Environmental Sustainability

Mitch is an award-winning documentary filmmaker with a career spanning over thirty years. She has written, produced and directed films, live shows and media content for UK and international broadcasters, studios and organisations including BBC Studios, Disneynature, Smithsonian Channel, National Geographic Channel, PBS, Discovery Channel, WWF and the Prince and Princess of Wales’ The Royal Foundation. Since 2015 Mitch has created award-winning immersive content for BBC Studios, Magic Leap, Oculus, Lenovo and the UN. She’s acted as a BAFTA VR Advisory Associate, has contributed to industry papers including Digital Catapult's 'Creative Tools and Workflows For Immersive Content Creation' and is an Immersion Fellow with the South West Creative Technology Network. Award-winning immersive credits include 'Magic Kingdoms' for BBC Studios/Magic Leap, 'Growing a World Wonder' for the UN and most recently 'The Anticipation of Rain' for Ithra's Creative Solutions programme in Saudi Arabia. Mitch has recently taken up a role with the University of Bristol as a Senior Research Associate in Immersive Natural History Experiences. Mitch is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts.

Bianca is passionate about investigating the possibilities, challenges and risks of new and emerging technologies including immersive: XR, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and gaming. She has led and worked on a range of projects in academia and industry, most recently focusing on immersive technologies and collaborative industry partnerships in education.
Bianca is the Curriculum Lead: Immersive (Associate Professor - Academic) at Coventry University and leads the immersive strategy for the College of Arts and Society.

An award-winning technology journalist whose work has appeared in consumer and trade magazines and websites in the US, the UK, Australia, South Africa and Europe, Bianca was first runner-up in the print business magazine category at the 2002 Telkom ICT Journalist of the Year Awards. She also won second place in the 2002 AISI Media Awards special category IDRC Award For Reporting on Research and Innovation. She has written a number of white papers about technology and business.
In 2012, she was selected as one of the Top 40 Under 40 business achievers by the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber. She completed the VR Mobile 360 Developer nanodegree through Udacity. Bianca's PhD focused on serious games and gamification. Bianca is also co-chair of the Metaverse for Good committee for the VR/ AR Association (VRARA).

Greg is a highly experienced research and development producer for the Media Cymru, the Cardiff University led innovation programme in Wales. He guides and supports a wide range of media innovation projects and leads the green and advanced media production pillars of work for the programme. Prior to this he was a producer for Clwstwr, one of the UK wide creative clusters. He has over 20 years’ experience of working in the creative sector, including film and TV production, performance and event management. He is also Co-Investigator on the EPSRC XR Network+ Virtual Production in the Digital Economy which is building a collaborative research community for the future of virtual production and creative technology.

Mike is a seasoned production professional, from traditional print via film to immersive & experiential, he works at the forefront of Marshmallow Laser Feast's creative endeavours.
Mike’s belief in the power of art & culture to shift perceptions combined with a thirst for progressing new storytelling forms has culminated in producing a host of MLF’s critically acclaimed works such as Treehugger (Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes Award 2017), Sweet Dreams (Sundance 2019), We Live in an Ocean of Air (Saatchi Gallery 2019) and most recently Executive Producing MLFs latest work Evolver (Tribeca 2022 and Cannes Immersive selection 2024).

Dr Maruša Lestek is a Research Fellow in Technology and Culture at StoryFutures, Royal Holloway, University of London, and a User Researcher at CoSTAR National Lab. With a trans-disciplinary background in psychology, social science, and data science, Maruša specialises in audience and users’ experiences of immersive technology, particularly through the lens of social impact and social change.

Specifically, Maruša has experience working across a range of partners and stakeholders in the area of creative industries, including theatre, music, and immersive tech. Notable partners and projects include a sustainability-focused project with Factory42 and BBC, 'The Green Planet AR Experience'; The National Gallery’s 'The Keeper of Paintings' app; the 'StoryTrails' project with the BFI, Niantic, and the BBC; an educational project with Meta Immersive Learning; and an educational pro-environmental game ‘UnEarthed’ with Factory42 studio.

Maruša encapsulates values of environmental sustainability in personal and professional life and has spoken on the challenges and potential of the immersive tech in relation to environmental sustainability at numerous occassions, including at the Beyond Confernece in 2022 and British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) conference in 2023. Maruša recently published a paper ‘Immersive storytelling for pro-environmental behaviour change: The Green Planet augmented reality experience’ in Computers in Human Behaviour journal, discussing this topic in further detail.

I have been working in the immersive technology field for the last 8 years and am currently a lecturer in Immersive Technologies at Teesside University. My work focuses on developing XR solutions that address both societal and environmental challenges. One of my ongoing projects is a VR-based car driving lesson simulator, aimed at reducing the carbon footprint by minimizing the need for physical vehicles during training. This aligns with my broader goal of utilizing immersive technologies to support environmental sustainability by reducing emissions and resource consumption.

In addition to my academic role, I participated in the OpenInnoTrain initiative, which enhanced my understanding of environmental sustainability and the positive impact that XR technologies can have. This experience further solidified my commitment to exploring how immersive technologies can help reduce environmental impact, especially through simulations and remote training.

Throughout my career, I have led various XR projects, including VR-based industrial training, digital twins, and AI-enabled assessment tools, demonstrating my dedication to innovation and sustainability. I am eager to contribute to the Environmental Sustainability working group, bringing my expertise in immersive technologies to help promote eco-friendly practices across industries.

Martin is a world-leading factual filmmaker. He established Talesmith to entertain, inform and encourage audiences to marvel at the world around them. His films are known for their cinematic visuals, compelling narratives and technical innovations, readily embracing new ways to visualise complex ideas. Many have won critical acclaim and industry awards including a BAFTA, a Canadian Academy Award, multiple Emmys, Leos, a Wildscreen Panda, a Jackson Hole award, RTS awards, an AAAS writing award and a Lumiere Award. Martin has directed many of the world’s leading talents and major global figures including President Zelensky, HRH Prince William and Professor Stephen Hawking. He is the creative driving force behind some of Sir David Attenborough’s most recent work, including his multi-award winning 3D, VR and AR projects. he has directed multiple Flying Theatre 4D projects, directed a hologram of President Zelensky and produced AR and VR experiences with Sir David.

I have over 20 years experience of the film and TV industry as well as experiential events and over the last 5 years have refocused our businesses on becoming #sustainablefirst - developing products, services and studios which can support a transition to sustainable production best practice. We are currently developing our VR location scouting service, LOCATIONZ, and have just received a grant from Innovate UK to develop this with a particular focus on virtual/remote production and screen tourism. I also sit on the board of Create Central, the West Midlands trade body for the creative sector and i am the sustainability lead.

As the founder Third Eye Open, where we are developing SenseSync, we have been developing a platform that provides real-time data visualisation across multiple sectors, including HR, health and safety, and environmental monitoring. While SenseSync's core technology is rooted in real-time monitoring, we are expanding into immersive data experiences to enhance decision-making processes, particularly through Digital twins and augmented reality (AR) interfaces for managing environmental factors in remote and on-site workspaces.

Our team is currently exploring ways to integrate immersive technology into our platform, aiming to provide users with enhanced, real-time spatial understanding of complex datasets—especially for industries like urban planning, workspace management, and safety compliance. My expertise lies in designing user-friendly, interactive platforms, and I have over 25 years of experience in UX/UI design, developing platforms that bridge the gap between advanced tech and accessible user experiences. I have also led the development of native iOS and Android applications, some incorporating early-stage immersive features for various sectors.

Working with XR technologies for over 20 years, games/experience development for 25 years (programming/creative+technical director/studio head). I've been involved in carbon impact reduction in games/software for several years and formed Green-Bit Software last year to accelerate this goal.

I worked at an environmental and sustainable engineering consultancy (https://www.ghd.com/) as their sole Mixed Reality and Visualisation Specialist for 2 years before then working for 5 months at Microsoft in the ISE (Industry Solutions Engineering) department. In these roles, I provided development, specialist consulting, design, and managerial support in a variety of tech and immersive solutions support to achieve goals directly relating to environmental sustainability (such as supporting the design of XR solutions relating to architectural and design retrofitting and construction solutions for carbon emissions calculation and mitigation, immersive remote training of engineering sites, design and H&S remote assessment, concrete emissions mitigation, digital twin and IoT technologies, forward planning, etc).

Dr. Simon Campion is the Visualisation Lead at the University of Liverpool’s Virtual Engineering Centre and Digital Innovation Facility. With over two decades of expertise, he specializes in crafting immersive virtual environments and interactive visualizations across various sectors. His work has gained commercial recognition, notably in an Epic Games spotlight article for a project with the RHS. Dr. Campion played a pivotal role in a 4D Simulation project that received the "Best BIM (Building Information Modelling) Project of the Year" at the North-West Regional and National Construction Awards in 2016. This project not only earned an Epic MegaGrant but also led to the establishment of a spinout company, showcased at www.4dsimulations.net.
His VR initiatives include a collaboration with environmental scientists studying the impact of nuclear radiation on wildlife post-Chernobyl, contributing to an award-winning project recognized by the Times Higher Education Awards. Dr. Campion has been instrumental in multiple Innovate UK projects, including as Co-investigator of a Virtual Incident Training Environment, designed to train emergency services in response to terrorist incidents (No. 103974), and a project developing a Satellite-Structural Health Monitoring System to track city infrastructure movements and prevent disasters (No. 102825).
Currently, he is a co-investigator on a Meta Grant titled "Bridging worlds: co-creating tools for the control of parametrically driven avatars with neurodiverse individuals" and an AHRC Creative Research Capability infrastructure grant aimed at founding the UK’s Centre for Digital Heritage Research.

Design Technology Manager (Group) at Grimshaw Architects, based in our London headquarters, I collaborate with our global team to drive strategic initiatives and foster cross-regional partnerships. A key aspect of my role is leading our global XR strategy, with a current focus on integrating these tools into the daily workflows of architects and designers. My goal is to make the adoption of XR technologies as seamless as possible by democratizing knowledge and ensuring easy integration with the teams’ existing design tools. This involves training programs and change management to encourage broader use of these technologies. Additionally, I actively research and test emerging XR tools and technologies to continuously improve our capabilities. I also work with our Computational Design teams on Environmental Performance strategy and tools. I have extensive experience in using tools such as Ladybug, Honeybee, ClimateStudio, and OneclickLCA.