Thesis essay published for the completion of Master's program in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability at the Bleking Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden (http://www.bth.se/msls), academic year 2009, by: Khuloud Odeh, Annita Seckinger and Carina Knecht. The essay can be also accessed online at: http://www.essays.se/essay/f3be7506a8/
In advance of the launch of the Urban EcoMap, the application was previewed during the Mayor of San Francisco's Earth Day event. San Francisco is the first city worldwide to introduce the Urban EcoMap. The web-based tool will will be made available to the general public at the Connected Urban Development conference in Seoul, 21st May 2009. The visual demo can be viewed on the CUD program website, and at the application website: www.urbanecomap.org. Urban EcoMap gives every person the abilit...
I couldn't resist sharing this great initiative some of my colleagues have been working on with NASA - its an attempt to create a planetary skin for the world that will monitor carbon emissions and provide useable information so that we will no longer be flying blind in relation to the environmental impacts of the decisions we are all making one way or another each day. Have a look at the video and you will get a sense of what it is all about http://www.planetaryskin.org/content/resource...
For some time now I have felt that government efforts to address sustainability challenges have suffered a number of problems. Specifically, I think that: they are too narrowly focused on environmental sustainability; they are too externally focused; and they fail to make linkges to e-government which has much to offer in the area of public sector sustainability. Currently, during 2009 we are planning to develop some "thought leadership" around the question of how ICTs the can play a ...
One example was OneWorld’s social innovation initiatives is Virtual Bali. With a live video feed from the summit, this Second Life place enrolled hundreds of participants and allowed huge savings on carbon. See how OneWorld’sVirtual Bali created a window on the UN Climate Negotiations for people worldwide. Read Peter's comments on this innovative experience here Virtual Bali has received hundreds of mentions on the web - everything from articles in mainstream US and UK newspapers, to blog...
I was delighted to meet Peter Amstrong and his lovely wife Anuradha on the Social Innovation Congress. They are two amazing examples of social entrepreneurs. Peter and Anuradha are the founders of OneWorld, a cutting edge in harnessing media technology to benefit people who need it most. Peter was a vibrant speaker on the panel I chaired. He explained how OneWorld leverages media innovatively for a fair and sustainable world. If you want to read what people around the world say about their ...
The conference is over and, without doubt, Cisco and its city partners have landed a wonderful result. Four new cities have joined (Lisbon, Madrid, Hamburg and Birmingham), the link has been forged between CUD's conceptual platform and the very real and practical 'things' that are now beginning to take shape - the fabulous 'connected bus', the Personal Travel Assistant, the new approach to smart work centres. Basically, a real proof-of-concept meeting that has unleashed what I suspect is an...
We're meeting in one of San Francisco's greenest buildings, the new Govt Services Administration Federal Government building. Quite a controversial design, but a fascinating building. Built from recycled concrete and steel, no air conditioning (all done through clever use of windows and through-drafts). Here's a link to more information via Arup, who built the building - http://www.arup.com/americas/project.cfm?pageid=1618 Couple of other big messages so far - shifting sustainability o...
Reporting in from the first global conference for Connected Urban Development (CUD) in San Francisco. The meeting has got off to a great start - hearing from the 3 CUD cities (Amsterdam, San Francisco and Seoul) and introduced to the 4 next CUD cities (Lisbon, Madrid, Birmingham and Hamburg). Short note - we need to speed up the spread of CUD and CUD-like initiatives into Asia, which is after all where much of the largest, most urgent and spectacular urban action is going to be in the next ...
Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is undoubtedly one of the world’s foremost visionaries in energy efficiency, focusing on this critical theme long before anyone else. As far back as 1976 he published an article in Foreign Affairs suggesting that the end of the use of fossil fuels was inevitable. In fact, relatively recently Lovins returned to the topic and presented a roadmap whereby the US would cease to import oil by end of 2040 and would cease to use it altogether by 20...