A farm in your building?
Planners, architects and engineers must incorporate areas for food production in urban buildings to sustain growing populations and meet pressures that climate change will exert on resources, a leading built environment consultant said. The rise of the “urban farmer” will be driven by the loss of rural farmland, burgeoning cities and populations.
Adam Beck, sustainability project team leader at global consulting firm ARUP said the existing built environment can be used to respond to the changing needs, but planners and builders need to think ahead to ensure their buildings “will continue to be durable, relevant and sustainable in 50 years time”.
The company’s Drivers of Change research, Beck said, shows significant levels of global urbanisation occurring across the world and a decline in rural populations and rural land under agricultural production. “At the moment we often lose good productive farmland on the outskirts of cities to residential development, losing the agricultural resource,” Beck said. “In addition, enormous amounts of food are transported vast distances, with consequent expenditure of virtually incalculable amounts of carbon to get the food to the population.”
Given these, he said, “I believe the concept of the 'urban farmer' will become a reality… Where there are opportunities for transforming a common area or space, such as your building’s rooftop, costs can be shared [and] profit generated through produce sales, training programs and staff betterment.”
He said businesses can respond with “simple things” like selecting a caterer that sources locally-grown produce, “the good old pot plant on the roof top with some strawberries” or more innovative solutions: “… for example, Arup is currently designing a roof-top hydroponic alternative energy greenhouse for its New York office, which includes a vertical integrated garden.”
“Depending on the action you wish to take, you do not necessarily have to invest a lot of money, but rather invest the time in thinking of a more sustainable way, interrogating your procurement methods and spending the time to do the research,” he added.
Beck said many developers are already incorporating open space into their projects, for large- and small-scale food production, using as example a medium-rise project in China that has a nine-hectare floor space, “that will produce the equivalent crops to around 1000 hectares ‘on the ground’ traditional production”.
He says the property industry must, and can, develop strategies and technologies to drive down the costs to revamp the built environment sector for the future. Some existing steps include installing or retrofitting existing buildings with rooftop greenhouses, “vertical integrated gardens” and façade-mounted hydroponic trellises.
Ultimately, “the choice to act is a policy and financial issue.” Story sourced from www.EnvironmentalManagementNews.net
Can the Health System learn from the Quality Movement?
In the late 1990s, treatment-related deaths or "complications" were the fifth leading cause of death for Americans. Yet healthcare practitioners decried attempts to standardize treatment. "We're working with people, not cars," they said. The result: an epidemic of preventable mistakes in a medical landscape where patients wait for hours in "emergency" rooms, fill out the same paperwork at each visit, and increasingly run the risk of being dosed with the wrong medication or having the wrong limb amputated.
These problems spurred a group of dedicated physicians like Paul Batalden and Don Berwick to study the concepts of "quality improvement" used at Toyota and NASA, and to dare to apply them to the practice of medicine. This book tells their story, and how these "heretical" ideas have blossomed into a movement, bringing the focus back to where it should have always been: the patient.
Charles Kenney writes their story in a new book: The Best Practice: How the New Quality Movement is Transforming Medicine. Story sourced from www.asq.org
CHINA – Carbon capture and storage project initiated
As reported in I&I previously there are a number of carbon capture and storage projects being developed around the world including in Australia. Not to be left out, EESTECH and Tianjin DaGang Huashi Power Generation have agreed to establish a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in China using EESTECH’s carbon management and storage technology.
Dagang will use one of its two 330MW power units to demonstrate the capture of CO2 from its flue gas stream and then transport the CO2 for geosequestration and enhanced oil recovery.
The project will show the development of a ‘CO2 Capture Project’ that can be profiled internationally as a sustainable climate change project that will greatly benefit China. It seems that the project will pump CO2 into an old oil field to not only store the carbon dioxide but also extract remnant oil in the field. Story sourced from The Asia Miner News Service www.asiaminer.com 14 Oct 08
I&I understands a similar project is under development in Victoria to link a power station to old Bass Strait oil fields.
Event 1: Sustain Your Business, 29 October 2008, 8.30 am-10.30 am
Become acquainted with funds and programs for sustainability:
Business Sustainability can help a business make a meaningful response to climate change, enhance the efficiency of business practices, and improve the economic bottom line. The seminar includes an introduction to the business sustainability tool kit, including websites that provide information on sustainability funds, programs and networks, and an update on the AusIndustry climate ready program.
The seminar is presented by Karen Kirk, Environmental Project Officer, Parramatta City Council and Anne Scott, Deputy State Manager, AusIndustry and will be held at the Department of State and Regional Development, Level 2, 470 Church St, Parramatta. . For further information and to register email dsrdparramatta@business.nsw.gov.au
Event 2: Putting Ideas to Work™, 7 November, 2008, 8.30am-10.30am
Qualify great ideas to convert them into successful products:
Putting Ideas to Work™ investigates methods for identifying and qualifying innovative ideas, and provides tools and know-how to convert these into successful new products or services.
The workshop is led by Troy White of the Industry Development Centre (Hunter) Ltd (IDC), which provides specialised consulting services to inventors and innovative businesses throughout Australia and followed by Maryam Khajeh, a registered Patent Attorney with Davies Collison Cave Patent and Trademark Attorneys. For further information and to register email dsrdparramatta@business.nsw.gov.au
UOW brings students and industry together
The University of Wollongong is able to provide business and students a unique opportunity. This is the Certificate in Global Workplace - Commencing 1st December 2008 for 8 to 12 weeks. Students are available in areas such as accounting, business, computer science, information technology, logistics, engineering, nutrition and public health to assist business. This provides a valuable experience for students and provides business with the opportunity to complete projects or investigate opportunities.
Provided students are not paid, they are covered by the University’s own insurance arrangements for students on work experience placement. Where a business prefers to pay a student the University can support this via an arrangement with a labour hire, which will cover all statutory requirements including insurance.
For more details go to: http://www.uow.edu.au/careers/discover/CGWP/CGWP-BCO.html
Other opportunities are the:
• Employment Experience Program - This program runs for three weeks or the part time equivalent.
• Univative Illawarra - This program runs from 3 to 4 weeks during breaks whereby multi-disciplinary teams of students investigate and report on a business problem.
For more details contact: Michael Grainger, Business Development Manager, Careers Service, University of Wollongong Ph: 42 214 890; Mobile: 0439 564 675; Email: grainger@uow.edu.au
Your Ideas, Innovations or Events?
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