Data trusts: a new kind of public-private partnership

2023-11-12

Dear friend,

Good morning. How goes your world today?

I've been loving hearing back with your comments and collaboration. As I always tell people, please delete these emails if you don't have time. I want no part in inbox guilt, and I offer email preferences below to support that. There is a digest version, but it's been very infrequent.

There's a neat virtual event happening this week and I'm excited...

On Tuesday at the Material Health Open Innovation Symposium IV (free registration), I'm giving my first public talk in the sustainability realm since being elected last November.

I'm going to be talking about a policy idea that I want to share with you if you're interested.

First, a little professional background...

After two decades of service in the green building world at Environmental Building News, Taunton Press, BuildingGreen, LEEDuser, and now the Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC), I reported to work this January for my new part-time job at the State House in Montpelier.

Photo from my first day in Vermont's "citizen Legislature."

I'm new to politics. I didn't know what it would be like. At the same time I was mastering legislative decorum like never referring to colleagues by name (on the House floor, I'm addressed by the Speaker as "the Representative from Halifax"), I wondered how my previous career experience would inform my work as a state legislator.

At times this newsletter has told that story. For example, there was the time I almost voted against the Legislature's signature climate action bill of 2023. (Essentially, it's about the ye olde "bike racks in LEED projects​ paradox," this time with heat pumps on old Vermont houses).

I've also been curious for the flip side of that question. After the Speaker gaveled us out of our final "veto session" to pass the State budget June 22, I wondered if I would have a different outlook on my career work.

I hoped that I would have a fresh outlook.

I've been frustrated at the slow pace of progress in sustainability. Companies that use tools like LEED and HPDs know that they benefit their projects. Yet we're still not "scaling up" rapidly relative to widely adopted goals like the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). (Industry is already behind on a key 2020 public health benchmark.)

Having stepped into a more strategy-level role at HPDC as Chief Technologist almost two years ago, I challenged myself to come back from the Legislature to my professional community with a strategic policy vision.

An added dimension to this challenge is that I'm burned out on being an optimist, but I'm unwilling to go to pessimism.

What to do? What I've found is that when I do feel the glass is half-empty it's likely a bit tepid as well, so why keep it around at all?

I'd just as soon turn the glass over and walk around empty-handed for a while, crowd-of-sorrows style. Something turns up.

So maybe, I'm an ambi-mist. (Are you?)

I've been looking for consensus-based policies that could have a transformative effect throughout all industries. With my experience in seeing the growth of LEED and HPDs, I have a policy bias toward what I might call "positive reinforcement" in our economy. How can we help more industries want to scale up their sustainability work because they see the market opportunities in it? How can we get the best out of collaboration and competition?

I'm excited to be offering a concise talk this Tuesday on the possibilities in a whole new realm of public-private partnerships.

Here's the description for my 20-minute session:

Data Trusts: A Stewardship Model for Data Governance

Let’s imagine a world in which data could flow as a public good. Imagine wanting your devices to capture as much personal health and environmental data as possible. Imagine feeling secure in your anonymity, while also knowing that your entire health history and genetics could be combed through by researchers looking for new diagnostic patterns. Imagine the breakthroughs possible if the very idea of proprietary data became obsolete. Tristan Roberts, HPDC’s Chief Technologist and a member of the Vermont House of Representatives, will forecast what’s ahead for data trusts, a novel governance and corporate structure with broad applicability to product research and material health.

I've been at the whiteboard diagramming my slides for this Tuesday. This talk is going to be slappin'.

With speakers like Wes Sullens talking about LEED v5 and Laurel Christensen on the new platforms from mindfulMaterials, the entire symposium promises to deliver extravagantly delicious fodder for your future-imagining brain.

Free registration is here: Material Health Open Innovation Symposium IV​

See you Tuesday!

Can't make it but want to talk more? hit me up.

warm regards,

Tristan Roberts
Representative – Vermont General Assembly
Chief Technologist – Health Product Declaration Collaborative

P.S. Here's the official poster, and link once again: