E4S Showcase 2026

Showcase 2026 will explore how innovation, research, and new economic models can help us better understand, protect, and restore ecosystems. While sustainability is the central theme of the event, digital technology will play a cross-cutting role: artificial intelligence, satellite observation, environmental data, real-time monitoring, and digital infrastructure will be discussed as tools for better measuring environmental changes and informing business decisions. Alongside the plenary sessions, several participatory workshops will provide an opportunity to explore these issues in greater depth and to bring together scientific research, technological applications, and economic realities.

Among the workshops and solutions presented:

• "Unlocking Nature-Positive Insurance with AI and Earth Observation," featuring Adrian Dellecker, Senior Researcher at IMD, and Sylvain Coutu, Head of Innovation at Africa Specialty Risks, will explore how artificial intelligence, data, and satellite observation can enable insurance companies and financial institutions to better incorporate biodiversity-related risks into their decision-making,
• "Leveraging SME Sustainability Data" with Olivier Gallay, Professor at HEC Lausanne (UNIL), and Yves Loerincik, Strategic Policy Officer for the Canton of Vaud, will examine the growing demands placed on companies by banks and major clients, as well as ways to turn the collection and sharing of this data into value creation.
• "Re-assessing Climate Change, AI, and Global Inequalities: Whose Water Future? " featuring Bettina Boekle, Founder of BB Impact Solutions, and Matteo Crescenti, Coordinator of the Lausanne regional group of foraus, will examine the impact of the digital transition—and AI infrastructure in particular—on water resources, placing the growing needs of digital technologies in the context of climate challenges and global inequalities.
• "Building Resilience to Disinformation: Evidence, Blind Spots, and Collective Responses " with Jonathan Normand, Founder and CEO, and Mounir Krichane, Director of Editorial and Innovation at B Lab Switzerland | Prospera will address another digital challenge: information integrity. The workshop will notably present the upcoming Swiss Information Barometer, designed to measure trust and informational resilience in Switzerland

The event will also provide an opportunity to learn about several environmental monitoring technologies: AeroSpec for real-time measurement of air pollution particles, DecodeNAture for environmental DNA analysis applied to biodiversity, Open Forest Protocol for measuring and verifying forest restoration projects, and Stream Ocean, which uses AI to analyze marine ecosystems.

Other solutions will illustrate the convergence between digital technologies and the life sciences, such as SwissDeCode, which develops tools for on-site detection of diseases and contaminants affecting crops, or Inverto Earth, which combines drones with ecosystem monitoring to support mangrove restoration.

For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in French-speaking Switzerland, Showcase first and foremost provides a better understanding of the increasingly close interplay between environmental transition and digital transformation: how artificial intelligence, data, and monitoring technologies can help measure, understand, and reduce environmental impacts, as well as what new challenges their own growth raises in terms of resources and sustainability. The event also invites companies to tackle these two transformations together to evolve their business models, rethink their priorities, and foster new approaches to innovation. This is a way to view sustainability and digital transformation not as two separate challenges, but as complementary aspects of their ability to transform and remain competitive.

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