Business & management:
• The UN’s International Labour Organisation will be campaigning for a year on the various gender equality issues in the workplace, in particular accessing rights, employment and social protection.
• “Housing Markets and Migration: Evidence from New Zealand” is the Dept of Labour’s report on how immigration may impact on the cost of housing. The report indicates that house prices are more likely to be influenced by NZers returning home from overseas, than by foreign immigrants arriving in the country.
• An additional report produced by the Centre for Housing Research, “The Economic Impact of Immigration on Housing in New Zealand 1991-2016” gave special attention to Auckland, and shows that whether your rent or own your home, depends more on whether you are single or in a relationship, than on where you were born originally.
Environment & sustainability:
• The world’s largest solar photovoltaic farm is being built near Moura in Spain. The £250m farm covers an area nearly twice the size of London's Hyde Park, and is expected to supply 45MW of electricity per year, enough to power 30,000 homes.
• Manchester has the ambition to become Britain's "greenest city" which includes the aim to plant at least 5,000 trees across the city annually.
• Washington DC City Council (and the wider metro area) is going to be using green building practices and the greening of its building codes to reduce its carbon footprint.
• Heavy lobbying is underway in the California Assembly as it moves to introduce legislation requiring developers to pay to offset increased water use at new projects.
• The UK Marine Conservation Society wants a ban on mass balloon releases, as they can eventually kill wildlife.
• Scientists are suggesting that “friendly” bacteria, could be used to tackle the fungal disease that is killing off frogs and amphibians around the world.
• NASA scientists believe they may soon have a breakthrough in their ability to predict earthquakes.
Health & wellbeing:
• The Local Wellbeing Project in the UK is a 3 year project looking at how local government action, in collaboration with national agencies and local communities, can contribute to a growth in happiness and wellbeing, both by enhancing services and providing or planning new services. Their 1st report has just been released: “Neighbourliness + Empowerment = Wellbeing: Is there a formula for happy communities?”
• Lifestyle may have a greater impact than previously thought on age-related deafness, ain addition to the impact of noise exposure..
Law & Government:
• Over 150 local councils in the UK were asked under a freedom of information request if they were using surveillance legislation designed to track organised crime, to access private telephone and email records – 121 councils admitted that they were looking at private data.
• Accountability in local government in the UK, is raising discussion of how accountable mayors can be.
• Plans are to be announced by central government in the UK to ask local councils to volunteer to accept underground storage of nuclear waste, in return for government investment in their area.
People, culture & diversity:
• “Non-marital cohabitation” shows the largest rise between 1996 and 2006 in New Zealand, compared to another 11 nations surveyed in the National Marriage Project study, led by Rutgers University in the US.
• First generation Samoan youth report greater life satisfaction and better school adjustment than their Maori and Pakeha peers—despite experiencing more discrimination, according to new research from Victoria University.
• A new survey in Britain, shows that half a million men over 60 lead lonely lives with no friend and no contact from their families, in contrast to most women, and that one in five adults feel guilty about not seeing their older fathers more regularly.
Science, technology & transport:
• You know technology is changing quickly, when your cell phone or digital camera is stolen and it can now “phone home” with photos or video that will show you who its thieves are.
• Land Transport NZ launched a new set of cycle skills training guidelines in February. The guidelines were adapted to NZ conditions from the United Kingdom's Bikeability programme. They provide guidance for the set-up and delivery of cyclist training in NZ.
• GNS Science will be working on a 3-year research project, looking into greater use of low temperature geothermal energy in NZ, i.e. sources that are generally less than 150OC, with some below 80OC. The range of sources is diverse, such as water and steam discharges from thermal power plants or the heat contained in dry rock.
• Like London, Manchester has gained central government approval for a congestion charge on the inner city, and government funding of £2.8bn for public transport.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Thursday, 5 June 2008
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.
• 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.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
From the LOGIS news alert subscriptions (ending 29/05):
Business & management:
• The WriteMark New Zealand Plain English Awards are now open to entries, promoted by the Write Group Limited. The awards promote the use of plain English in communication by businesses and government.
• NZ’s biggest annual tourism event, TRENZ (Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand) will be held in Auckland in June 2009
• Just as employers are now routinely checking Facebook profiles for prospective employees, computer game-playing skills are now increasingly recognised as more valuable than just as an entry in the “Hobbies” section of a person’s CV. Gaming can hone organisational, managerial and inter-personal skills and can reveal important personality characteristics.
• Businesses in the San Francisco Bay area will be required to pay fees according to the amount of carbon that they emit, the first fees of their kind in the US. Power plants and oil refineries in the region will be paying the biggest fees.
Environment & sustainability:
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature says another 11 species of sharks are threatened, including the shortfin mako and thresher sharks.
• The 2 NZ climate change reports released this week are “Climate Change Effects & Impacts Assessment Manual: A Guide for Local Government” and “The EcoClimate Report: Climate change and agricultural production”.
• If you have serious concerns about energy this winter, a new website has been created: “Winterpower Watch”. The site allows anyone to check for accurate and up-to-date information about the electricity supply situation.
• The Marine Energy Deployment Fund has provided its first grant, to a company that is waiting on resource consent to install 3 tidal turbines in the Kaipara Harbour.
• National Geographic has started an annual survey on how environmentally friendly consumers are in countries around the world, called “Greendex”. Only 14 countries are listed in the first report – US consumers rank as worst, while Indian & Brazilian consumers rank as most environmentally friendly.
• The US NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) has released a report on what climate change might cost the US economy: “The cost of climate change: what we’ll pay if global warming continues unchecked”.
• NASA has released the results of the first study to show a definitive link between human activity and climate change. The article is published in the Nature issue of 2008 May 15, but the article and supporting material can also be seen via NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies: “Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change.”
• Sir John Sorrell of the UK’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment has spoken recently about three tests that can indicate the sustainability of our cities.
Health & wellbeing:
• A speech-language therapy conference in Auckland last week heard that testing of young offenders in the UK shows that poor communication skills have an impact on childhood offending.
• The technical standard for national tsunami signage was announced this week, meaning that there will now be standardised signage around the country warning about tsunami zones, safe evacuation routes and safe locations.
• The UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has produced a guide for employers and professionals: “Promoting physical activity in the workplace”, because “people of working age are not active enough to benefit their health.”
• Rates of heavy drinking in the UK have doubled since 1995, raising concerns about the burden on the health system, and as a result, the president of the Royal College of Physicians has called for an end to cheap supermarket drink.
Law & Government:
• A UK report “Designing citizen-centred governance” was released this month. Research was drawn from a variety of areas including health, education, and a variety of community-based organisations and services.
People, culture & diversity:
• Most NZers don’t rate wealth as highly as they rate living a morally good life, and having enough time to do the things they want. The statistics come from research on the importance of values by UMR Research.
• A BBC-sponsored study of its virtual world for children “Adventure Rock” shows that virtual worlds are rehearsal spaces for the things children can try out, without fear of the consequences that would exist in the real world.
Science, technology & transport:
• Transport planners in Washington DC are concerned that a massive move of commuters out of cars and into the local Metro service is putting the “ailing” system under pressure, and that measures like flexitime might be needed to ease the rush of new riders. Projected increases in riders were based on population and job growth, but didn’t factor in the impact of the high petrol costs.
• Internet usability expert Jakob Nielsen (one of his reports on intranets is now available on Citynet) says in his latest report on web habits, that people are now less patient online, they ignore efforts to make them linger at sites and they are suspicious of promotions designed to get their attention.
• European researchers are using sensors, cameras and GPS on buses to analyse traffic conditions (ice, smog, bad weather, congestion) and provide additional information to the other means they use, to reduce traffic and improve road conditions.
• Dupont and BP are partnering to produce biobutanol for use as a biofuel, which can be manufactured from the same sources as ethanol. Previously, higher production costs prevented its use in transport, but because it is closer to a petrol substitute than ethanol, cars could use a biobutanol blend of 16% without the need for engine conversion.
• The WriteMark New Zealand Plain English Awards are now open to entries, promoted by the Write Group Limited. The awards promote the use of plain English in communication by businesses and government.
• NZ’s biggest annual tourism event, TRENZ (Tourism Rendezvous New Zealand) will be held in Auckland in June 2009
• Just as employers are now routinely checking Facebook profiles for prospective employees, computer game-playing skills are now increasingly recognised as more valuable than just as an entry in the “Hobbies” section of a person’s CV. Gaming can hone organisational, managerial and inter-personal skills and can reveal important personality characteristics.
• Businesses in the San Francisco Bay area will be required to pay fees according to the amount of carbon that they emit, the first fees of their kind in the US. Power plants and oil refineries in the region will be paying the biggest fees.
Environment & sustainability:
• The International Union for Conservation of Nature says another 11 species of sharks are threatened, including the shortfin mako and thresher sharks.
• The 2 NZ climate change reports released this week are “Climate Change Effects & Impacts Assessment Manual: A Guide for Local Government” and “The EcoClimate Report: Climate change and agricultural production”.
• If you have serious concerns about energy this winter, a new website has been created: “Winterpower Watch”. The site allows anyone to check for accurate and up-to-date information about the electricity supply situation.
• The Marine Energy Deployment Fund has provided its first grant, to a company that is waiting on resource consent to install 3 tidal turbines in the Kaipara Harbour.
• National Geographic has started an annual survey on how environmentally friendly consumers are in countries around the world, called “Greendex”. Only 14 countries are listed in the first report – US consumers rank as worst, while Indian & Brazilian consumers rank as most environmentally friendly.
• The US NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) has released a report on what climate change might cost the US economy: “The cost of climate change: what we’ll pay if global warming continues unchecked”.
• NASA has released the results of the first study to show a definitive link between human activity and climate change. The article is published in the Nature issue of 2008 May 15, but the article and supporting material can also be seen via NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies: “Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change.”
• Sir John Sorrell of the UK’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment has spoken recently about three tests that can indicate the sustainability of our cities.
Health & wellbeing:
• A speech-language therapy conference in Auckland last week heard that testing of young offenders in the UK shows that poor communication skills have an impact on childhood offending.
• The technical standard for national tsunami signage was announced this week, meaning that there will now be standardised signage around the country warning about tsunami zones, safe evacuation routes and safe locations.
• The UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has produced a guide for employers and professionals: “Promoting physical activity in the workplace”, because “people of working age are not active enough to benefit their health.”
• Rates of heavy drinking in the UK have doubled since 1995, raising concerns about the burden on the health system, and as a result, the president of the Royal College of Physicians has called for an end to cheap supermarket drink.
Law & Government:
• A UK report “Designing citizen-centred governance” was released this month. Research was drawn from a variety of areas including health, education, and a variety of community-based organisations and services.
People, culture & diversity:
• Most NZers don’t rate wealth as highly as they rate living a morally good life, and having enough time to do the things they want. The statistics come from research on the importance of values by UMR Research.
• A BBC-sponsored study of its virtual world for children “Adventure Rock” shows that virtual worlds are rehearsal spaces for the things children can try out, without fear of the consequences that would exist in the real world.
Science, technology & transport:
• Transport planners in Washington DC are concerned that a massive move of commuters out of cars and into the local Metro service is putting the “ailing” system under pressure, and that measures like flexitime might be needed to ease the rush of new riders. Projected increases in riders were based on population and job growth, but didn’t factor in the impact of the high petrol costs.
• Internet usability expert Jakob Nielsen (one of his reports on intranets is now available on Citynet) says in his latest report on web habits, that people are now less patient online, they ignore efforts to make them linger at sites and they are suspicious of promotions designed to get their attention.
• European researchers are using sensors, cameras and GPS on buses to analyse traffic conditions (ice, smog, bad weather, congestion) and provide additional information to the other means they use, to reduce traffic and improve road conditions.
• Dupont and BP are partnering to produce biobutanol for use as a biofuel, which can be manufactured from the same sources as ethanol. Previously, higher production costs prevented its use in transport, but because it is closer to a petrol substitute than ethanol, cars could use a biobutanol blend of 16% without the need for engine conversion.
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