During a climate change workshop with over 80 attendees, we needed a way to allow attendees to participate and feedback. I prepared and used a participatory model based on a voting app which could be accessed online via their smartphones. The attendees had varying backgrounds, from policy makers through to businesses. Using this method, I was able to collect quantitative responses for the level of ambition against particular policy areas and perceived perception from the attendees on pushing climate action further.

Recently, I have been managing a project for Hull City Council which is focussed on the measurement and analysis of consumption emissions at the council and across the city. My role was to propose a methodology by which both the council's operations and the city-wide activities could be calculated as a consumption based inventory to better understand the main drivers for consumption emissions and help support future policies on management and reduction of consumption in the city and council. As this area of measurement is fairly difficult to measure and quantify, I proposed to use 2 different methods for estimation - population based and GVA - to define the consumption emissions of the city, and comparing the results. This approach required integrated considerations for all sectors across the city through the process of calculation, two models were developed. These were explained through the report in a visual manner so that the council staff could understand the methods used and replicate the assessment annual, to support monitoring and reporting in a standardized manner.

I have engaged with several funders of sustainable urban development through my experience such as philanthropic funders, foundations, global development banks and institutional investors. At CDP, I supported the delivery a program of work called Matchmaker which had the objective of collecting information from cities on sustainable urban development projects they were seeking financing for, in order to connect those city governments with potential funding streams for the projects. One of the main difficulties was in refining the project offerings to be high investment grade, and a lack of knowledge within cities to develop bankable projects. There is certainly an increased appetite for private sector investment into sustainable cities projects, and a great opportunity for this to be capitalized to support cities sustainability projects. Public finance also has a role to play in sustainable urban development financing, through public-private partnerships and green bonds.