Smarter Cities

for a
Sustainable Future
Report based on proceedings at IBM Start
“
When one tugs at a single thing
in nature, he finds it attached
to the rest of the world.
John Muir, US author and naturalist, founder of The Sierra Club
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

Contents
Executive summary .................................................................................................................................................... ..3
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future ....................................................................................................................... ..3
Outline of the day’s agenda ....................................................................................................................................................3
What is sustainability? ................................................................................................................................................ ..5
Common themes from the Summit ............................................................................................................................. ..7
Collaboration is key to progress ..............................................................................................................................................7
Complexity requires systems thinking ....................................................................................................................................7
Data and metrics are the basis for finding solutions ..............................................................................................................7
Solutions require atypical personal and corporate behaviour ................................................................................................7
Summary of proceedings ........................................................................................................................................... ..9
The problems of UK cities are real and immediate .................................................................................................................9
People must be at the centre of thinking ...............................................................................................................................9
A city must have an aspiration, a vision ..................................................................................................................................9
The vision must be grounded in reality – every city has unique DNA ..................................................................................10
Most cities already exist – retro-fitting is key .......................................................................................................................10
Complexity is, as ever, the enemy .........................................................................................................................................11
Information discovery and sharing is critical ........................................................................................................................11
We need different leadership skills for the future ................................................................................................................11
Understand the journey that is required to achieve the vision ............................................................................................12
A different approach to understanding returns on investment is needed ............................................................................12
Decentralisation is key to finding the right solutions ............................................................................................................12
Policy and legislative changes will be required to make progress ........................................................................................13
Citizens and stakeholders must have input ...........................................................................................................................13
Don’t create a finished job – create the framework and let people take ownership ...........................................................13
Next Steps: developing the themes ............................................................................................................................ 16
The Start Innovation Jam ......................................................................................................................................................16
The IBM Summit at Start ............................................................................................................................................ 17
About The Bathwick Group ........................................................................................................................................ 18

Page 1
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

Executive summary
Only the most hardened climate deniers and sustainability  Improving people’s lives is at the centre of the
sceptics still argue that we can continue to live, to expand, challenge. How we create environments help people
and to consume the way we do indefinitely. We are to live well and contribute to the health and wealth
heading for deep trouble, and possibly for disaster, driven of society should be at the heart of modern urban
by our historic disregard for the scarcity of resources and planning
the collateral damage our activities create, and on which  Identifying the core aspiration for a city that will
our progress to date has depended. The evidence is build on its unique history is the first step to a more
increasingly stark, the consensus at practical dominance sustainable future
and the range of issues broadening across all social,
natural and economic systems. The problems are both
 Cities in the UK have an existing infrastructure.
Successful retrofitting of solutions is required
massive and systemic; our response must be worthy of
that challenge.  Cities are an incredibly complex of interconnected
systems. We need different and more strategic
More than 120 business, government, community
thinking to make the changes that are required
leaders and commentators attended the Smarter Cities
for a Sustainable Future day (day 1) at the Summit. They  Decentralisation and letting people take ownership
concluded we need to act faster, and work together across will help identify more successful solutions
industry and country boundaries; they left determined to
make change happen. Their debates and comments are
noted in this report, but these points were key:
 The problems of UK cities are real and immediate.
80% of the UK population already lives in cities. Yet
that population will still grow by 10% or more by 2030

Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

Outline of the day’s agenda

KEYNOTES:
International context: Ginny Rometty, SVP and group executive, IBM Corporation
The Vision: Martin Powell, London Mayor’s adviser on the environment
Why cities? Why now? Nigel Hugill, Chairman, Centre for Cities.
Place: George Clark, architect and TV producer
Economy: Hamish McRae, associate editor, the independent
Community: Geoff Mulgan, Director, the Young Foundation.
Lives: Emma Harrison CBE, Chair, Action for Employment

Page 3
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

Page 4
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

What is sustainability?
Sustainability: most people think it’s a good idea, some
ENVIRONMENTAL
people are passionate about it, some are truly ambivalent Manage


or even hostile to the notion, but everybody has a different SOCIAL consumption of
Cohesiveness of Cities energy, water,
definition. It is therefore important that we establish a ECONOMIC  Citizen centric health,
food, raw
definition to use as a baseline for this report. Sustainability, Sustainable Economy education and social materials
 Balanced services
simply put, is the capacity to endure 1. Minimise
investment  Better distribution of


 Better risk services, jobs, housing wastage of

At a global level: we live on a planet that is a complex scarce resources
management  Transport
inter-dependent set of eco-systems, and increasingly,  Short term & infrastructure
socio-technical systems; sustainable behaviour is long term Work and society
therefore that which ensures the environmental Do more with less (£)  Roles of business and
 Outcomes that government
balance is maintained, allowing human civilisation to
matter  Skills, behaviours,

continue to survive.  Accountability careers

At a regional/national level: we must maintain
the economic structure of our society – markets,
businesses, profits, infrastructure and jobs; societal
stability in turn ensures the long-term demand for,
and the sustainable growth of, products and services.
Along with progressive social policies on equality
and well-being, sustainable markets, businesses and
societies aim to create long-term opportunity for all.
These three elements – economic, social, and environmental
(also referred to as profit, people, and planet) – form the
basis for the Triple-Bottom Line (TBL, figure 1), a simple
description of the elements involved. The problem is that
for many – particularly those of us charged with delivering
hard, short-term results – the social and environmental
appear to detract from the economic; they are seen as
blockers.
It is this central dichotomy that is often cited as the reason
for sustainability being a hard sell in business. But it
shouldn’t be; organisations and those leading them want
to survive and prosper as much as they ever did. The
only issue is to illustrate both the urgency of taking action
and the importance of all three factors in ensuring their
organisational and individual survival.
We find ourselves at a unique point in our history. Unlike
previous generations, we know that we are causing
irreparable damage to the planet and that, regardless of
arguments about the causes, significant changes in how
we live must be achieved.
1 The Bathwick Group’s definition, which separates the capacity
to endure (surviving) from sustainable development (thriving), which
is growth that has at most a neutral social and environmental
impact.
for spend
Figure 1. One representation of the triple bottom line
We must discover how to deal with the biggest impacts
humans make on this planet, including:
 Population growth. Population growth is at the core
of the sustainability challenge. There were 1.75 billion
people on the planet in 1910; today there are 7 billion,
and by 2050, the UN estimates that the global population
will peak at around 9 billion.
 Resource depletion. The development of the ‘Western’
lifestyle over the past 60 years has greatly exacerbated the
population problem – a lifestyle based on quantity rather
than quality, and on consumption as a validation of our
national and individual success. Powered by cheap energy
and mechanisation, it’s been easy and we could afford it.
But we have taken little notice of the ‘collateral damage’,
and as a result we are using up the planet’s resources and
damaging ecosystems at an alarming rate.
 Unaccountable growth and consumption. The hidden
costs (or ‘externalities’) of some of our activities are now
recognised – not least the estimates of the cost of climate
change brought about by GHG emissions from fossil fuel
use over the past century. Lord Stern’s estimate of 2% of
GDP (£28bn annually in the UK alone) to counter climate
change is dwarfed by estimates of the economic damage in
prospect (for example the figure of $20tn annually by 2100
by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW)).

Page 5
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future
Common themes from the Summit
Collaboration is key to progress
There are few challenges within organisations that can be
solved by an individual employee or a single department,
and few challenges in sustainability that can be addressed
by a single organisation operating in isolation. ‘We need
to collaborate more’ was a key conclusion of every day of
the Summit at Start; collaboration is the key to unlocking
creativity, finding new ways of approaching familiar
problems, and generating widely-accepted solutions. We
know however that few organisations collaborate well,
internally or externally. Over the past five years we’ve
analysed how and why this is so. Individual and corporate
insecurities, unhelpful reward systems and competitive
sensitivities are among the issues that combine to inhibit
openness and sharing of data and ideas.
Collaboration is about changing the way individuals think
and organisations respond, finding more effective business
process alignment, and encouraging trust and positive
behaviours. Achieving such change is at the heart of
finding the efficiencies, technologies, and market models
that will define a more sustainable future.
Complexity requires systems thinking
The complexities of organisations and markets are a barrier
to understanding and change. The developed world today
is a network of inter-dependent socio-technical systems,
in which changes of any type have systemic impacts that
are hard to foresee in the normal scope of an individual’s
role. Few people ever experience more than a small part
of the picture, and the decisions they take will only be
appropriate within the context of their understanding.
Creating predictive frameworks and more holistic decision
support models requires systems thinking – the process
of understanding how things influence one another
within the whole – which is an unusual set of skills. Few
organisations employ such skills, except perhaps in strategy
or technical design roles, but in an increasingly connected
world systems thinking is becoming important. We would
do well to recognise, nurture and value the appropriate
skills, as second- and third-level impacts are increasingly
coming to define the effectiveness, and therefore the
success, of most organisations.
Page 7
Data and metrics are the basis for finding solutions
We generate enormous quantities of data within our
organisations, much of which languishes in silos, unused
for lack of capacity, the right tools or skills to process and
analyse its meaning. The amount of data, and the number
of sources from which it comes, is spiralling upwards every
day; we can’t hope to understand either the scale of the
challenge we face or the best routes to a solution unless
we learn what we know, and how to gain valuable insights
from it.
Peter Drucker famously said “If it can’t be measured, it
can’t be managed”. In a sustainability context, if you don’t
have information on the impact of your operations and
your activity, you won’t be able manage that impact down.
Worse, you can’t enumerate and report success.
Solutions require atypical personal and corporate
behaviour
Of all the challenges we face in becoming more sustainable,
individual and organisational behaviour will perhaps
be the hardest to address. Personal and corporate
insecurities, consumption-oriented lifestyles, unhelpful
corporate cultures, a focus on the short term, and a lack
of awareness (or unwillingness to understand) inhibit our
ability to effect change. They make us believe that what
we do individually makes little difference, and help us to
hide behind competitive sensitivities to justify inaction.
Will it be more carrot or a bigger stick that will produce the
changes we need? Probably both, and applied without
fear or favour, according to delegates at the Summit.
Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote “All plans of
government, which suppose great reformation in the
manners of mankind, are plainly imaginary”. In other
words, good luck with changing human behaviour. In the
250 years since that was written, have we learned enough,
and are we optimistic enough, to prove him wrong?
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

Summary of proceedings

The problems of UK cities are real and immediate Many speakers highlighted that people must be at the
centre of discussions about the future of cities. Cities
exist because most aspects of ‘modern’ (post-Industrial

“ More than 4000 people die each year as a

Revolution) life are most efficiently served by concentrating
people, commerce and services. While great concentration
has led to increased efficiencies and productivity, and
result of poor air quality in London. made possible many of the facilities we now enjoy, it has
Martin Powell, London Mayor’s Advisor on the also created a range of social problems. As we consider
Environment the future of Smarter Cities, we should always keep in
mind that change and development is only beneficial if
ultimately it serves to improve the lives of the people who
Much of the work published on ‘Smart Cities’ today focuses live there.
on future growth, increasing urbanisation and ‘new’
cities, but many of the problems described are issues that
UK cities already face. Some 80% of the UK population
already lives in cities, but immigration projections suggest
“ Economic wealth is important, but it’s not
10% growth or more by 2030. Each city’s pressures are
enough. Community and social wealth are
unique however; some of our older cities are struggling to
vital for the health and vitality of a city.
compete economically, having seen the original impetus
Geoff Mulgan, Director, The Young Foundation
for their growth die off (shipbuilding for example), while
others are struggling to cope with continued growth. Traffic
congestion, spiralling energy demands, lack of affordable
housing, and sewerage and utility infrastructures affect That isn’t to say that benefits are solely economic. The
such urban areas today. benefits of smarter development also include quality of
life, health and social well-being, and the maintenance of
Many delegates at the Summit were shocked by the
functioning communities. Life in a city can be a challenging
revelation about London’s poor air quality, and that only
experience, particularly for the young, the disenfranchised,
moderate rainfall will overflow the Victorian sewer system,
and the new incomer. How we create environments that
flushing its untreated contents into the River Thames. These
help people to live well and contribute to the health and
problems are symptomatic of long histories; successful
wealth of society should be at the heart of modern urban
development against such complexity is a challenge that
planning.
many of our larger cities face.

A city must have an aspiration, a vision

People must be at the centre of thinking

“ “ Cities must have a vision, an ambition. But

None of what we are talking about matters
get together city leaders and major
unless it’s going to make people’s lives
stakeholders and there is rarely a
better.
consensus.
Emma Harrison CBE, Chair, A4E
Ginny Rometty, SVP and Group Executive, SMSE,
IBM Corporation

Page 9
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

The first objective of planning, and a sentiment expressed
by many speakers and participants at the Summit, was
the need for a city to define a vision for its future. There
are many aspects to Smarter Cities, but they can’t all be
achieved at once. What does being ‘Smarter’ mean for
your city? Is it about being the greenest? Having the best
quality of life, or the finest public services? Perhaps it is
being the destination for the next generation of high-tech
entrepreneurs, or to be a centre for the arts? Or maybe
having a 21st century education system generating the
most skilled and rounded people in the country?
For a vision or aspiration to be realised, it has to be
grounded in reality. Most UK cities have grown over many
centuries propelled by the prevailing economic, social,
religious and political environment; they have a DNA which
imbues them with a character against which it would not
be easy, or desirable, to struggle.
Where cities have grown up around an important industry
– coal, iron, wool, or ship building for example – they
will have a particular feel to their buildings and culture,
and very probably a set of challenges quite different to
cathedral cities such as Winchester or York, with their

“
histories as religious and military centres of influence.
Many UK cities have grown rapidly since the 1930s, and are
therefore dominated by the prevailing architectural and
Imagine if ‘Made in Sheffield’ didn’t mean
planning mores – suburban sprawl and/or concrete jungle.
cutlery, but people – their skills and
careers. Creating a vision for any city must take such heritage into
account, in addition to geography, existing skills base and
Emma Harrison CBE, Chair, A4E
infrastructure, and particular strengths and weaknesses.

How would it help to attract people and investment to the

area? How would it differentiate your city from others?
What existing challenges would be met through achieving
that vision? Achieving consensus amongst the many
stakeholders that make up cities is a major challenge, but
an important part of creating the conditions for successful
change.
Martin Powell, the London Mayor’s advisor on the
environment, showed how the design laid out for Rome
centuries ago still defines the structure of the modern city.
Just as physical infrastructure defines the basic architecture
of a city, a range of other non-physical factors will also have
influenced its structure and character. It was an important
point that framed mush of the detailed discussion of the
rest of the day.
The vision must be grounded in reality – every city has
unique DNA
“ We must work with what we’ve got, not
imagine a utopia. If sprawl is a reality,
concentrate on making travel easy.
Hamish McRae, Associate Editor, The
Independent
Most cities already exist – retro-fitting is key
With this in mind, and particularly considering key
sustainability objectives such as a more efficient public
transport system, energy efficiency, and more integrated
utilities and services, much of the path to a smarter, more
sustainable city of the future involves working with what
is already in place. There are few opportunities worldwide
to create new cities from scratch, and none in the UK.
The role of planning in today’s cities is therefore about

“ Cities are existential – they happen over

development of existing resources, building stock, and
infrastructure.

many years for economic, political, religious

reasons.
Kevin McCloud, Designer, Broadcaster

Page 10
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future
“ Retro-fitting the built environment is by far
the greatest opportunity for energy
reduction and job creation.
Martin Powell, London Mayor’s Advisor on the
Environment
As a result, it requires collaboration between dozens
of public sector bodies and agencies, private sector
companies, policy-makers, and communities. Such
stakeholder coordination represents a major challenge,
but the opportunities are significant enough to warrant
the effort. A report by the Centre for Sustainable Energy
(and others) in 2008 estimated that retro-fitting existing
housing stock in the South-East with energy saving
measures would result in carbon emission reductions of
more than 20%, and the creation of thousands of new
jobs.
Complexity is, as ever, the enemy
Unsurprisingly, many delegates at the Summit pointed
to the challenges of not only inter-body cooperation
and collaboration, but also the sheer complexity of cities
– multiple inter-connected socio-technical systems in
which a single change would generate many second- and
third-tier effects.
“ For all the successes in traffic management,
there have also been many failures; it is
nearly always as a result of a failure to
assess and deal with the complexities
involved.
Ginny Rometty, SVP and Group Executive, SMSE,
IBM Corporation
As we pointed out in ‘common results’ earlier, complexity is
a given where many different systems are interconnected
– even when a topic is relatively bounded, like traffic
management. Considering and understanding the
complexities involved, and the consequent risk profile
Page 11
of a project, can only be achieved by first understanding
as much as possible about the challenge, starting with a
picture of all the relevant information available.
Information discovery and sharing is critical
The first step to achieving a solution to any problem is
defining and sizing the challenge; the first step towards
designing innovative (smarter) approaches to city functions
is therefore collating, integrating ad understanding the
available data sources. Understanding the data already
available creates a framework against which to generate
and test ideas; it also shows where data gaps need to be
addressed.
“ There are hundreds of different silos of
information around a city; first and
foremost, we need to know what we
know.
There are literally hundreds of different sources of
information in dozens of private and public bodies
associated with running or servicing the city and its systems.
Identifying that data and finding ways to correlate and
share it is the first step towards the collaboration needed
to find solutions for the future.
We need different leadership skills for the future
Identifying opportunities and ideas is the first step; brining
projects to a successful conclusion requires a range of
leadership skills. Leadership that can create a vision,
confidently communicate it, bring stakeholders and
citizens on board, and reach out to and collaborate with
the disparate bodies required to make the vision a reality.
“ There is a skills gap in local government,
not least one of vision.
Hank Dittmar, Chief Executive, The Prince’s
Foundation for the Built Environment
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future
The skills that served in the past for political or executive
leadership of local government are not sufficient in this
world of complexity and systems thinking. As successful
leaders in all spheres have shown, recognising and
nurturing the skills required in their leadership team is the
basis for their own achievements.
Understand the journey that is required to achieve the
vision
In addition to the leadership skills required, complex
projects are still major change management challenges,
in which the vision and goals must be translated into a
journey or series of steps that will achieve the vision.
“ The piecemeal approach to city
development denies progress; agreeing a
realistic vision is one thing, but coordinating
how to get there is another.
Balancing the needs, political and commercial pressures,
and disparate goals of the different players is part of
creating successful collaboration. Equally important will be
determining how each step on the journey will integrate into
the whole, and be performed without creating disruption
to citizens and future steps. Large change management
projects such as these are sometimes described as carrying
out maintenance to a jumbo jet while its flying; a challenge
certainly, but one that must be addressed – cities won’t
stand still while a project is executed.
A different approach to understanding returns on
investment is needed
Many investments in the field of sustainability are
disadvantaged by presenting long-term payback, despite
being necessary both to attain the sustainability goals that
will ensure our businesses and cities thrive into the future.
New methods are needed to account for longer-term
returns and risk avoidance, some of which were discussed
on the Finance day of the Summit. In the case of cities
however (and any other citizen-focused endeavour for
that matter), there are other non-financial factors.
Page 12
“ Traditional, simple models of ROI are not
sufficient in a city context; there are four
areas of ‘new’ ROI: operational value,
brand value, societal value, and strategic
value.
Ginny Rometty, SVP and Group Executive, SMSE,
IBM Corporation
How does the achievement of a city’s aspiration create
‘brand’ value? Does it attract people and/or business
to the city? Does it create opportunities for growth and
development? What is the societal (environmental,
quality of life, social cohesion, etc.) value of investments?
And will it better enable your city to compete nationally
and internationally to engender long-term growth?
Decentralisation is key to finding the right solutions
The UK is one of the most highly-centralised economies in
the world – particularly after the past two decades which
saw many areas of planning from education to business
support agencies become subject to Whitehall control.
The theory of centralisation is largely based on achieving
national standards; the difficulty is that local diversity is
both a fact and important in allowing natural economic
and social areas to develop in the way that best suits their
aspirations.
“ More than 75% of public sector spending is
controlled nationally, which is very high in
a global context.
Nigel Hugill, Chair of the Board, Centre for Cities
The current government’s ‘Big Society’ approach includes
moves not only to decentralise but to devolve powers and
budgetary control to a more local level. How that will be
managed and exactly what ‘Big Society’ means are open
to question, but a decentralised approach is important if
widely-varying cities across the country are to find their
own path to a smarter future.
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

“ Local investment must be planned and

“ People will engage if we ask them; just
spent by people who know the local needs asking them makes them feel worthy of the
– we shouldn’t just decentralise question.
decision-making – we should devolve it. Emma Harrison CBE, Chair, A4E
Chris Murray, Director, Core Cities

Evidence from past projects suggests that people tend

Policy and legislative changes will be required to make
progress
Devolution of both responsibility and budgetary control is
of course no simple matter and will require commitment
from central government and extensive changes in policy
to achieve it. But the requirement is clear – national
targets and processes are unlikely to achieve either local
integration of planning and services, not are they likely to
meet the needs of cities with widely varying needs.
to resist changes forced on them, but rise to challenges
in which they feel they have a stake. There is too much
division and disenfranchisement in UK cities; as a number
of delegates pointed out, drawing people into a vision of a
better future and enlisting their support can be as simple
as asking for their opinion.
Don’t create a finished job – create the framework and let
people take ownership
Extending that thought about ownership of outcomes

“ We must have an integrated planning

was the notion that architect-delivered visions of total
developments into which people simply need to move
does little to engender a feeling of ownership, which may
process for retail, commercial, housing, explain in part the neglect and decay of so many major
transport, etc. within the overall built developments over the past few decades.
environment.
Hank Dittmar, Chief Executive, The Prince’s
Foundation for the Built Environment
“ Incompleteness is important in planning
and development; let people finish it off
Local control would provide the best opportunity to and they feel a sense of ownership, a sense
develop solutions and infrastructure in line with a city’s of community.
history and aspirations. Creating a Smarter City for the
Geoff Mulgan, Director, The Young Foundation
future requires both an understanding of local conditions,
and the power to implement the right solutions.
How can planners create an outcome in which people
feel ownership? How can pieces of development be
Citizens and stakeholders must have input
left unfinished (landscaping for example) to allow
That is not to say that vision, strategy, and planning are the local residents to stamp their own personality on their
preserve of a small cabal of city leaders. Part of putting surroundings, in their own community?
people at the centre of planning is accepting that those
These questions and many others will be addressed in the
people have a view on their own futures. Smarter Cities
ongoing work planned or supported by IBM.
take more account not only of people’s physical needs
(housing, transport, work, etc.) but also of the community
and soft factors that make so much difference to quality
of life.

Page 13
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

Next Steps: developing the themes

The Start Innovation Jam

The IBM Summit at Start was “one of the most significant
events of its kind that has ever taken place in this country”
according to Charles Hendry, the Minister of State for
Energy & Climate Change.The Summit brought together
key stakeholders from many communities, and created a
momentum amongst attendees to do something to make
a difference. The journey towards a sustainable economy
will be a long one, and the Summit was always intended
to be the start of a process rather than a single, albeit
impressive, event. As a continuation of that process, IBM
has announced that it will be hosting a ‘Start Innovation
Jam’ in April of 2011.
An Innovation Jam is an online text-based discussion forum
for conducting a large-scale brainstorming event. Diverse
groups of individuals are connected via a web browser to
discuss and develop actionable ideas for business-critical
or urgent societal issues. The key word is ‘actionable’. The
purpose of this Jam is to take what was learned from the
Summit, and turn it into a bank of actionable ideas. This
is about how – the Summit identified a number of urgent
needs to which we need to find solutions: we need to
encourage collaboration between differing constituencies,
but how do we make it happen? How do we start to change
individual and corporate behaviours? How do we engage
with younger people and how do we act NOW to make a
difference? The Jam aims to answer these questions and
in doing so kick off hundreds of projects that will generate
real solutions and provide inspiration for a thousand
more.
The Jam will be facilitated by IBM in conjunction with the
Start organisation and many of the other Start partners.
They will be inviting everyone who attended the 2010
Summit, their partners and clients, and many others who
wish to join them on the journey.

Page 16
Smarter Cities for a Sustainable Future

The IBM Summit at Start

Start is an initiative established by HRH The Prince of UK. Over 1,000 of the UK’s most influential people joined
Wales, that aims to create a vision of a more sustainable forces with some of IBM’s global experts to create a new
future, and seeks to promote sustainability through simple, constituency around economic, social and environmental
positive and aspirational messages. sustainability.
IBM is one of the founding partners, and is the exclusive Charles Hendry, the UK Minister of State for Energy and
partner for Business to Business engagement. In September Climate Change said that the IBM Summit at Start was
2010 IBM led a Business Summit – nine invitation-only “one of the most significant events of its kind that has ever
days that covered key topics on the sustainability agenda taken place in this country”; this document, written by The
for business. Its starting point was simple: “ask not what Bathwick Group, reports the output from the summit, with
you can do for sustainability – ask what sustainability can a specific focus on Day 1, Smarter Cities for a Sustainable
do for you”. Future.
Business engagement in the broad sustainability agenda
is crucial if we are to make progress. Business led the
industrial revolution, it led the digital revolution and all the
signs are that it will drive the sustainability revolution too.
Each day of the summit saw senior business leaders, public
sector officials, NGOs, academics and commentators come
together in London’s Lancaster House to make a difference
to how sustainability is perceived and positioned in the

Page 17
About The Bathwick Group
The Bathwick Group is a research-based consulting company that helps clients address their most pressing needs in
strategic planning and go-to-market execution.
Sustainability & the future economy:
Defining the future – risks and opportunities; strategic modelling and benchmarking, future-proofing to mitigate strategic
risks, and identification of new market opportunities
The future of business & organisational performance:
Focused on collaboration and disruptive platforms; solving client challenges rapidly by combining external experts and IP
protection mechanisms to expedite solutions to important challenges
The application and future of information technologies:
Focused on infrastructure (futures and cloud computing) and interaction (including social media) in business. Future-proofing
strategy and effectiveness audits for enterprise IT leaders, cloud assessments, data audits, and benchmarking
IT industry futures:
Marketing strategy, customer analysis and deep research, sales acceleration and business partner enablement solutions

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Document number: BG-EV-W-00069UK-EN-00