In collaboration with the Guardian Sustainable Business Quarterly, we will be running an event that will be a precursor to the quarterly events we are kicking off with the Guardian in June. In addition to a brief 20 mins plenary session, the event will consist of a series of highly focused roundtable discussions developed specifically to address the Open Innovation Challenges running in the 2degrees forum pages. Space is limited for this initial March event so we are looking for members to join who have relevant experience and thoughts around the specific topic to be discussed.

The purpose of the March Consumer Engagement roundtable will be to share and discuss common problems and issues that organisations face in engaging their customers practically and influencing their environmental behaviour.  Bringing together leading practitioners and experts from the demand side only, the table is invitation-only roundtable and will explore the key principles of consumer engagement and the growing pressure on businesses to educate consumers about social and environmental change (in other words changing the playing field from supply push to demand pull).  A lifestyle change, not just legislation, is integral to countries’ reducing their emissions and adopting a more sustainable future.  Specifically, we would like to take this opportunity for those around the table to raise their own challenges or issues they are facing – what works and what doesn’t from your experience?  How do we even rate the success of consumer engagement on environmental behaviour change?  How do we move from traditional channels of communication to more innovative ways of communicating with the consumer without alienating consumers or affecting the messaging of a product? 

The event will take place on 30th March, 5-7pm, in a venue at King's Cross in London. If you are interested in participating, please email Anandita Singh

We hope that this focused collaboration will help to provide you with the tools and benefits to engage and inform your consumers coherently and efficiently around environmental behaviour change. If there is any particular challenges or areas that you would like to see discussed on the round-table, please do let me know.