Last week we held our first Climate Ready Portsmouth event at the Lakeside North Harbour Auditorium – and what a fantastic milestone it was!
This was our first event with Portsmouth City Council’s re-established Green Partnership and the relaunch of our Business Climate Action programme as Climate Ready Portsmouth. Collaboration, information, and best practise sharing are key to the business communities. This event aimed to promote new conversations and opportunities.
We had a range of inspiring speakers from PCC’s Energy Service Team, Nature Positive Portsmouth and Portsmouth 100, Hamshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust on Why Nature Matters, Southampton City Council on Heat Network Zoning, The University of Portsmouth on their new environmental policy and EcoDrift Commercial Cleaning with their insights on the role of SME’s for climate and nature.
We also heard from Portsmouth Water about how the climate challenge is shaping a new “business as usual”, and Southern Water’s Clean Rivers and Seas Task Force on how collaborative partnerships can deliver positive outcomes.
Finally, the University of Leeds presented their new findings on the extent to which businesses have started adaptation measures, the extent of worker involvement in the design of these measures and the effects on workers of the resulting changes.
Steff Jones, Operations Manager at Shaping Portsmouth, said “It was great to see over 50 businesses and organisations represented by over 80 delegates. The feedback on the presentations was enthusiastic particularly in terms of opportunities for and the necessity of collaboration on climate resilience.”
Dave Humphries, CEO at Shaping Portsmouth, adds “A massive thank you to Felicity Harris and the Lakeside North Harbour team for hosting this event and creating the perfect space for meaningful conversation and collaboration.
“We’re also incredibly grateful to our brilliant presenters: Phil Horton, Trevor Mose, Joanne Wood, Vera Trappmann, Antoni Dimitrov, Kelly Nash, Dawn O’Malley, John Pickford and Owen Hughes for sharing their insight and enthusiasm. Their contributions sparked valuable conversations and thought about Portsmouth’s climate resilience journey.”