Kite Insights | Upcoming Events

Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Debate: 'Efficiency is the only honest climate strategy'

Debate and discussion hosted by LinkedIn

9:30 to 11:30 AM BST

LinkedIn Experience Centre, The Ray, 123 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3DA

As AI transforms the economy, it is driving an energy surge that no boardroom is seriously proposing to stop. But AI is also, paradoxically, the reason radical efficiency is now a serious proposition: the same technology expanding energy demand is producing optimization capabilities that simply did not exist before. Some argue the honest move is simply to back what businesses will do anyway: use less, waste less, spend less. The workforce appears to agree, operational efficiency is among the fastest-growing skills in the economy, according to LinkedIn's Green Skills Report. Proponents say efficiency is becoming the social license to operate, the measure by which corporations demonstrate their impact on local communities, grid stability, and job creation. In a world of increasingly divergent corporate missions, it may be the only commitment that reduces cost, satisfies regulators, and survives shareholder scrutiny simultaneously.

But is backing what businesses will do anyway a strategy, or a surrender? Critics say cost motives and climate motives may overlap, but they diverge where it matters most: efficiency alone provides no incentive for the long-term investment in new technology we need to actually lower emissions. It licenses consumption rather than constraining it, and savings without a measurable goal holds no one accountable for anything.

Can radical efficiency be the engine that turns massive energy demand into a genuine catalyst for decarbonization? Or is rebranding the bottom line as climate action just moving the goalposts?

Express interest to attend here.

Debate and dinner hosted by EY

Debate: 'We are investing in the wrong sustainable innovations'

5:00 to 6:30 PM BST

Banking Hall, 14 Cornhill, London EC3V 3ND

The scale of the sustainability challenge has produced an expanding universe of innovation, yet the gap between investment and impact stubbornly persists. Some argue transformative innovations like green hydrogen, long-duration storage and regenerative agriculture are being forced to scale inside a system designed for the world we have, not the one we're heading towards. AI may accelerate that transformation, or simply entrench the solutions already winning. The pressure to compete within existing rules quietly crowds out the innovations that could rewrite them. The innovations that win tend to reflect the systems that chose them.

The counter-argument is that every transformative innovation in history proved its value within existing structures before displacing them. Build the foundations, prove the returns, and more ambitious bets become possible. Furthermore, financial capital is only part of what is at stake. Political careers, institutional identities and the livelihoods of communities on the frontlines of climate change have all been committed to particular pathways. Sunk cost bias shapes not just what we invest in, but what kind of future we are actually preparing for.

Are we innovating in a way that truly prepares us for the unstable future ahead? Or are we bound to a present that our prior commitments have made too costly to question?

Who should attend: Senior sustainability, policy and innovation leaders

Express interest to attend here.

Dinner: Are we innovating for the world that's coming?

7:00 PM BST

Banking Hall, 14 Cornhill, London EC3V 3ND

An exclusive gathering of executives from business, government and policy, focused on how sustainable innovation may shape the next era of economic transformation, from industrial systems and infrastructure to markets, governance and models of value creation.

Who should attend: C-suite leaders, senior executives, and board members from policy, government and business

Express interest to attend here.

Wednesday, 24 June 2026

Sustainable Construction Talk: Unlocking the true value of sustainable construction: Driving positive impact at scale through the transformation of the built environment.

3:00 to 7:00 PM, including cocktails

Hosted by Saint-Gobain's Sustainable Construction Observatory

This event will focus on how to fully realise the social and economic value of sustainable construction. Doing so promises to set off a virtuous cycle of investment and impact.
The discussion will bring together industry leaders including developers, architects, urban planners, construction and
materials actors, and corporate occupiers shaping market expectations, alongside public and private financial institutions such as investors and insurers, local and global policymakers, and NGOs.

Participants welcome at 3:00 p.m.

Talk from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., followed by a cocktail and networking.

Participation is primarily by invitation, but a limited number of seats are available upon application here.

Tuesday, 21 April 2026

Session: 'Before We Begin'

3:00 to 4:30 PM BST
Hosts: Kite Insights, Project Dandelion, Echoing Green, Moonshot Platform, Dasra
Skoll Week is full of ideas. What’s rarer and necessary is a moment that helps leaders arrive with intention, connect to one another, and ground themselves before the pace accelerates. This opening session is designed especially for first-time delegates (but open to all registered Forum delegates), using short narrative prompts, light movement, and peer exchange to set the tone for the week ahead.

**This session is open to all Skoll badge-holders.

Wednesday, 22 April 2026

Session: Civic Renewal: Innovative Approaches to Democratic and Climate Action

3:00 to 4:30 PM BST

This session will explore innovations in civil renewal through the work of bridging leaders whose advocacy for freedom and democracy spans the local and global. With both climate progress and democratic resilience increasingly shaped by misinformation and fragmented trust, what will it take to rebuild the civic foundations that make collective action possible?

Speakers:

Marya Besharov, Academic Director, Skoll Centre (Moderator)
Sophie Lambin, Founder and CEO, Kite Insights (Moderator)
Juliana Uribe Villegas, Founder and CEO, Movilizatorio
Kat Hamilton, Executive Director, Force of Nature
Rich Wilson, CEO, ISWE, Co-Founder, Global Citizen's Assembly
Kainoa Azama, Associate Director, Olohana Foundation
Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, Director of Investigations & Strategic Impact, Byline Times; Founding Director, Foundation for Civilisation Renewal

Registration link: https://luma.com/k2b55dx8

Thursday, 23 April 2026

Session: ‘Degrees of Change: Heat, Pregnancy, and the Systems We Need'

1:00 to 2:30pm BST
Extreme heat is one of the most immediate and under-addressed threats to human health. Emerging research shows that exposure to high temperatures during pregnancy increases the risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, stillbirth, and maternal complications, yet maternal health remains largely absent from climate adaptation planning, infrastructure design, and finance strategies.
Hosted by Project Dandelion in partnership with Wellcome Trust and Kite Insights, Degrees of Change brings together science, frontline experience, infrastructure thinking, and policy leadership to examine what it would take to embed heat resilience into the systems that shape daily life.