Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon for businesses: help us create solutions for local business waste strategy in Oxfordshire on your terms

This June our Good Waste Charter initiative is launching a business engagement process to develop a county-wide strategy on waste built from the ground up. We are inviting all Oxfordshire businesses to an ‘Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon’ to share their experiences with business waste.

This will help us understand the problems our local businesses face in their supply chains, and to engage in developing creative solutions with our business community.

Sign up here for the Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon

Read on to learn what this entails and how it will contribute to creating a Good Waste Charter for Oxfordshire.

Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon

What is a hackathon?

Hackathons are tools used to drive fast-paced innovation and are commonplace in the world’s biggest household tech companies (e.g. Google). However, this format is also used to bring new voices to the table with regard to community-based solutions development. 

The European Union has recently funded hackathons as a way to generate solutions to the waste problem in Moldova with great success, but the format is less frequently implemented in the UK. 

As the lead coordinator of the county-wide Waste Innovation Station Hubs (WISH) project, funded by the National Lottery, Cherwell Collective is dedicated to facilitating grassroots innovation. We want to apply this tool, used by giants like Google, to real-world, local problems.

Our Hackathon model

Using these examples, we have developed the Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon (OWH). This is our “gold standard’ effort to engage businesses in a deep dive about waste. 

The hackathon requires 4 hours of commitment from local businesses or individuals representing businesses. It consists of an in-person session hosted by Unipart, an online pre-session, and an online post-session.

Join the Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon

You can sign up for the OWH here. Attendance at all three meetings is strongly encouraged:

  • Pre-Session (online), Wednesday 1st July, lunchtime 12-1
  • Hackathon (in person, Unipart House), Monday July 13th, 12-2
  • Post-Session presentation (online) Wednesday August 5th, lunchtime 12-1 

Why business engagement?

The learnings from these activities will support sustainable waste practices (or, as we like to say, ‘good’ waste policy) in our region. They run in tandem with our community engagement sessions and policymaker engagement work. For those who may not be ready to commit to the innovative Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon, we will also offer a series of smaller one-off drinks-and-nibbles sessions in autumn for businesses to share their experiences.

This forms a comprehensive and collaborative approach to countywide strategy drafting. The learnings from these activities and engagements will be used to build a Good Waste Charter, compiling the learnings, needs, and ideas from our engagements with businesses, community members, and policymakers.

The Charter will be taken to local governments and local working groups for development and implementation.

This follows the model first set in place by Good Food Oxfordshire beginning with their Good Food Charter which led to the countywide food strategy now in place. 

Our framework for Good Waste Policy starts at the most fundamental level: waste policy, like any other services, must be open to all. Services and infrastructure must be accessible, consistent, and affordable.

Although years in the making, the Good Waste Charter consultation comes at a critical time for Oxfordshire. Despite having some of the best rates of recycling in the country, the problem of business waste is fresh on many people’s minds following the Kidlington waste dump that made international headlines last November.

The engagement process is a major step toward investing in and scaling practical solutions in order to create the low carbon waste solutions our county needs. To date, many policies have focused primarily on reducing household rubbish, which only accounts for 14% of total waste in the UK.

We are thrilled to be supporting local industry through this grassroots, people-powered business engagement process. The Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon will be an important moment in creating the sustainable and circular infrastructure our county needs, with the local businesses themselves at the forefront.

What do you get out of it?

Participating in the Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon shows that you care about the sustainability of your operations. 

By investing time in this hackathon you will:

  1. Develop a key part of understanding compliance practices needed for upcoming legislation. 
  2. Participate in deep and meaningful networking with like-minded business leaders. 
  3. Explore the potential for practical cost reduction solutions through streamlining supply chains. 
  4. Participate in and learn a new format of brainstorming.
  5. Start thinking specifically about solutions to rising costs or everyday challenges.
  6. Get expert help identifying ways to improve your operations for compliance and savings
  7. Get a certification as evidence of skills developed.

Stay for the revolution

Sign up for the Oxfordshire Waste Hackathon here, or register your interest here for future Engagement Sessions for businesses through the Good Waste Charter.

Don’t forget to visit cherwellcollective.com/good-waste-charter for up-to-date information. We hope to learn from you at the Hackathon soon!