This September the International Energy Agency published a Special Report on Energy and Climate Change.
This December a very important meeting, the COP21, will let come together the most important decision takers in the field of Sustainability. In fact this sustainable innovation forum that will be happening partnership with the UNEP, the United Nation Environment Programme will be a remarkable meeting to put the world on a sustainable path.
One of the main topics that will be discussed there besides the new climate goals to reduce greenhouse effect on earth is to take some very necessary decisions in the energy sector.
Some of the most important strategies are published in the World Energy Outlook Report that you can download here. It is a 200 pages publication that offers some detailed insight in the energy production in the whole world and gives also some interesting outlooks on how to accelerate the development of emerging technologies that are essential to transform the global energy system into one that is consistent with the worlds climate goals.
The report offers four main key pillars for the success of COP21 which are to find a peak in emissions, a continuous five-year revison, look in the vision (stop climate change as a collective long-term goal) and track the transition (track achievements in the energy sector).
Another point in the report is to gain in efficiency. Gaining in efficiency is a welcome way to reduce emissions without being restricted in output terms.
If you don’t have time to read trough the whole 200 pages manual, use the link that you can find right below for the executive manual of 12 pages. Stay tuned on the topic, COP21 could be the next Kyoto!
Hello Pushkar and Max,
My name is Euri. I found your cool blog while looking for sustainability initiatives taking place around northern Italy. I couldn’t find a contact form, so I will write here, apologies if it’s not the best place!
I now work for The Surefoot Effect, a social entreprise also based in Scotland that has an educational focus. I am planning a trip in Italy for late October/early November. I want to interview people working in sustainability initiatives and narrate personal stories as a way to communicate about energy issues. I’ve had a look at your blog and I thought you’d be the right people to interview in Bologna about your personal motivation to write Streamgreen. I’d also like to get in touch with the University of Bologna and give a presentation about an energy-saving project called ‘face-to-face’ engagement that I helped lead at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and I thought you might be able to help me find the right person to speak to.
The way the project worked in Edinburgh was through supporting volunteers who worked around campus in different buildings and were interested in exploring new ways to save energy. We initially run a 3-months trial where we worked with volunteers in 6 buildings but the project was extended to 1 year and then the Sustainability and Social Reponsibility Office was established. Our agreement with the university was that our team would be able to save 80% of investment through energy savings. In the first year, we managed to save £80,000 (~€109,000). It’s important to note that there was no building work involved, it all worked through behaviour change and the volunteer-led projects and the support our office offered. I also learned that if 51 projects of the size that one of our volunteers led happened at the University of Edinburgh every year until 2050, the university would become carbon neutral. I thought it was a relatively small number of people involved for a 40,000-people university and it encouraged me to think how this could play in other universities too.
I’d now like to take this model to other universities but with an added target. In Edinburgh, 20% of investment costs were used to fund sustainability initiatives on campus that did not necessarily involve saving money saving but still important to do. What I’d like to do is use that 20% to fund sustainability porjects i) local/regional sustainability projects ii) projects in developing countries iii) networking with other universities which might be interested in adopting the model. This way, I want to work with universities to expand sustainability initiatives globally.
I’m originally Spanish and I’ve considered launching the project in Spain but Spanish geography is somewhat against me, it seems easier to work initially in an area where universities are close to one another. Distances in Spain are just too large, hence my interest in exploring possibilities in the north of Italy and of course Bologna, being the oldest university in the world would be a good place to start!
Anyhow, please drop me a line if you’d like to know more about this initiative or if you could put me in touch with someone from the university I could talk to as well. Feel free to write to my e-mail euri.vidal@gmail.com. Apologies once again for writing all this stuff here!
Keep up the good work guys!
Euri