The Quality of Life Foundation

Interesting and inspiring were two of the words used by our members to describe our first talk at our February monthly meeting.

Professor Sadie Morgan OBE is the founding director of Stirling Prize winning architecture practice dRMM. She has had a long and illustrious career, playing a key role in advocacy of exemplary design and architecture, through her professional and advisory roles.

Sadie recently founded the Quality of Life Foundation, a UK charity aimed at raising people’s quality of life and wellbeing through the improvement of the built environment.

Sadie spoke to us about her previous experience and about the Quality of Life Foundation, and how those fundamental requirements can be incorporated into the built environment.

Thanks to Sadie for taking time out of her incredibly busy schedule to speak to us.

You can learn more about the Quality of Life Foundation here: https://www.qolf.org/

Carbon8

Our second presentation at our January monthly meeting was given by long-standing member and former Chair of acumen7, John Pilkington
 
John is currently the Executive Chair of Carbon8 Systems Ltd.

Carbon8 was incorporated back in 2006 by two scientists who were working together at Greenwich University. For the previous 10 years they’d been experimenting on an idea hatched out of a failed experiment for a new method of soil stabilisation. Throughout 27 years from that ‘eureka’ moment, they have been seeking funding across a myriad of opportunities. In the past four years, they have been able to secure funding from external investors.
 
John spoke to us to give us the story of the ups and downs of the fundraising to date, the preparations for the next big round later this year, and the lessons learned throughout the entire, very long, process!
 
It was very interesting to hear about the reality of fundraising, how much hard work is involved and how long it really takes!
 
We wish John and everyone at Carbon8 all the very best for the future and for changing the world.

Carbon8 website

 

Making UK Nuclear Power Competitive

After Tony Roulstone presented to us last year, a group of acumen7 members got together with him with the objective of promoting and supporting the case for small nuclear reactors, a key element of the UK sustainable provision to enable us to meet our Net Zero carbon targets by 2040.

The Focus Group comprising Tony, Peter Dixon, Robert Osborne and Simon Murray have met several times and at our first monthly meeting of 2023, they shared the results of their deliberations in terms of formulating a cohesive approach to developing programmes of development for both SMRs and large reactors to standard designs.

The presentation and subsequent discussions demonstrated the depth and strength of our network in one of our key focus areas.

Thanks go to the Focus Group for their work so far (and the work that’s to come), and to all of our members who attended the session.

Realine Solutions Ltd

Thanks to Andrew Cobden for leading the discussion during the second session of our November Monthly Meeting.


Andrew has established Realine Solutions Limited with Quinton Hill-Lines and a team of 6 deeply experienced operators all contributing to Realine’s business strategy and set-up to apply modern thinking to delivery and a new way of managing relationships, sharing returns and reducing risk. 
 
Andrew took us through the Realine thought processes to explain how by reducing the number of partners in delivery it is possible to encourage greater collaboration based on two-way transparency, increase scheme returns; all incentivised by more equally sharing in the upside created.
 

What did acumen7 do for me?

Mark Bew is a longstanding member of acumen7 and CEO of Cohesive, an international digital integrator delivering transformational outcomes across the built and natural environment.

Mark gave us a fascinating presentation about the advantages of being a member of acumen7, how that has helped him on his journey from running his own business to the merger with Cohesive, which has developed the first truly integrated approach for the management of critical assets and services.

For more information on The Cohesive Group, visit: https://cohesivegroup.com/

 

Economic and financial market outlook

Some fascinating insights from Marc Hendriks kicked off acumen7’s June meeting. Marc shared a macroeconomic outlook of the financial markets, and the causes of UK and global inflation. Marc also spoke about why he decided to launch a start-up 18 months ago, GreenGrowth Investments and highlighted the challenges so far. Marc is the Co-Founder and CIO of GreenGrowth, which offers a pioneering investment app enabling retail investors to invest sustainably based on their lifestyle. GreenGrowth aims to make sustainability the new normal for investing, and allows everyday retail investors to participate by investing into these solutions, letting them have a positive impact and healthy financial returns.

For more information on GreenGrowth Investments, visit: Ethical Investment – GreenGrowth