Nikki Beckett, Products of Change Ambassador for Carbon Literacy, headed down to the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK last week (26-28 March) for the annual Anthropy event.
With a mission to build a future for the UK that is more positive, sustainable, equitable, and successful, Anthropy is a national gathering that brings together leaders and organisations to attend over two hundred sessions, led by over six hundred speakers.
Representing Products of Change at the event, Nikki Beckett feeds back her highlights and takeaways from Anthropy 2025:
I headed down to Eden Project last week to attend this year’s Anthropy UK, not knowing what to expect, but looking forward to spending a few days by the sea, meeting new contacts and being inspired by the beautiful Eden Project setting. Hosted over three days Anthropy requires quite a commitment for diaries, but with over 225 sessions to attend, networking invitations and pre-arranged meetings with POC members, I didn’t stop, and my jam-packed schedule didn’t even touch the sides of what was on offer.
It’s been described to me as a mini-UK Davos, with over 2,000 attendees, including many well-known figure heads, CEOs, and change makers. At its core, the schedule is looking to share and shine a light on some of the economic, political, social and environmental challenges of our time, whilst introducing solutions and exploring ideas for new ones.
Subjects covered a huge array of topics, from circular economy, regenerative systems, future of media, wellbeing economy, farming for purpose, future of energy, youth leadership, education, AI and Robotics, and so much more. If I had to sum up some of the themes that cut across the event, these would be:
We need a new story!
What we’re doing as a society is no longer working, and disruptive changes are now inevitable. We can expect significant technological, political, and social upheaval over the next couple of decades. The consensus is that, with this in mind, we need to collectively as a society start planning; for the future we want, we really do need to better steer the narrative. E.g. Could we make wellbeing the goal with economic growth as a contributing factor?
New Connections and collaboration are key
Anthropy is described as a launch pad for great collaborations, helping to facilitate these new connections seems to be the secret ingredient that makes Anthropy work, bringing leaders together from business, public sector and civil society to build conversations and connections between sectors. I was amazed how many chance meetings I had that led to useful conversations. People I would never have spoken to otherwise. This powerful enabler has seen Anthropy become a growing long-term cross sector movement that continues to expand and thrive post each event.
Sustainability takeaways
Some of the other key takeaways I found interesting – We can expect clean energy, food systems and transport systems to change exponentially over coming years. AI and Robotic technologies will soon have the capabilities to self-repair / self-build and self-improve. Local energy networks will allow local communities to take charge of their energy infrastructures and save money; Ukraine have led the way with community energy frameworks after central systems have been taken out. Second hand markets will continue to grow as younger generations want to access cheaper goods whilst doing their bit to save digging up more raw materials and there is so much more.
To close though I just want to say how lucky I feel to have been able to be part of so many positive and ambitious discussions, with collective will to shoot for the moon to seek out positive solutions and a better future, during such challenging times.
Nikki Beckett, POC Ambassador, Carbon Literacy, co-developing and supporting a peer to peer Carbon Literacy training course, also providing consultancy support in partnership, sponsorship, fundraising opportunities for members.
