From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 12/02):

Business & management:
• Surveys of US workers last year showed a significant changes in business travel and telecommuting trends, as a result of the surge in oil prices.
• A US design office has produced a model of innovation that is based around changing paradigms and shows the process of transforming old into new.
• A recent Forbes article describes how US corporations are fighting back when local lobby groups want to prevent developments. The corporations hire consulting groups who use ex-political campaign managers to fight zoning battles.
• Debate about the best way to move economies out of recession continues. One UK commentator believes that the “third sector”, ie the voluntary and community sector, is no longer a marginal part of the UK economy and has turned out to be much more agile in helping communities and people get by in past recessions.
• The NZ Institute of Economic Research has just released a report on food miles and NZ’s exports as well as other countries exports. Both developed and developing country food exporters are likely to suffer economic losses if food miles are the basis for food purchasing decisions in Europe.
• Executive compensation and corporate social responsibility is a hot topic around the world as a result of the recession. A new book on what’s behind the most visible green brands, talks about the policy on this at clothing company Nau.
• A US national survey has found that half of consumers are buying just as many green products now as they did before the economic downturn began. Another report from a management consultancy also shows that firms with "true commitment to sustainability" outperform industry peers in the financial markets, even in the current crisis, and another shows that the interest from investors in corporate climate change information has grown by nearly 25 percent this year.
• Positive Deviance is solving problems by looking, and thinking, about how we act, rather than acting upon how we think. Companies that decide not to suspend their sustainability programmes as a result of the recession, may be acting with positive deviance.

Education
• UK students are being urged to take lower-skilled jobs or do voluntary work when they graduate this summer, after a poll of employers revealed widespread cuts in graduate recruitment.
• Even in the US, the belief that a degree is “a sure-fire path to a life of social and economic privilege” is changing. The amount that college graduates earn over non-graduates has remained relatively constant over the past five years, but the cost of acquiring a degree has risen at twice the rate of inflation.
• An American inventor who plans to live forever has been appointed head of a new school for future entrepreneurs backed by Google and the US space agency, NASA.
• A project funded by the European Commission is looking at the right way to integrate e-learning into the higher education system in Croatia. A recent newsletter includes interviews with other experts on the situation around the rest of Europe (including the e-learning advisor for Massey’s College of Education).
• A researcher believes that the combination of physical reality, virtual reality and imaginary reality and the resulting new immersive learning environments, is the future of education.
• An influential figure with the (previous) Blair government is suggesting that schools in urban areas should become the centers of their communities, in constant use by adults as well as children.
• New UK research suggests that babies looked after by their grandparents while their mothers are out at work are less ready for school than if they went to nurseries or crèches.
• A UNESCO discussion taking place during February about Access to Open Educational Resources provides a comprehensive list of barriers to access – ability and skills, formats, language, culture, disability, awareness, discovery, etc.

Environment & sustainability:
• Hundreds of millions of South Asians face growing water stress due to over exploitation, climate change and inadequate cooperation among countries. This all threatens river basins that sustain about half of the region’s 1.5 billion people.
• Climate change is about to cause a major upheaval in the shallow marine waters of Antarctica. Predatory crabs are poised to return to warming Antarctic waters and disrupt the primeval marine communities.
• A NZ scientist believes that NZ is not tapping our world-class solar resources. He believes government subsidies encouraging solar power generation are needed if we are to make the most of our sun.
• Perth is a city with declining fresh water input. The city has already made use of seawater to supply the deficit, and is intending to open its second desalination plan in 2011.
• Distributed energy generation can be likened to the Internet electricity produced from many small energy sources for use around the whole network.-
• A report from a UK power company, suggests that half the country’s homes could be heated by biogas from waste. And in the US, an assessment of the "electric productivity" of the 50 states indicates that shoring up performance gaps through energy efficiency could not only cut consumption by 30 percent, but also eliminate the need for more than 60 percent of coal-fired generation.
• A European conference on climate change and urban design was an opportunity to impress on sceptics the dangers of urban sprawl. The built environment is responsible for more than half of greenhouse gases, and low-density building s worst of all.
• The collapse of the Western Antarctic ice sheet would mean sea levels rising, but the impact on coastlines in some parts of the world would be much worse than previously thought.

Health & wellbeing:
• Google has announced the launch of a dedicated New Zealand page containing online safety and security tips, as well as a New Zealand safety centre on YouTube.
• In a survey for the NZ Food Industry Group, research showed over 54 per cent of those asked were concerned about overweight problems for themselves or their family and, of these, 73% were taking various actions.
• Researchers at Durham University have modified a video game and turned it into a fire drill simulator.

Law & Government:
• A new council assessment regime will ensure that UK councils have a firm focus on hard local issues specific to their area. The new system is intended to ensure councils and other local services are held to account jointly, encouraging closer cooperation between them and better outcomes for local people.
• The City of Victoria, British Columbia, has created a Department of Sustainability that will focus on providing professional expertise in dealing with a wide range of social, environmental and economic/fiscal sustainability issues.
• A UK council has made the unpopular decision to close 11 public libraries, because it is uneconomical to support their libraries without raising the council tax.
• A bill is to be introduced to the UK parliament that proposes making it a statutory requirement for schools to form children's trusts that bring together schools and social services to improve the safety of all children in England.

People, culture & diversity:
• A new psychology study suggests that buying life experiences rather than material possessions leads to greater happiness for both the consumer and those around them.
• A recent survey showed that tattoos are now a turn-off for Australians aged between 18 and 70. In NZ, 1 in 5 people in a survey have been tattooed, and 22% of NZ women in the survey had tattoos, compared to 17% of men.
• A new manifesto to make UK museums more family-friendly has been released. The Kids in Museums Manifesto includes basics such as museum attendants should be stopped from "shushing" children and displays should be hung low enough for youngsters to see properly.

Science, technology & transport:
• The use of robotics is not normally associated with disasters, but the US Center for Robotic-Assisted Search and Rescue aims at promoting the idea that intelligent robots could help save lives at disaster sites.
• ULI’s Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing has released a report on the tradeoffs in transportation and housing costs that consumers in the Washington, D.C. region incur when they move to far-flung areas in search of more affordable housing. ULI’s Worldwide President says that the report could be easily applied to virtually any high-cost urban area in the United States.
• The EU is to make tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) mandatory in 2012. The measure is intended to improve vehicle safety, but also to reduce CO2 emissions.
• Masdar city in Abu Dhabi is introducing personal rapid transit “pod cars” that will run along the ground, rather than on the usual suspended monorail.