Big Mac turns local, ecosustainable

Ecosustainability hits one of the world’s most known brand, one of the symbols of wild capitalism: McDonald. One of the “2008-2010″ goals that the fast food chain points to in its 2009 Corporate Responsibility Report is to design its restaurant energy survey and optimization tools “to deliver an average 3% energy reduction per restaurant.” The drive for ecosustainability is now attacking the very heart of the chain, its menu.

The chain is mobilizing an internal Global Energy Council to prioritize energy saving opportunities throughout its supply chain and operations, and says it is making strides toward a more sustainable food chain by working with suppliers.

The firm is going to take a number of actions in order to bring energy consumptions under control, while ensuring efficiency of services. They are currently working on a toaster that consumes 28 percent less energy, and on a food holding cabinet that can deliver 30 percent energy savings per cell.

At the country level, McDonald’s Germany opened its EE-Tec restaurant in Achim, with the goal of reducing energy use 30 percent compared to similar restaurants. Last year, McDonald’s previewed 10 energy efficient locations it has in prototype mode. In France, it has opened a green restaurant that uses solar hot water heaters and employs water-saving techniques. Locations in Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands are sourcing renewable energy. A location in Brazil is testing a wind turbine that generates up to 1.8 kilowatts. Solar is used in 15 Brazilian locations.

A lot of attention is given to packaging, a very important voice in a business where most products are small and need careful packaging. Continouos care is paid to reducing the amount of packaging (by weight) per each product sold.

Recycling is another voice where new initiaves are under study to relaunch a sector where, after making steady progress, recycled content use has stagnated at 29.8 percent in 2007 and 2008.

The chain is encouraging recycling by customers via a variety of methods, from having customers sort it themselves to having it occur by staff in the backroom.

About 75 percent of U.S. locations are enrolled in a program to recycle used cooking oil. The average location recycles about 1,700 gallons a year. Some of the recycled cooking oil is turned into fuel for delivery trucks, such as in European operations.

As for the menus, after years of harsh criticisms – McDonalds has often being accused of fueling the cruelest globalization and of fueling the industrialization of food production – the firm has somehow turned more local. In Italy, for instance, agreements have been signed with the Ministero dell’Agricoltura (Department of Agriculture) to offer hamburgers and other dishes made with local products. A sort of Italian style fast food. A move that, in the Ministero dell’Agricoltura’s view, should help correct the trend of eating junk food, with all health dangers it involves, while at the same time offering Italian farmers a new market for their products.

SEC to ask publicly traded companies to consider climate change in their communications to investors

The New York’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is considering recommendations for all publicly traded companies to include the physical impacts of climate change – as well as the economic impacts of domestic and international greenhouse gas emissions-reduction rules – when disclosing risks to investors.

The interpretive guidance, approved by a 3-2 vote at SEC’s Washington headquarters, does not create new legal requirements for companies, yet. Rather, it will ensure consistent disclosure of bottom-line risks to shareholders, SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro said.

“It is neither surprising nor especially remarkable for us to conclude that of course a company must consider whether potential legislation — whether that legislation concerns climate change or new licensing requirements — is likely to occur,” Schapiro said. “If so, then under our traditional framework, the company must then evaluate the impact it would have on … liquidity, capital resources or results of operations and disclose to shareholders when that potential impact will be material.”

Similarly, a company must disclose the opportunities and risks it faces from severe weather, rising sea levels and changing demand for products based on their carbon footprint.

Such informations would then be posted on the SEC Web site and published in the Federal Register. They would also be used by the agency’s Division of Corporation Finance when reviewing company filings.

The progressive investor coalition Ceres, which has petitioned SEC to issue climate disclosure guidance several times in recent years, applauded today’s vote.

“With this guidance, investors can make more sound decisions based on better information — and businesses will have a level playing field with clear standards and expectations for disclosure,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a group of 80 institutional investors with $8 trillion in collective assets.

Other voices came up to express discontent and disagreement about the SEC’s decision, though. Commissioner Kathleen Casey, one of two Republicans on the panel who voted against issuing the climate guidance, called it a misuse of agency resources.

“I can only conclude that the purpose of this release is to place the imprimatur of the commission on the agenda of the social and environmental policy lobby, an agenda that falls outside of our expertise,” Casey said.

The agency’s authority to issue such guidance has been disputed by House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Joe Barton (R-Texas) and fellow committee Republican Greg Walden of Oregon in a letter they wrote to Schapiro. The lawmakers asked how many environmental scientists SEC employs and whether the agency was shifting its oversight from investment matters to corporate participation in global warming abatement.

“We would be troubled by an undertaking which seems so transparently political and such a breathtaking waste of the commission’s resources,” the lawmakers added.

Cautioned by the questioning, Schapiro appeared mindful of such criticisms and tried to make it clear the guidance should not be interpreted as an agency statement regarding the facts of climate change.

“We are not opining on whether the world’s climate is changing, at what pace it might be changing, or due to what causes,” Schapiro added.

Debt accumulation still a threat, reforms needed

The financial system has reached a significant stability over the past six months, but some of the root causes of the crisis remain. One of those is an accumulation of debt. The implications of the stocks of debt held by agents across the economy – the debt hangover – and the current opportunities available to pay them down, before describing two reforms that might curb the accumulation of debt in the future, have been the focus of a speech in Liverpool by Andrew Haldane – Executive Director for Financial Stability for the Bank of England.

To different degrees a debt hangover is affecting households, financial and non-financial companies and sovereign states around the world, but is perhaps greatest in the financial system. Mr. Haldane noted, in his speech, that to date the servicing costs of these debts have been cushioned by policymakers’ actions, but public sector support can only ever offer temporary relief – they are not a long-run cure.

Which options are open to restore normal conditions? First, banks should take advantage of the profits they have achieved this year to bolster their balance sheets. “There is a strong case for banks, in the UK and internationally, pocketing this windfall rather than distributing it to either staff or shareholders.” That is, the bank of England is saying ‘no’ to the megabonuses banks and financial companies seem ready to pay their high level managers, as if the past 18 months had been no use. The very position expresses by the US President, Barack Obama days ago. This would allow banks’ balance sheets to be repaired while supporting lending to the real economy. Mr. Haldane expressed worries, though, there has been little evidence of such prudential opportunism thus far.

Second option, he says there is a case for restructuring debt claims into equity to benefit both lenders and borrowers. A number of global banks have, in effect, already initiated such strategies and they could help improve balance sheets across all sectors.

Debt crises cannot be eliminated, but their frequency and scale might be moderated. In order to do that, reforms are necessary. He suggested two in particular: First, macro-prudential policies should be designed to curb the credit cycle, and lean against the collective tendency for banks to make significant distributions even when profits are low; second, a redesign of debt contracts, such that they become state contingent. “If contingent capital became more widespread, banks’ capital ratios would be automatically stabilised over the cycle, lowering the chances of future banking crises.” He also believes there is merit in considering how state-contingent debt might be adopted in other sectors.

Spanish flue, Swine, not spread by birds

The two strains of the H1N1 influenza virus responsible for the 1918 and 2009 global flu pandemics do not cause disease in birds. The results of the study, published in the February issue of the Journal of General Virology, also show it is unlikely that birds played a role in the spread of the H1N1 virus in these pandemics.

Scientists from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease (NCFAD) in Winnipeg, Canada, together with collaborators in the USA, injected the 2009 and 1918 H1N1 virus strains individually into chickens. None developed flu symptoms or showed any signs of tissue damage up to18 days later, although about half the chickens developed antibodies against the 1918 H1N1 virus showing limited infection. The 1918 H1N1 virus also did not cause disease in ducks. The origin of the 1918 H1N1 virus is unknown and despite its genetic similarity to avian influenzas, the results of this study show it is unlikely to have jumped the species barrier from chickens to humans.

Different strains of influenza cause disease in humans, birds and pigs; each type of virus is adapted to cause infection in its host. All cause similar respiratory symptoms. If flu viruses are passed back and forth between hosts (e.g. through close human contact with infected animals) the mixing can lead to development of a novel strain. As they have not encountered the virus before, the human population has little or no immunity to a novel strain which can easily cause infection and spread from person to person. This may ultimately lead to a global flu pandemic.

Dr Shawn Babiuk, a scientist with the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease who led the research, said, “Working out how major human pandemic flu viruses affect birds and other domestic animal species is crucial in discovering what role, if any, they play in spreading viruses in the human population.” Such studies can inform government decisions in responding to outbreaks of influenza in birds, which have major implications for poultry producers. According to Dr Babiuk, “These findings support the use of normal veterinary management practices in poultry infected with pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza and demonstrate that quarantining and culling infected stocks is not necessary.”

Dr Babiuk explained that viruses can behave unpredictably. “Our understanding of exactly how influenza viruses go on to cause pandemics is still limited,” he said. “Although our research indicates that birds are unlikely to have played a part in the spread of the 1918 and latest 2009 H1N1 pandemic viruses, they may well still play a part in future pandemics.”

Energy consumption, real time

Everyone wants to save energy, but how many of us can tell exactly how much energy the devices in our homes consume? For example, which consumes more power – the dishwasher or the television? To answer such questions and to give consumers a sense of where the energy guzzlers hide, the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT in Sankt Augustin, Germany has developed an application that demonstrates the energy consumption of individual devices in the household. The basis for this is the “Hydra” middleware developed by the institute which is extended by an energy protocol. A middleware reduces the workload of programmers: in Hydra’s case, by administering the communication between devices.

Each device is given a power plogg, a small adapter located between the power plug and the power outlet, allowing for reporting power consumption at any given time to a PC via a radio signal. A real time monitor shows which device is guzzling the most energy.

T experts have also provided a far more convenient way to access the information: “Using a cell phone as the display and control unit allows people to check the energy consumed by their devices or appliances,” explains Dr. Markus Eisenhauer, who developed the system. “For example, it can be used to display the consumption by room, switch devices on and off, and dim lights.” And there is another special attraction: The cell phone’s camera can be used as a “magic lens”. Point the camera at the device in question, and the power consumption at the moment is shown.

The technology behind this feature is complex: A server stores pictures of the individual devices, taken from a number of directions. When the function is activated, the cell phone sends the picture taken to the server, which then compares the picture with the ones in its database. As soon as it has recognized the device, it determines the power consumption at the time as reported by the associated power plogg, and sends this information back to the cell phone.

IT is also possible to examine a device’s total consumption, for example, extrapolated across the average time in use during a year. This even makes it possible to detect energy guzzlers in the household that are not always turned on, such as the oven.

Various other scenarios can also be run through. Eisenhauer’s colleague Marc Jentsch reports that “it is possible, for example, to try out the room lighting with energy-saving bulbs and compare this consumption with conventional light bulbs to see the impact on the electric bill.” A display of the current energy consumption along with the energy and cost savings per year facilitates this comparison. Similarly, it is possible to compare the energy used to play DVDs on a PlayStation with that when a DVD player is used.

The system is already equipped for the future. The cost of electricity could soon depend on the time of day, and this system allows people to save money by waiting until the electricity is cheap and then using their cell phones to switch on the washing machine.

Modern style Silk Road

Winding its way from Europe’s flatlands to Beijing and the Chinese ports, through deserts and steppes, mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes, the Silk Road has been for centuries, maybe thousands of years, the major trading route between Europe and China. People, goods, ideas have moved back and forth, armies have gone east and west, north and south, contributing to the development of empires and civilizations. Time changes, and things with it. Trading takes new forms. In place for old style waggons and carts, horses and camels, merchants and warriors, carrying gold, silver, metals, spices, salt and other precious goods, it’s now informations and knowledge what travels on the Silk Road of modern times: the Intercontinental grid, Europe and China link for research.

In 2007, the EU-funded project, BRIDGE (for Bilateral Research and Industrial development enhancing and integrating Grid Enabled technologies), set out to link European and Chinese computing grids and enable researchers to carry out joint research.

Inspired by the realization that China is rapidly becoming a world leader in research and development, as well as a booming market for European products, the infrastructure to link computing grids represents a key step towards future scientific and industrial cooperation. Indeed, it has already produced results in aircraft design, drug development and weather prediction.

“If Europe does not want to lose ground, the response can only be to synchronise with these developments,” says Gilbert Kalb, BRIDGE project coordinator.

The BRIDGE team’s first challenge was to make the software systems that manage the European and Chinese grids compatible: the European Grid infrastructure, GRIA, and the Chinese system, CNGrid GOS, are comparable in services, but their organization is quite different.

The solution found is building a new software superstructure to access the systems and tap their capabilities. New gateways into the two grids, a shared platform to manage overall workflow, access needed applications, translation of higher-level commands into steps that each grid could carry out, are but a few of the devices and tools introduced by the BRIDGE team.

Security was an important consideration on both sides. Dr. Kalb says that many or the scientific and industrial problems that BRIDGE was developed to address require intensive cooperation, yet involve highly sensitive information.

BRIDGE resolved this issue by letting selected processes remain private. That allows one group to contribute data or results to all collaborating parties without having to share proprietary software or analytic tools.

The BRIDGE infrastructure has already been adopted in Egypt to target the malaria parasite.

BRIDGE was also used to solve a complex aeronautic problem – designing and positioning wing flaps to maximise lift and minimise noise as an aircraft lands: aerodynamic simulations which require huge computational resources. In addition, because different parts of each simulation took place in different research centres, optimising the flow of work from centre to centre was also challenging.

The BRIDGE team was able to meet these challenges, carry out intensive distributed computations, and determine optimal wing flap parameters. “It proved to be an effective method for solving multi-objective and multi-disciplinary optimisation in aircraft design,” Kalb says.

Weather and climate represent another area where international cooperation is vital. The BRIDGE researchers set out to link three large meteorological databases located in Europe, North America and Asia.

The key challenge they faced with this project was to handle enormous volumes of data efficiently.

“You could do a calculation in the United States and transfer the results to Europe, or you could fetch the data from the USA and do the calculations here,” says Kalb. “The best way to do it depends on what calculation and what data and what’s the best available way to transfer the data from place to place. Bridge does all this on the fly.”

“Because there was a big organisation behind it, and our work fits very well, it was taken up right away,” says Kalb. “I believe that meteorologists are already using it to access data and perform certain calculations.”

To Kalb, the importance of what BRIDGE accomplished goes far beyond any single piece of research. He feels that the project has built the foundation for the kind of multinational collaboration that is needed to tackle global problems.

“Problems like energy and climate change can only be attacked or really solved with efforts from different players around the world, and we’ve built a platform to do that,” he says. We proved that this is feasible and useful. Now it’s time for other people to jump on this, develop it further, and use it.

La dura realtà di Copenhagen

Il summit sul clima di Copenhagen è ormai alle spalle da più di un mese. È finito con un bisbiglio, non un urlo. La capitale danese era stata ribattezzata Hopenhagen (Hope significa Speranza), ma si sa, non sempre (quasi mai…), i desideri diventano realtà. I giochi di parole, per nascondere la delusione e spacciare per ottimo un accordo che in realtà è pessimo, andranno avanti a lungo nel nuovo anno, ma nessuna tela può nascondere un semplice fatto: gli ordini del giorno che molte aziende si aspettavano sulla gestione del carbonio non si sono materializzati.

Brutta notizia per il pianeta, ovviamente, ma anche per il business. Dozzine, forse centinaia di società, orientate al futuro, aspettavano i risultati del COP15 con la speranza che stabilisse un accordo-quadro con cui ogni paese potesse creare legislazioni, regolamentazioni, accordi volontari, o altre carote e bastoni per guidare le loro rispettive economie verso un futuro a basse emissioni di carbonio, con tutto il suo potenziale innovativo, il recupero dell’efficienza economica, e la creazione di lavoro.

Da dove arriverà quell’accordo-quadro – e quando? E come adatteranno le loro strategie per il carbonio, queste società orientate al futuro, o come le cambieranno alla luce della voce dei leader globali? Queste saranno questioni-chiave nel mondo del business “green” nel breve termine, e speriamo di riuscire a portare contenuti e analisi profonde dalla stanza dei bottoni.

In attesa del nuovo appuntamento della serie COP, in programma per fine anno a Città del Messico, i primi due eventi per verificare la possibilità di andare oltre Copnehagen saranno i 2010 State of Green Business Forums, il 4 febbraio a San Francisco ed il 9 febbraio a Chicago. Entrambi gli eventi ospiteranno un dibattito, “Carbon Management After Copenhagen” (La gestione del carbone dopo Copenhagen) centrato su cosa succederà adesso. I partecipanti sentiranno le voci di aziende come UPS e Yahoo!, così come quelle di esperti da EcoSecurities, The Climate Group e altre organizzazioni sulla linea del fronte del business e del clima.

Ho tentato, negli ultimi giorni, di trovare qualche speranza (Hopenhagen) nella parola Copenhagen — di essere, cioé, positivo sui risultati del summit sul clima del COP15 appena concluso. L’evento si è concluso con un bisbiglio, non un suono fragoroso, una conclusione per nulla sorprendente per un evento sovrastimato del quale tutte le parti coinvolte avevano parlato come dell’appuntamento a cui tutto il mondo guardava per risolvere un unico, critico problema che interessa…beh, l’intero mondo.

Una volta terminato, l’intero esercizio – circa 50mila partecipanti ufficiali, e probabilmente altrettanti non ufficiali, centinaia di eventi, da negoziazioni formali ad accorpamenti disomogenei attorno ad un tavolo di persone che hanno a cuore il problema – è sembrato un nulla, un esercizio di futilità nato da un ideale che attori i più disparati potessero trovare uno scopo comune nel risolvere assieme problemi globali.

Come oramai saprete, il Copenhagen Accord che il summit ha infine prodotto è una semplice dichiarazione messa insieme da cinque paesi e ‘riconosciuto’, in qualche caso a denti stretti, dalla maggioranza ma non da tutte delle 188 delegazioni nazionali. Conteneva pochissime novità o spinte all’azione, riconoscendo che “i cambiamenti climatici sono una delle più grandi sfide del nostro tempo”, che “tagli radicali nelle emissioni globali sono necessari secondo la scienza” e che “l’adattamento agli effetti negativi del cambiamento del clima e ai potenziali impatti delle risposte è sfida che tutti ipaesi devono fronteggiare.” Riconosceva la necessità di prendere azioni per mantenere gli aumenti della temperatura sotto i 2°C ma non conteneva alcun vincolo legale per ridurre le emissioni di gas serra. Ci sono impegni finanziari per diversi miliardi di ollari da paesi sviluppati a favore di paesi in via di sviluppo, ma pochissime indicazioni specifiche riguardo da dove i soldi arriveranno, e dove andranno.

Un primo passo modesto, o semplicemente un non-evento? È troppo presto per dirlo, naturalmente, ma i giochi di parole stanno già lavorando in questo ed altri modi.

Per le aziende, Copenhagen sembra una ritirata, un’ooportunità mancata, in parte per causa loro. I business executives si erano impegnati a fondo, partecipando a tavole rotonde, a dibattiti, gruppi di lavoro, o approfittando dell’opportunità di partecipare ad incontri con altri uomini d’affari, rappresentati governativi, o ledader delle organizzazioni non governative presenti a Copenhagen. Ma il business – o perlomeno quelle aziende orientate al futuro – non erano adeguatamente rappresentate al tavolo dei negoziati.

Questo è in parte dovuto al fatto che il COP15 era un incontro a livello governativo, ciascuno con i suoi problemi riguardo l’economia, le necessità dello sviluppo, l’approvvigionamento delle risorse energetiche e naturali. (Le aziende erano rappresentate solo attraverso i business groups, messi allo stesso piano delle organizzazioni non governativie, le ONG, e avevano lo stesso status dei gruppi di attivitsi e non profit.) gli interessi delle aziende sembravano essere male rappresentati nei negoziati, nonostante il fatto che nella maggioranza delle economie capitaliste le aziende siano responsabili della gran parte delle emissioni.

Ma il tutto è molto più complicato di quanto possa sembrare. I problemi che i negoziatori si sono trovati ad affrontare, durante i quindici giorni di Copenhagen, sono apparentemente inestricabili. Per esempio, Brasile e Arabia Saudita hanno dato battaglia sui loro rispettivi interesse: la deforestazione, per il primo, la cattura e lo stoccaggio del biossido di carbonio per il secondo. La Russia per un momento è sembrata tenere il summit in ostaggio, intenzionata a tenere ben stretto il suo massiccio numero di crediti di emissioni — uno dei pochi effetti positivi del suo crollo economico, in quanto un’economia ferma tende a essere meno inquinante — post-2012, minacciando di gettarli tutti sul mercato in un colpo solo, causando di fatto l’azzeramento del loro valore, potenzialmente in grado di far crollare i mercati delle emissioni di carbonio.

Con tutti questi giochi in atto, come poteva la linea degli interessi del business riuscire a competere?

Le reali conseguenze per il business dei risultati di Copenhagen si riveleranno nelle settimane e nei mesi che verranno, man mano che le aziende cominceranno a comprendere cosa significhi, questa inazione del summit, per le loro strategie e per i loro azionisti.

A portare un po’ di sole in tutto questo è la considerazione di quanto avanti si siano spinte le aziende e la tecnologia nonostante la mancanza di una qualsiasi leadership politica reale sui cambiamenti climatici. L’amministrazione Bush-Cheney ha fatto di tutto per mantenere lo status quo, perfino tornare indietro rispetto ai piccoli passi fatti in materia di clima fino ad allora. Eppure, durante quegli anni, è nato il settore del cleantech, la tecnologia pulita, che si è sviluppata fino a diventare l’industria globale che èoggi. La tecnologia dell’energia rinnovabile è in marcia, e sta crescendo rapidamente per dimensioni ed efficienza in tutti gli angoli del mondo. L’efficienza energetica è diventata un grande business, specialmente per quanto riguarda le infrastrutture nell’edilizia, nonostante la quasi assoluta mancanza di regolamentazione o di segnali sui prezzi dell’energia o del carbone. Le aziende globali stanno misurando, tracciando e realizzando report sul loro impatto da emissioni di carbonio, e un’intera industria di strumenti software, servizi di contabilità e di offset sta nascendo. L’industria automobilistica ha virato decisamente nella direzione dei veicoli elettrici. Perfino i biocarburanti sembrano disponibili, oggi.

Motivi di speranza in tutto questo? Naturalmente, tutto questo si trasformerrebbe molto più velocemente se i governi del mondo si fossero dimostrati all’altezza dell’occasione, fornendo un percorso per le aziende per fare investimenti, sviluppare strategie, e innovare.

Come risultato, le domande chiave sono ancora lì, incombenti, alla fine del COP15: l’impass di Copenhagen fermerà i progressi fatti dalle corporation fino ad ora? Darà coraggio agli interessi per un’economia ad alta intensità di carbonio (e ai loro alleati tra i think tank, i politici ed i media) che perderebbero in un’econoima a bassa intensità di carbonio? I loro sforzi di si dimostreranno insufficienti, per dimensione e velocità?

Hopenhagen è ancora possibile?

IBM accelera il Cloud Computing con LotusLive

Una nuova pipeline e piattaforma di innovazione per l’integrazione volta ad alimentare l’espansione del mercato

IBM ha annunciato l’ampliamento dell’attività e della tecnologia della propria piattaforma di collaborazione LotusLive cloud e prevede di aprire la LotusLive suite a nuovi partner. I servizi LotusLive cloud offrono e-mail integrate, Web conferencing, social networking e collaborazione con la particolare attenzione di IBM alla sicurezza, all’affidabilità e all’integrazione aziendale. Disponibile anche in italiano, è possibile scaaicare una versione di prova gratuita per 30 giorni.

IBM Research e Lotus stanno unendo le proprie forze per fornire innovazione sul Web tramite la creazione di LotusLive Labs – un banco di prova per l’avanzamento nella collaborazione business-driven nel cloud.

Noti per il loro impegno nel superare i limiti della scienza, della tecnologia e dell’attività per creare un pianeta migliore, i ricercatori di IBM hanno ottenuto cinque premi Nobel. Nel 2009, IBM ha ottenuto 4.914 brevetti statunitensi, posizionandosi per il 17° anno consecutivo al primo posto nell’elenco delle aziende più creative del mondo. IBM Research e Lotus accelereranno le pipeline per l’innovazione concentrate sull’attività per LotusLive.

Questa settimana, a Lotusphere 2010, sono state presentate le anteprime della tecnologia LotusLive Labs che comprendono:

- Slide Library, una modalità collaborativa per creare e condividere le presentazioni;

- Collaborative Recorded Meetings, un servizio che registra e trascrive in modo istantaneo le presentazioni per le riunioni e audio/video per la ricerca e la codifica;

-Event Maps, un modo interattivo per visualizzare e interagire con programmi di conferenze;

-Composer, la capacità di creare mashup LotusLive tramite la combinazione di servizi LotusLive.

Atteso per il secondo trimestre del 2010, tramite LotusLive Labs, Project Concord è un nuovo editor di documenti web per la creazione e la condivisione di documenti, presentazioni e fogli elettronici.

IBM ha anche annunciato l’ampliamento dei servizi di collaborazione principali di LotusLive ad applicazioni di terzi e business process. Disponibili in precedenza solo attraverso il LotusLive Design Partner program, IBM realizzerà interfacce per la programmazione di applicazioni (API) per i servizi LotusLive che saranno a disposizione di qualsiasi business partner IBM nella seconda metà del 2010.

IBM ha anche annunciato l’espansione dei vantaggi per i propri business partner, tra cui le demo account LotusLive gratuite per 12 mesi e alcuni programmi di ausilio alla vendita dei servizi LotusLive.

“Lotus sa che aiutare i clienti a lavorare con le persone all’esterno e all’interno delle aziende, in particolare nel contesto di un business process, è importante”, ha affermato Sean Poulley, vice president, IBM Cloud Collaboration. “Facilitando ai partner l’inserimento di strumenti cloud per il social networking, la collaborazione e la comunicazione nelle loro applicazioni, i clienti potranno usufruire di nuove modi per risolvere i loro problemi aziendali”.

La prossima versione di LotusLive Notes fornirà ai clienti email, calendari, capacità di messaggistica istantanea e gestione dei contatti in un ambiente multi-tenant. Il servizio LotusLive Notes sarà ottimizzato per supportare installazioni di tipo hybrid on-premise e cloud con supporto standard per la sincronizzazione della directory tra directory on-premise e il cloud, accesso all’applicazione e workflow di posta che rimane on-premise oltre al diritto di ogni utente di utilizzare un browser o il client Lotus Notes per accedere alle proprie e-mail. I nuovi servizi e le opzioni comprendono una riduzione del numero minimo di utenti per un abbonamento LotusLive Notes da 1.000 a 25, il supporto di messaggistica istantanea IBM Lotus Sametime e una quota mailbox standard di 5GB. IBM accetta le richieste di partecipazione al programma beta LotusLive Notes.

L’iniziativa cloud computing di IBM è un elemento fondamentale per la società e un’area di interesse principale per i clienti. Il Cloud computing, unito a una strategia informatica globale, può aiutare a migliorare la performance dell’attività e a controllare i costi per fornire risorse informatiche all’organizzazione. La collaborazione in the cloud può consentire una rapida innovazione dell’attività ampliando l’area dell’azienda al cloud per l’erogazione agli utenti di servizi informatici facili da usare indipendentemente dall’ubicazione e dal tipo di dispositivo utilizzato.

Economic and financial crisis: impact on towns and regions worse than thought!

Contrary to statements by EU and international institutions that 2010 will see an economic and financial improvement, Europe’s local and regional authorities fear that 2010 will be as difficult as 2009 or even worse. This is the main finding of CEMR’s second survey on the impact of the crisis on Europe’s towns and regions. The survey was compiled from the data provided by 32 national associations of local and regional government members of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions.

According to the survey, 76% of local and regional authorities feel that the situation has worsened over the last 6–9 months whereas only 6% perceive a slight improvement (in Portugal, Sweden and Wallonia). When asked about the prospects for 2010, only Cyprus, Norway, Portugal and Sweden, amounting to 6% of the population covered by the survey express optimism, whereas 44% are pessimistic for 2010 and 50% do not foresee any change.

The findings concerning access to investment resources make equally grim reading. Respondents representing 90% of the population covered, state that access to borrowing for investment has worsened or not improved since CEMR’s first survey in April 2009. Given the crucial role of public borrowing for sustaining economic development and infrastructure investments, this might result in a long-term local development slowdown for a large proportion of Europe’s population.

Local and regional governments also find themselves caught between decreasing budget income and increased demand for expenditure. In 63% of the countries own-source tax revenues have decreased and so have government transfers and grants (56%), while expenditure has increased or remained the same for Europe’s local and regional authorities representing 75% of the covered population.

Most associations do not anticipate their members to adopt increased 2010 budgets: 65% anticipate a reduced budget or zero growth. Only 18 % believe that their 2010 budget will be increased above inflation rate. The most optimistic local and regional authorities are in Albania, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, Denmark and Norway.

Local and regional authorities in countries covering 49% of Europe’s population, have faced an increased demand for public services. In all, 80 % of the population covered live in towns or regions that have had to adapt the vol ume and range of public services provided. Higher demand is concentrated around social services, such as social and welfare allowances, housing support, support for unemployed and homeless persons, financial or debt advisory services, mental health services…

The overarching trend, visible throughout the whole survey, leads to an inescapable conclusion: the economic and financial crisis will not spare Europe’s public sector in 2010, says CEMR secretary general Jeremy Smith. Even if and when the economy picks up to some extent, the extent of public sector debt and continuing unemployment in many places, will place acute pressure on Europe’s local and regional governments.

Background information

In August 2009 CEMR sent a questionnaire to its 52 member associations in 37 countries; 32 associations replied. The questionnaire addressed a range of issue such as: perception of the impact on Europe’s towns, cities and regions, their expectations for the 2010 budgets, access to credit, the impact of the crisis on the provision of public services etc. The survey provides both the percentages of national associations’ responses, and those percentages weighted according to the population of their country. It also includes charts to compare the percentages of various answers and maps showing the geographical spread of the responses.

In addition, the survey includes examples of the effect of the crisis on a number of local authorities from various countries and what steps some of them have taken to react to the crisis.

CEMR’s first survey on the impact of the crisis was released in April 2009; it was also based on the responses of its members to a questionnaire.

Dove lo mettiamo il carbonio?

L’immagazzinamento del carbonio originato dalla combustione di carbone, gas naturale, petrolio (con tutti i suoi derivati) viene considerato da molti esperti come l’arma migliore a disposizione per combattere i cambiamenti climatici pur continuando ad avere a disposizione l’energia necessaria a soddisfare le nostre necessità. Allo stato attuale delle cose, peraltro, non esistono sistemi di immagazzinamento del carbonio su vasta scala, e quelli allo studio mostrano un gran numero di punti ancora oscuri. Gli scienziati del Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hanno in corso alcuni progetti che potrebbero rispondere alle domande di questi punti oscuri.

L’immagazzinamento delle emissioni di carbonio si basa su sistemi di separazione del biossido di carbonio (CO2) dal resto dei gas e delle particelle che si formano durante la combustione, da pompare in appositi siti sotterranei o sotto i fondali oceanici. Un’alternativa è costituita dalla conversione del CO2 da gas a solido, per permetterne il trattamento.

La scelta dei luoghi – sotto terra o sotto i fondali marini – in cui immagazzinare il CO2 è fondamentale: possibili, eventuali fratture potrebbero portare a rilasci di grandi quantità di biossido di carbonio nell’atmosfera, con conseguenze potenzialmente pericolose per l’equilibrio climatico del pianeta. In determinate condizioni – repentine e in aree geograficamente limitate – questi rilasci potrebbero anche rivelarsi estremamente pericolose per le comunità coinvolte: si sono già verificati casi di asfissia, con centinaia di vittime, per improvvisi rilasci di CO2 nell’atmosfera in bacini vulcanici.

Ruben Juanes, assistente presso uno dei gruppi del MIT che si occupa di questi studi, ha proposto un nuovo modello matematico per la valutazione delle capacità di immagazzinamento di CO2 di un sito. Il modello può essere applicato a siti delle dimensioni di un bacino geologico, che può estendersi anche per centinaia di chilometri, perfino gli interi Stati Uniti.

Calcoli di questo genere sono estremamente complicati perché i fattori da prendere in considerazione ed i meccanismi che regolano le interazioni sono molti.

Secondo Juanes il suo modello riesce a tenere in considerazione tutti i maggiori e più conosciuti meccanismi conosciuto che regolano la cattura e l’immagazzinamento dell’anidride carbonica. Per le ricerche future “dovranno prendere in considerazione che l’incertezza-chiave è la potenziale migrazione di CO2 verticalmente attraverso gli strati geologici.”

Per esempio, la pressione della CO2 iniettata in un sito scelto ome serbatio per l’immagazzinamento potrebbe causare rotture e fratture nella roccia, e provocare fuoruscite verso l’atmosfera. Il team del MIT è al lavoro proprio per riempire i vuoti di conoscenza in questo meccanismo di calcolo.

Jerome Neufeld, research fellow all’Institute of Theoretical Geophysics dell’University of Cambridge – specializzato nello studio della dinamica dei fluidi che intervengono nei sistemi di cattura e immagazzinamento della CO2 – afferma che lo strumento sviluppato da Juanes e i suoi collaboratori “fornisce un punto di partenza per puntare a più solidi metodi di calcolo del comportamento della CO2 immagazzinata e dei meccanismi di cattura.”