Thames Environment Fund
Environmental Improvement Programme: £100,000 available
Local Environment Champions: £50,000 available
Tidal Tributaries Stewardship Fund: £25,000 available
https://pla.co.uk/thames-environment-fund

IB1 highlights
1. Perseus in the spotlight (with UK Smart Data Strategy)
2. Open Energy - Flex webinar 23 Apr 2pm BST
3. Carbon Commons - a common approach to Scope 3
4. Open role at IB1 - Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator
www.linkedin.com/pulse/ib1-insider-april-...

OpenAI halts UK stargate project amid regulatory and energy price concerns The major AI infrastructure was announced in September in partnership was with Nvidia and Nscale.

today in "we're not ready" (part two) with added political fallout
www.cnbc.com/2026/04/09/openai-halts-...

today in "we're not ready" (part one)

www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2026/04...

World's largest offshore wind farm connects first cable to UK coast The world's largest offshore wind farm, Hornsea 3, has recently connected to the UK grid after installing its first export cable.

World’s largest wind farm moves forward towards lighting up 3.3 million homes
interestingengineering.com/energy/worlds-largest-of...

For those wanting a different perspective on the world we live in today
https://www.nasa.gov/image-detail/art002e009288/

LinkedIn secretly scans 6,000+ browser extensions and fingerprints your device LinkedIn runs a hidden JavaScript script called Spectroscopy that silently probes over 6,000 Chrome extensions and collects 48 device data points, none of it disclosed in its privacy policy.

today in "we're not ready": we're not even managing expectations, or impact, with what we're already doing (regardless of what's actually going on behind the scenes here)
thenextweb.com/news/linkedin-browsergat...

AI Company Clones Musician’s Voice, Then Copyright-Strikes Her Own Songs Folk musician Murphy Campbell found herself at the center of a major ordeal when an entity called Timeless Sounds IR uploaded AI-generated imitations of her music to every major music platform, then used her recordings to strip her of her own income. According to sources, the scheme worked like this: someone fed YouTube videos of ... Read more

Today in "we're not ready".
Someone fed videos of Campbell performing to an AI engine, replicated her voice and instrumental style, then proceeded to file copyright claims against her original source
rudevulture.com/ai-company-clones-musici...

Working with over 200 people across banks, software and energy companies, Perseus aims to reach over 1 million UK SMEs with impact-based and meaningful sustainable finance incentives by 2030. Want to learn more about what, how and why? https://ib1.org/2026/04/01/perseus-is-infrastructure/

What IT leaders need to know about AI-fueled death fraud For many businesses, dealing with customer deaths is improvised. But today’s AI-generated fake death certificates are turning an oversight into a potential data nightmare.

Today in "we're not ready"... AI-generated fake death certificates are turning an oversight into a potential data nightmare.

www.computerworld.com/article/4146580/what-it-...

Google Finds Quantum Computers Could Break Bitcoin Sooner Than Expected Google published a paper on March 31 that states that Bitcoin's cryptography could be impacted by quantum computing sooner than previously stated.

Google Finds Quantum Computers Could Break Bitcoin Sooner Than Expected
(Don’t fall for alarmism: the timeline isn’t tomorrow, but it’s time to act.)
www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/202...

Report from the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) provides an international comparative analysis of Smart Data implementation models, and is highly aligned with the work of IB1.

ib1.org/2026/03/31/drcf-insights...

I Was an Enthusiastic Early Adopter of AI Scribes. Here’s Why I Stopped A GP reflects on what eighteen months of ambient scribing taught them about the consultation they thought they already understood.

Today in 'we're not ready':"human cognition is not confined to the brain but extends to the tools we use. When we write clinical notes in our own voice, we are not transcribing our thoughts after the fact: we are completing them" benngooch.substack.com/p/i-was-an-enthusiastic-...

UK Gov Smart Data Strategy
- 20 interoperable Schemes by 2035
- £36m of Industrial Strategy investment
- cross sector Trust Frameworks and data sharing interoperability
www.gov.uk/government/publications/...
All foundational to what we've been building at https://ib1.org

Working across climate, finance, energy, water, sustainability, policy, systems-thinking and/or data governance? Join our growing @IcebreakerOne constellation https://ib1.org/constellation (it's free) and connect with peers and fellow-travellers.

7th Carbon Budget
- Every pound spent on Net Zero benefits 2.2x to 4.1x
- Avoiding climate damages benefit: £40B-£130B
- Energy losses halved: £30B/year
- Far greater health & wellbeing co-benefits than costs
www.theccc.org.uk/publication/supplementar...

Palantir extends reach into British state as it gets access to sensitive FCA data Exclusive: Allowing US tech firm to analyse intelligence in name of tackling fraud raises fresh concerns over privacy

So, we're ready for this, yes?
"The FCA considered using dummy data...but decided using real data was the only worthwhile test"
www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/22/p...

AI for Climate: Redesigning the UK’s Net-Zero Planning AI can help Britain deliver net zero by aligning planning across sectors, places and institutions through shared intelligence.

Some curious ideas here (yet familiar patterns/NDL) on a known challenge. Thoughts?
Skips past data infrastructure? Underestimates market architectures? Duplicates other work?
institute.global/insights/climate-and-ene...

Instagram to remove end-to-end encryption for private messages in May Meta’s announcement comes after years of criticism from child safety groups over feature

"Meta will be able to see the contents of messages between all users – which so far it only could for those who did not enable encryption."

www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/18/i...

"You cannot manage what you refuse to see"

National Academies of Sciences says no to demands it remove climate info
arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/national...

Today in, no, we're not ready
"people were being put at risk of harm by false and misleading health information...AI summaries are shown to 2 billion people a month..."
www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/16/g...

Standards Home - Open Banking Standards UK Open Banking Standards

There are a few: TrueLayer, Yapily, Plaid, Salt Edge, Tink ... (NB: OB is a b2b, not a 'consumer', API so that legal + regs apply) standards.openbanking.org.uk has the details, and openbankinguk.github.io/read-write-a... for the weeds ;)

SecondPress — Turn your Spotify playlist into a record collection Paste any Spotify playlist and we'll check every album for CD and vinyl availability, with links to buy from many retailers.

I made a thing. I hope you like it (feel free to share)
secondpress.club

here's why I made it (aside from just for the fun!)
dgen.net/0/2026/02/25...

Data infrastructure as economic power Those who set the rules and govern data flows, control the value

New blog
Data infrastructure as economic power

Those who set the rules and govern data flows, control the value

agentgav.medium.com/data-infrast...

Thank you. This is very helpful indeed. What would help even more would be a couple of examples of the impact of different user types.

And there we have it.
"Shareholders’ anxiety about Musk’s threat to quit as chief executive if the proposal was rejected outweighed governance and societal concerns around the huge pay deal for the world’s richest man"

With an even better 'ai chatbot' experience than I could have imagined.

today in _spectacular_ communication & community management from @soundcloud.dev we see the classic "we've updated our terms but won't tell you what's changed, if it's better, or why, who knows! Give us your money, and let us do whatever we want to. We don't like to build trust and we don't care."