From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 05/06):

Business & management:
• The Pew Center on Global Climate Change (in Arlington, Virginia, USA) has prepared a report on how businesses can approach climate change, and how a company can identify its potential risks from climate change and possible opportunities.
• Urban development and real estate professionals in the US are using social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to gain advice, advertise land sales and create discussion groups, and the Urban Land Institute already has a presence on both Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Adobe has launched Acrobat.com, a community site that allows document creation, storage and sharing online, and web conferences to discuss the documents. Other such sites already exist, with Microsoft, Google and Zoho all making such services available.
• The FAO is predicting more spikes in global food prices for the next few seasons, in its report “Food Outlook: global market analysis” for June 2008.

Environment & sustainability:
• The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), which monitors urban design and planning, says that fewer than 10 out of over 700 large construction projects in the UK have made sustainability a priority, and suggests that “greenwashing” is being used, rather than a proper approach to sustainability.
• A 10 year research project in the UK on restoring landfill sites has shown that it is possible to restore these areas safely by planting certain trees, and as long as there is strict adherence to safeguards.
• The World Science Festival held in New York recently, had a panel called "Future Cities: Sustainable, Radical Designs" where some innovative solutions for sustainability in housing, transport and infrastructure were discussed.
• A forgotten aspect of the build-up of greenhouse gases and toxic effects on the environment, is the accumulation of “reactive nitrogen” in the environment, derived from nitrogenous fertilizers and burning fossil fuels.
• The UK’s Dept of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform has released a report “The growth potential for microgeneration in England, Wales and Scotland” which indicates that if the government backed it enough, microgeneration could generate as much electricity per year as 5 nuclear power stations. The report comes at a time when the government is considering new nuclear power stations, while those already built cost British taxpayers millions of pounds.
• The Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority has reported on research findings about public perceptions towards renewable energy. 75% of New Zealanders support marine energy as a future electricity generation option – so it’s timely that an experimental prototype of a wave power generator has been approved for trials in Evans Bay, Wellington, after previous successful trials in Lyttleton Harbour.
• A CEO of a NZ wind energy company, speaking at the Energy Trusts of NZ conference, said that uneven supply generation from large wind projects affects the stability of electricity prices and that smaller and smarter wind energy projects would be better for NZ.
• A new edition of the “New Zealand Energy Information Handbook” is on order at Libraries, providing technical data on the energy sector.
• Keeping track of local sustainability initiatives in New Zealand will be easier with the launch of the “Our Future” website from Landcare Research. The site shows environmental projects and research sites, including ones in which people can become involved.

Health & wellbeing:
• UK researchers are noticing a trend amongst youth with regard to alcohol – the number of teetotal teenagers is rising.
• Findings in the report “A portrait of health: key results of the 2006/7 New Zealand Health Survey”, show that the proportion of adults unable to see a GP when they needed to in the previous 12 months has halved since 2002/03and there has been a decrease in the daily smoking rate. There has been a slowing in the rate of increase of obesity in adults, with no change in the rate of obesity for Māori adults since 1997.

People, culture & diversity:
• Virtual volunteering is on the rise, allowing people to fit their volunteer work in around the other commitments in their life.

Science, technology & transport:
• The Cato Institute, a public policy research foundation in Washington DC, has recently published an article suggesting that rail transit lines use more energy per passenger mile, and some schemes may generate more greenhouse gases than the average passenger vehicle.
• The huge impact of rising petrol prices on increasing rides on US public transport schemes has been confirmed by data on the first 3 months of 2008 released by the American Public Transport Association. Another knock-on effect of the economic crunch combined with higher travel costs, is the fall in business travel and its impact on the US hotel & hospitality industry.
• Due to the rising amounts of greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector, the UN expects transport stakeholders to play a key role in shaping the global climate change deal that countries will discuss next year.