designed to showcase interesting data projects in and around the public sector. Four brilliant speakers each get eight minutes to present – there are eight bits in a byte, hence eight minutes in a Data Bite – followed by eight minutes of Q&A. You can sign up for the next one – join us in person in London or online.

Ishmael Burdeau on digital sustainability

Ishmael, Lead Sustainability Business Architect at the Department for Work and Pensions, gave an introduction to digital sustainability, outlining the importance of the issue and touching on some government initiatives to do something about it.

A big screen shows a man joining a call in a room full of people — Ishmael Burdeau joins the session via videocall

Matt Fry on data sharing in hydrological research

Matt, Environmental Informatics Manager at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, spoke about sharing data in hydrological research and beyond.

A man in a big screen addresses an audience in the room — Matt Fry joins via video

Isaac Beevor and Alex Parsons on Council Climate Action Scorecards

Isaac, Partnerships Director at Climate Emergency UK, and Alex, Democracy Programme Lead and Senior Researcher at mySociety, talked about their work on measuring UK local authority climate action through their bi-annual Council Climate Action Scorecards. The next iteration is due out in the next few months, and you can also explore:

See Isaac and Alex's slides

Two men speaking — Isaac Beevor and Alex Parsons

Liz Lutgendorff on waste management

Liz, Senior Digital Transformation Manager at the North London Waste Authority, spoke about why tracking waste is hard.

A woman shows a screen with scenes of waste management — Liz Lutgendorff

If you’d like to present at a future Data Bites, or would like to recommend someone, please get in touch!

Photos by Paul Clarke.