Major new study from Accenture and the UN Global Compact suggests gap between green multinationals and the mainstream is widening

    

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a body that certifies forest management practices, has revoked all certificates granted to the Danzer Group, a multinational logging company, over alleged human rights abuses by one of its former subsidiaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), reports Bloomberg.

Green groups dismiss Institute of Directors report claiming onshore drilling will drive economic growth and tax revenues

    

Execs at Alstom, Siemens, Schneider Electric and Philips say legislation would drive jobs and growth

    

It is unacceptable that Ministers are unable to explain what success would look like for one of the Coalition's flagship policies, Committee argues

    

Owen Paterson urges investors and developers to build on success of a sector that presents significant economic opportunity

    

Offshore wind sector calls for streamlined planning process to help bring down the cost of clean energy, as a new project is unveiled to identify wake effects of turbines

    

Government confirms plan to drive energy saving through capacity market, but will incentives prove enough to create long term stable efficiency market?

    

Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett warns that regardless of whether you see them as "energy-from-waste plants" or "incinerators", councils risk being locked into encouraging waste production

    

Bacteria living in the Amazon River digest nearly all wood plant matter that enters the river before it reaches the Atlantic Ocean, triggering the release of carbon locked up in the vegetation instead of sequestering it in the deep ocean, finds a new study published in Nature Geoscience. The research explains the mechanism by which the world's largest river 'exhales' large amounts of CO2.

Source: Gulf News - The capital has released its first report on greenhouse gas emissions from every sector in the emirate to help in the global battle against climate change by reducing the emissions.

Source: Gulf News - The capital has released its first report on greenhouse gas emissions from every sector in the emirate to help in the global battle against climate change by reducing the emissions.

22 global cities, including London, Barcelona, Paris, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Lagos and Fukuoka have announced the 23 innovative solutions they selected to solve their most pressing urban and social challenges. In a unique global effort, these 22 forward-thinking cities opened their challenges to innovators worldwide via the LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future Programme. Out of 2,500 candidates, a total of 456 solutions competed for the opportunity to implement their solution in real-life, responding to challenges in areas such as as social exclusion, energy management, urban dereliction, tourism, ageing and health. Each of the 23 winning solutions announced during the LLGA | Cities Summit in San Francisco have committed to co-invest in the participating cities to help improve the lives of 121 million citizens.

In the first LLGA | Cities Summit held in a North American City, public leaders from 22 global cities revealed the innovative solutions that best meet strategic challenges in a variety of fields like Making outside Seating Areas More Sustainable in Paris; a Storm Response Coordinating Tool for San Francisco; a Transformational lighting System in post-earthquake Christchurch (New Zealand); Digital Tools For Better Healthier Ageing in Mexico City; Sustainable Urban Mobility in Maringá (Brasil); and Regenerating Neighbourhoods Using Vacant Spaces in Barcelona. The coming 12 months will see the cities and solution providers join forces to implement the innovations that will help improve the quality of lives of citizens and shape the future of their cities.

On 14 May 2013, leaders of the 22 partner cities and the 120 nominated solution providers came together at the LLGA | Cities Summit in San Francisco to deepen their partnerships, announce the 23 most promising solutions, debate their challenges, and kick-start implementation.

San Francisco Mayor, Ed Lee, says: “San Francisco is excited to be the first city in the United States to host the LLGA | Cities Summit. San Francisco, as the Innovation Capital of the World, will facilitate a vigorous exchange of ideas and help develop innovative solutions to common urban challenges including transportation, the environment and healthcare that will build a better world.”

The winning solutions are:

Barcelona (Spain): Turning empty Space into an opportunity by 3Space

Boston (USA): Underground Technologies Elevation Units by Quality Water Products

Christchurch (NZ): Philips Lighting Control systems- a solution for the new Christchurch by Philips Eindhoven (The Netherlands): Contactless tags to bridge real and virtual worlds by Connecthings

Fukuoka (Japan): Guidebook by Guidebook

L'Hospitalet (Spain): NANA (Novel Assessment of Nutrition and Ageing) by NANA

Lagos (Nigeria): Wireless Lagos: Free & Far Reaching by OTG Playa Entity LLC

Lavasa (India): Enabling Livelihoods by LabourNet

London (UK) 1: Realtime Energy Opportunity System (REOS) by Brighter Planet Technology Services

London (UK) 2: Delivering Scalable Energy Efficiency in Global Cities by First Fuel

Maringá (Brazil): Modern Urban Transport Information by Clever Devices

Mexico City (Mexico): Butler, improving elderly wellbeing by Universidad Jaume I de Castellón

Oulu (Finland): Augmented Museum Tour by metaio

Paris (France): Urban Parasol by Urban Parasol

Rio de Janeiro (Brazil): Online Emergency Triage Training Platform by Virtualwaregroup

Rosario (Argentina): Sustain-A-Raisers! by Global Awareness Local Action

San Francisco (USA): ClickSoftware Field Service Optimization by ClickSoftware

Sant Cugat (Spain): estonoesunsolar by pdimonte

Sheffield (UK) 1: Econotherm - Waste heat to District Heating by Econotherm

Sheffield (UK) 2: Borehole Thermal Energy Storage by - REHAU

Tacoma (USA): OPOS: One Planet Operating System for Cities by BioRegional

Terrassa (Spain): CityMakers by The Good Life For All

York (UK): Sunday Streets and Play Streets For All by Livable City

The LLGA winners reflect the many approaches available to solve cities’ problems ranging from the technological to the social. For example, on the technological side, OTG Playa answers Lagos’ need to bring digital connectivity in bandwidth-challenged environments. OTG Playa proposes to deploy a network of boxes, which will broadcast a wireless internet cloud that is open and free to anyone in the area. This solution shows how civic technology businesses can help solve some of the most urgent global needs even in areas with limited urban services and infrastructures. On the other hand, 3Space, winner for Barcelona, is an innovative charity which unlocks the potential of empty commercial property by making it available for temporary community use. This responds, in a non-technological way, to the widely experienced problem in many cities of urban decay and dereliction.

Big empty shop Experiment by Centre for Policy & Enterprise in Creative Industries, University of Glamorgan. Location: 3Space Cardiff space. Photo by: Andy Pearsall

Sascha Haselmayer, CEO of Citymart.com says: “LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future has transformed the way cities and the innovation community collaborate. With the announcement of 23 winning solutions, selected out of more than 2,500 candidates, companies and organizations from around the world have shown their enthusiasm and ability to collaborate with cities in solving the most pressing urban and social challenges today.”

The participation of cities and solution providers in LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future is a joint commitment to spread proven innovations in a more cost-effective and sustainable way, helping build more resilient and smarter communities. 557,000 local governments spend $4.5 trillion each year to deliver the services that shape the quality of life of the majority of the world’s population.

The LLGA initiative helps cities discover innovative, yet ready solutions to meet their problems and matches their commitment to act with the willingness of businesses and organisations to share early risks. Past editions of LLGA have proven that this process can deliver solutions to citizens at least 3 times faster and at 80% lower costs by leveraging smart solutions and avoiding re-invention.

Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona, says: “LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future is a great opportunity to identify and share solutions to the global challenges that cities are facing. Every city is a world in itself, and we are living in an urban world, this is why it is so important to identify those common problems which require shared solutions. Barcelona has participated in all LLGA editions, and shares the vision of this transparent process with leading technology companies, social entrepreneurs, and international research centers. Furthermore, LLGA is a great opportunity for Catalan companies to join in and participate in this global process.”

Next to the 22 Partner Cities, LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future is supported by a global group of strategic partners including the City of San Francisco, Oracle, The Climate Group, and the UN Global Compact Cities Programme.

About Citymart.com / LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future
Citymart.com is a global marketplace for cities based in Copenhagen (Denmark) and Barcelona (Spain), working with more than 80 cities and 1,200 companies, NGOs and research centers in

Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Its mission is to accelerate the sharing of solutions for cities by matching social and urban challenges early-on with ready solutions around the world. In the past four years Citymart.com has published 70 Calls for Solutions.

Citymart.com and its one-of a kind program LLGA | Cities Pilot the Future, has been recognized by leading global organizations such as the Clinton Global Initiative, the UN Global Compact Cities Programme and Ashoka Innovators for the Public for its transformative impact on improving decision-making, transparency and accountability in cities around the world.

Social media: twitter.com/LLGACities & twitter.com/CitymartTeam and facebook.com/citymartcom.

For information about LLGA visit www.llga.org and www.citymart.com.

About Oracle
Oracle’s City Platform solutions leverage the company’s best-in-class portfolio of products to address complex business processes relevant to the public sector, helping speed time to market, reduce costs and gain a competitive edge.

For more information about Oracle, visit www.oracle.com.

About The Climate Group
The Climate Group is an independent, not-for-profit organization, which brings together a global coalition of the world’s most powerful governments, brands and public figures across Asia, Europe and North America. Since 2004, they’ve been working with governments, business leaders and the world’s most influential individuals to push for the policies, technologies and investment we need to make the Clean Revolution commercially viable. Together, we have the power to create a smarter, better, more prosperous future for all.

For more information about The Climate Group, visit www.theclimategroup.org.

About the UN Global Compact Cities Programme
The UN Global Compact Cities Programme was initiated by former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan in 2003. It is a discrete component of the Global Compact, based in Melbourne and New York. The UN Global Compact Cities Programme provides an innovative framework for cities to develop and implement sustainable solutions to urban challenges of a long-term and often intractable nature. It was developed in response to the need to rethink sustainability approaches and to enable meaningful engagement of cities across all their activities—economic, ecological, political and cultural. By utilizing a common methodology, ‘Circles of Sustainability’, UN Global Compact Cities Programme combines the knowledge, experience and resources inherent within municipalities, business and civil society to bring together the strengths of each.

For more information about The UN Global Compact Cities Programme, visit www.citiesprogramme.com.

Source: Gulf News - The capital has released its first report on greenhouse gas emissions from every sector in the emirate to help in the global battle against climate change by reducing the emissions.

EIRIS and Conflict Risk Network today announce that Conflict Risk Network has become part of EIRIS’ global research platform. EIRIS is a leading global provider of research into corporate environmental, social and governance performance. Its mission is to empower responsible investors with independent assessments of companies and advice on integrating them with investment decisions.

Conflict Risk Network includes institutional investors, financial service providers and related stakeholders that are calling on corporate actors to fulfill their responsibility to respect human rights and to take steps that support peace and stability in areas affected by genocide and mass atrocities. Its goal is to increase such behavior by corporate actors, and thereby reduce conflict risk. The Network’s membership encompasses pension funds, some of the world’s largest asset management firms, government entities, university endowments, foundations, financial service providers and socially responsible investment firms with a combined total of more than $6 trillion in assets under management.

Conflict Risk Network is the pre-eminent source of timely, reliable and focused information on corporations operating in Sudan. Its quarterly Sudan Company Reports provide 80 investor members with authoritative research on 75 corporations. Applying the research model it developed for Sudan, the Network is now shining a spotlight on the potential high risks of investment in Burma.

According to EIRIS CEO Peter Webster, “This acquisition combines EIRIS’s ESG research with Conflict Risk Network’s deep expertise on Sudan, Burma and other conflict-affected areas. The resulting synergies will benefit investors, permit EIRIS to augment its profile and client base in the U.S. and gives EIRIS the opportunity to offer CRN’s service to the broader global market.”

Until recently, Conflict Risk Network was a program of United to End Genocide, the largest activist organization in America dedicated to preventing and ending genocide and mass atrocities worldwide. United to End Genocide President Tom Andrews said, “This is a win-win for both organizations and the movement to promote human rights and end genocide. We look forward to continuing to work with EIRIS, through Conflict Risk Network, to raise human rights issues with investors.”

Conflict Risk Network Director Kathy Mulvey said, “Joining the EIRIS global research platform will preserve and enhance the Network’s authoritative research, effective engagement and informed advocacy, and make our offerings available to a wider base of investors and financial stakeholders.”

EIRIS and Conflict Risk Network will be present at a number of key events in the U.S. in May and June—including the US SIF and Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) conferences. 

The Conflict Risk Network—encompassing about 80 members including pension funds, some of the world’s largest asset management firms, government entities, university endowments, foundations, financial service providers and socially responsible investment firms—harnesses the collective weight of more than $6 trillion in assets when challenging corporate behavior that might enable human rights abuses that lead to genocide or mass atrocities. Network experts examine what is driving conflicts and how corporations are connected to conflicts. The Network works with corporations, organizations on the ground, and leading business, human rights and country experts to develop specific recommendations for respecting human rights and supporting peace and stability in conflict areas. The Network also engages directly with corporations that have the greatest potential to enable or prevent mass atrocities.

EIRIS (www.EIRIS.org) is a leading global provider of independent research into the environmental, social, governance (ESG) and ethical performance of companies. Wholly owned by the EIRIS Foundation, EIRIS is an independent, not-for-profit organization, working to help our clients develop the market in ways that benefit investors, asset managers and the wider world. Its mission is to empower responsible investors with independent assessments of companies and advice on integrating them with investment decisions. EIRIS now provides responsible investment services to more than 100 asset owners, asset managers, banks, stock brokers and governments around the world—as well as major index providers. EIRIS has 30 years' experience of promoting responsible investment and helping consumers, charities and advisers invest responsibly. EIRIS has offices in London, Paris and Boston. EIRIS’ Boston office has been established since 2005. In addition to overseas offices, EIRIS has a global network of research partners to further extend its research coverage and keep abreast of responsible investment issues at the local level.

By Margareth S. Aritonang and Yuliasri Perdani, Jakarta Post, 20 May 2013 | Antigraft and police watchdogs suspect that the sudden arrest by the National Police of Papua policeman Adj. First Insp. Labora Sitorus was part of plot to protect higher ranking officers who could be dragged into the mire of a major graft case. “It’s inconceivable that LS [Labora Sitorus] acted alone for five years. There have been reports of illegal logging and fuel smuggling that might involve members of the police in Papua, but it has all been ignored. “It’s impossible for members of the police to be involved in this kind of thing unless they have the support of their superiors,” Neta S. Pane, chairman of the Indonesian Police Watch told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. Labora was detained for holding suspicious bank accounts containing more than Rp 1 trillion (US$102 million), allegedly the proceeds of illegal logging and fuel smuggling.

By Yuliasri Perdani, Jakarta Post, 21 May 2013 | Adj. First Insp. Labora Sitorus, a Papua Police officer accused of owning fat bank accounts, has said he wired money for “charity-related programs” to several of his superiors. Labora, who allegedly controlled accounts through which passed over Rp 1 trillion (US$102 million) over a five-year period, made his statement during a closed-door meeting with National Police Commission (Kompolnas) members on Saturday, moments before his arrest. The officer was then transferred back to Papua, where he will be held at the Papua Police detention center until the end of the police investigation, when a decision will be made whether to forward the case to prosecutors. “He channeled some funds for social activities, but we are not sure about the motive,” Kompolnas commissioner M. Nasser said after meeting with officers from the National Police’s Criminal Investigations Division (Bareskrim) in Jakarta on Monday.

Source: Gulf News - The capital has released its first report on greenhouse gas emissions from every sector in the emirate to help in the global battle against climate change by reducing the emissions.

By Yuliasri Perdani, Jakarta Post, 20 May 2013 | Adj. First Insp. Labora Sitorus, a Papua cop with a suspicious amount of money in his bank accounts, was taken to the Papua Police's detention center on Monday. National Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar said that Labora was flown back to Papua two days after he filed a report to the National Police Commission (Kompolnas) in Jakarta. The Papua Police have named Labora a suspect in illegal logging, fuel smuggling and money laundering cases. The investigation centering on Labora was in response to a Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) report, stating that Labora was linked to bank transactions totaling Rp 1 trillion (US$102 million) between 2007 and 2012.