Climate, Agriculture, Sustainability

Even as new battery technologies develop, many vehicles around the world still rely on lead-acid batteries for their starting power. The lead in these batteries can be handled in a way that results in efficient recycling and re-use in new batteries—but in some markets, the taxation structure has created incentives for unregulated recycling that results in dangerous pollution and health effects while recovering less of this valuable metal for reuse. In this session, experts discuss how digital data can be used to trace metals through recycling loops involving manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and consumers, and what incentives might help keep lead and other battery metals within a controlled supply chain, minimizing opportunities for pollution while encouraging good stewardship of valuable resources.

An incredible amount of untapped potential exists in the data generated by homes and buildings. How upgrades—including those to make homes safer, more energy efficient, or more fire or earthquake resistant—are incentivized and financed could be revolutionized by enabling owners to monetize data generated by their properties. Long term, this value could be used to realize benefits for health, water quality, social justice, and more.

Exploring how this emerging practice of holistic agriculture, which defies definition because it is so site specific in responding to local environmental and community conditions, can contribute to mitigating the existential environmental threat the world now faces.