Sense-T head to feature in natural capital accounting event
Director and Advisory Panel Chair among panellists at Washington DC event
The founding director of the world’s first economy-wide intelligent sensor network will be a key speaker at an event in Washington DC today (Tuesday 5 March) which will examine global efforts to implement accounting systems that include the value of natural resources.
Hosted by the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank, this event brings together experts from the fields of sustainable development, government and academia, international business, statistics and accounting. Last year at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro (‘Rio+20’), 62 countries and 90 companies and financial institutions stated their support for natural capital accounting.
In two sessions today, one devoted to the private sector, the other to the public sector, panellists will explore what it will take to translate this support into action and make natural capital accounting a reality.
The Founding Director of the Sense-T network, Ros Harvey, is a panellist in the private-sector session.
Sense-T is the world's first economy-wide sensor network. Currently under development, it will aggregate historical and spatial data with real-time sensor data from across the state.
Information will be available through easy-to-use apps to help business, government better manage their resources. It is also a test bed for new approaches to social, economic and environmental sustainability – this includes new models of natural capital accounting.
Sense-T is a partnership between the University of Tasmania, CSIRO, IBM and the Tasmanian Government.
Ms Harvey previously founded the global program Better Work, which is internationally recognised as a landmark in the field of corporate social responsibility, global supply chains and pro-poor development.
The Chair of Sense-T’s Advisory Panel is also a panellist today.
Dr Brian Pink, who will participate in the public sector session, is the Australian Statistician and Head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics. He is also Chairman of the OECD Committee on Statistics, Chair of the Statistics Committee of ESCAP and Vice-Chair of the UN Statistical Commission.