Event overview
Join us for our hybrid event as part of Bristol Tech Festival with talks from two charities doing cool things in green tech – Centre for Sustainable Energy and Friends of the Earth.
Solar Wizard: mapping rooftop solar potential

CSE‘s tool, Solar Wizard, helps users assess whether rooftop-mounted solar photovoltaics (PV) are a viable option for their building. It provides estimates of the amount of electricity that can be generated by PV, installation costs and financial savings, all based on an optimal rooftop installation. For partner local authorities, there’s a web map enabling visualization of the solar potential of the buildings in an area.
Annette’s talk will provide an overview of how their solar model works, the main features of the application, why it’s was created and hopes for the tool for the future.
About Annette
Annette is a Senior Project Manager in the Research and Analysis team at the Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE). In her role she coordinates and provides technical input to projects that tackle key issues relevant to UK energy policy and the move towards a lower carbon energy system. She has 16 years’ experience within the sustainability field, with 15 years specialising in sustainable energy.
Annette’s slides
SolarWizardDeck_Bristol-Tech-Fest_101024-minFlourishing with AI? Friends of the Earth’s experiments in AI for environmental justice
Does the arrival and super-fast development of generative AI technologies risk entrenching inequality and undermine efforts to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises? Or can we harness these technologies to unlock creativity and extend capabilities at the grassroots, whilst still influencing how they are developed?
How do we engage with a disruptive technology like AI? We’ve been exploring this agenda since 2018. This talk will cover:
- Approach taken to developing a portfolio of experiments to shape the AI agenda – and an overview of some of those experiments;
- FOE’s draft principles for working with technology;
- Key challenges we see in harnessing the power of innovations like AI whilst enabling human and planetary flourishing
- Role that people working in both the technology and environmental sectors can play in supporting this agenda.
About Mary and Chris

Mary co-leads the Experiments Programme at Friends of the Earth and has been based in Bristol since 2018. Her role is to support people to develop ideas that can accelerate a just transition through a practical, test-and-learn approach. She has a particular interest in applying innovation to support the emergence of more resilient local communities – and loves the diversity of community-based creativity in Bristol.
Chris also co-leads the team, and lives in North Wales. His focus is on turning ideas into testable prototypes, and helping the organisation think about a range of possible futures. His interests are varied, but often tinged with technology. Outside of FOE, you can often find him teaching aerial hoop at his local studio.
Mary and Chris’ slides
2024-10-10-GTSW-presentation-compressed-minWatch the event video
Key timings – minutes from the start
- 02:40- Event starts with a welcome from organisers, Ellen, Hannah and Mike
- 06:10 – 60 second intros – a chance for in-person and online attendees to introduce themselves, ask for help or share something interesting
- 20:40 – Annette’s talk
- 47:00 – Chris and Mary’s talk
- 01:10:12 – Questions
Resources and links

One of the perks of holding events online, and having such a wonderful and engaging community, is we share a huge amount of useful resources and information throughout the event. Here’s a summary of what we unearthed.
Links and resources
- Friends of the Earth’s steal from us page
- Green Screen Catalyst fund
- Can AI make local environmental action more effective? blog
- Green Web Foundation’s report on the environmental impact of AI
- Earth Species Project
- Talk about animal computer interaction design
Community 60 second intros
An opportunity for you, our community, to (very quickly) share something with the rest of us. This can be anything from a green tech project or initiative you are working on, a request for help or guidance or even some knowledge/resource you’d like to share with others
Tim Johnson – As Delivery Manager at Scott Logic, Tim kindly supports us with our in-person events! He has two projects he would like to shout out, the first is an open source air quality dashboard which looks at difference between forecasted and actual air pollution. Tech Carbon Standard (which Hannah has also been working on), modelling how to calculate the carbon emissions for your IT estates. They’ve created an open source calculator to help you identify the main areas your emissions are coming from. If you would like any more information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Tim.
Ingrid & Ed Garrett– Works at The Discourse, a branding agency, proud B-Corp and wonderful sponsors of Green Tech South West! They predominantly work with charities and sustainable businesses as their main client space, to help them to define their messaging and to effectively communicate their impact. They’ve learned a lot from the clients they have worked with over the years and would be happy to share their knowledge, so please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Discourse via their website or Ed’s LinkedIn.
Stephen Shakespeare – Started his company Prospero Software Limited three years ago when he helped an international charity to implement SharePoint, and has since moved on to help two more charities do the same thing. He’s now building a projects and programs database to help charities track their projects and their spend across quite a number of countries. He’s recently brought in a part time developer to help me do that. As a Microsoft independent software vendor, Microsoft enables him to put that in a box and do it again. So that’s what I’m doing. Thanks Stephen!
Lucy Reeves – Lead Project Manager at a start-up called NPK Recovery who are recovering nutrients from urine and turning them into a more sustainable fertilizer. Lucy feels that they are currently not using technology as much as they could be, and is keen to hear from anyone who has experience with Software that can do design experiments, or could help them optimise their nutrient recovery. If you have any suggestions or guidance on how NPK Recovery could implement tech, please do reach out to Lucy and help them get NPK Recovery to market!
Mark McGarrity – Mark has just finished up his latest project and is now looking for guidance from the Green Tech South West community. As a chartered electrical engineer, Mark is eager to transition his career into the tech industry. So if anyone has any guidance please do not hesitate to reach out to Mark.
Matt Kepple – Founder of Makerble, an impact measurement platform. Having worked with non-profits in the past to help them measure their impact, they were incubated by Friends of the Earth. They’ve now started looking at how their platform can be used in other ways for measuring impact, and also for tracking results of new ideas, innovations, experiments and more. So if anyone is interested or needs a tool that is an upgrade from spreadsheets for tracking impact, to be able to set your own KPIs, set targets and see how different activities are leading towards these results, then do reach out to Matt. They have a free version of the platform as well for when budgets get in the way!
Joss Ford – Founder and CEO of Enviral, who are on a mission to win the war on boring sustainability stories from a communications agency through strategy, creative and advertisement. They are starting to write an ethical AI and would welcome some guidance on where to start, so please get in touch with Joss if you have any pointers!