ECO-I North West - Opening up the expertise, equipment and resource of the region’s leading universities

Company Profile Small World Consulting helps organisations from the largest tech giants to local SMEs tackle the climate and ecological crisis. Its work includes developing carbon accounting techniques, land use management consulting and researching food systems and strategic business advice in the Anthropocene. SWC is a resident company of Lancaster University and was founded by Mike Berners-Lee, author of ‘There Is No Planet B’ and ‘How Bad Are Bananas; The carbon footprint of everything?'. The Project Current carbon accounting tools have significant problems which lead to flawed results and/or unmanageable complexity. The result has been a poor uptake of their application by businesses despite the pressures on, and desire of, businesses to understand and manage their climate impacts. There are two methods of assessing how much carbon is embodied in goods and services: the top-down environmental input-output approach and bottom-up process-based life cycle analysis approach. Combining them into a hybrid method is difficult due to problems with boundary definitions and the reliability of available data. This project will involve integrating a new environmentally extended multiregional input-output model spanning multiple countries with more specific process-based lifecycle analyses into a business-friendly product to be tested with real clients. Alex Boyd Alex graduated from Lancaster University with a 1st in MPhys Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology. He then undertook two internships with local sustainability SMEs including one at Small World Consulting where he quickly developed an interest in EEIO modelling which now continues into his current work. Academic Supervisors Professor Gordon Blair Professor Mike Berners-Lee Small World Consulting Ltd