(SERI) - Sustainable Europe Research Institute

SERI members at the IIASA summer program 2001

Stefan Giljum and Mark Hammer have been selected as participants of the
Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) 2001 at the International Institute
for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Vienna.
From June to August they will join the department of "land use and land
cover change" and will carry out studies on the interrelation of global
material flows and land use patterns in the framework of the research
co-operation between IIASA and SERI.

See our site on global material flows for details.

More from Francois Schneider in Estonia

Francois Schneider is now advising the Estonian Fund for Nature on a review of the total consumptions and ecological impacts of the Estonian State Office.
He remains in close contact with SEI Tallinn and partners around the baltic sea.

For more further information please contact Francois Schneider at:
[email protected]

News on Philipp Schepelmann

Philipp Schepelmann left the board of SERI and his position as a vice president for personal reasons.
He will still work in the field of European policy.

Niki Rosinski joined SustainAbility Ltd.

Niki Rosinski joined SustainAbility Ltd. (London, UK) as an Associate.
Based in London and New York, SustainAbility specialises in business strategy and sustainable development. Three main focus areas: foresight, agenda-setting and change management. From the outset, SustainAbility has been a hybrid: part award-winning strategic management consultancy, part world class think-tank, part energetic campaigning organisation.

More information on SustainAbility.Ltd. please click:
www.sustainability.co.uk.

Sylvia Lorek on ANPED meeting in Minsk

From 23. to 25. of March Sylvia Lorek took part in the Annual General Meeting of ANPED, the Northern Alliance on Sustainability, held in Minsk, Belarus. There she was elected to the board as a representative for the Western European Countries.
ANPED is mainly working on Sustainable Production and Consumption, Health and Environment, Local Sustainability and Environmental Rights.

Further information at www.anped.nl or [email protected].

2. Project-Overview: News from our projects, our other work and new research fields

More from Sustainable OECD

The work on the OECD sustainability strategy goes on. The new Republican US
government seem s to encourage the most hard-lined of OECD neo-liberal economists to take over and redefine sustainability as a sub-issue of (greened) growth politics. If they get their way (governments seem to be less inclined to redefine sustainable development), the result will not only affect negotiations in international fora, but the results will also serve as yardsticks in the regular assessments of member states' performance - and these will be public.

To get more information on this project please here.

3. Friends: Seri and ... (News about co-operation and partnerships)

Joint invitation for seminar - broadcasted live on the internet!

"The Cardiff Process after Gothenburg - Evaluating environmental integration"
4 April 2001, Brussels

The European Council in Gothenburg in June 2001 will be an important milestone on the way to a sustainable designed European Union. The key challenge for heads of state and government will be to find possibilities to link the different ongoing processes and existing strategies (especially Cardiff process on environmental integration, Lisbon strategy, EU
sustainable development strategy) and to define a clear direction in the follow-up of the Summit.

The main focus of our seminar will be the future of the Cardiff integration process after Gothenburg. By the time of the seminar we will know whether the Stockholm European Council decided to integrate environment into the Lisbon process. We will also have at our disposal the results of three studies (commissioned by the Governments of Austria, Germany and UK) evaluating the Cardiff integration process so far. In addition, we will have the first ideas of the Presidency's upcoming integration report to the Gothenburg European Council and the Commission's draft sustainable development strategy.

For more information on the seminar please contact Mrs Rita Trattnigg at:
[email protected].

The event will be broadcasted live on the internet at:
www.sustainability.tv/live.

Relevant links:
Please find the studies on the evaluation of the environmental integration process and further information on this issue on the following websites:

SERIs Site on Environmental Integration
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/enveco/index.htm.

SERI and the European Environment Bureau

SERI has been consulting the European Environment Bureau, which is organising the international NGO input, regarding the OECD new environment strategy. The paper by Joachim Spangenberg is focussed on social sustainability and indicators, and is available from SERI, together with the draft OECD strategy.

Contact: [email protected]

The draft of the OECD Environmental Strategy can be downloaded here.

Click www.eeb.org/ for more information on the European Environment
Bureau

Amici della Terra activities

To get some information on the recent activities of the environmental NGO
Amici della Terra based in Rome/Italy please click below:

www.amicidellaterra.it

SERI would still like to invite post-doc researchers intending to apply for Marie Curie Fellowships to work with SERI or members of the SERI network in other parts of Europe.

See www.cordis.lu/improving/src/hp_mcf.htm for more, or try the links below for detailed information:

http://www.cordis.lu/improving/src/hp_ncp.htm
http://www.cordis.lu/improving/src/mc_tsf_pg.htm
http://improving-mcf.sti.jrc.it/project/
http://www.mariecurie.org/
http://www.cordis.lu/tmr/src/grants1.htm

But we are also looking for interesting places of research to which our researchers could go for some time!

4. Selected publications: Book reviews and announcements from SERI members and related writers and publishers

New paper by Professor E. U. v. Weizsäcker:
"Nachhaltigkeit, Globalisierung und Finanzmärkte"; 2001 (in German only)

Whether or not sustainability will be the key concept of the future world economy increasingly depends on the behaviour of financial markets, Professor E.U. von Weizsäcker says in this recent paper. Once they have realized that today's economies are unsustainable they could act as a catalyst for sustainable development. Signals for such change already exist in the financial markets.

To get more information on "sustainable finance" and to download the paper surf to our pages on Sustainable Finance or click below to visit von Weizsäckers website at: www.ernst.weizsaecker.de/gruenesgeld.html.

New publications by
Niki Nikolaus Rosinski:

"Oekologisch, sozial - und erfolgreich"
Published in: DIE ZEIT No. 12, 15.03.01, p. 39

Abstract:
The article reveals the business case for sustainability from a corporate point of view. More importantly, the issue of sustainability and financial markets has been articulated for the time first time in DIE ZEIT (in German only).

To view the article please click here

"Nachhaltikeit als Wirtschaftscredo der Zukunft?"
Published in: ECOreporter.de, 18.03.01.

Abstract:
Awareness for the business case of sustainability raises steadily in the financial community. Thus, a good sustainability performance increasingly turns from a "nice-to-have" into a "must" for companies.

Surf to www.umweltfonds.de to read the article (in German only) and to visit ECOreporter.de: The main online portal for sustainable investment in Germany.

New publications by
Joachim H. Spangenberg:

"Sustainable Development: from catchwords to benchmarks and operational concepts."

Published in: Martin Charter, Ursula Tischner (Eds): "Sustainable Solutions." Greenleaf Publ., Sheffield 2001, ISBN 1874719365, www.greenleaf-publishing.com

"Towards Sustainability"

Published in: Brendan Gleeson, Nicholas Low (Eds): "Governing for the Environment: Global Problems, Ethics and Democracy." Palgrave Publ. (formerly Macmillan), Houndmills/New York 2001, ISBN 0333793722

5. Links + Other: News about other activities, hints and advice on dates, workshops etc.

NEW 'Sustainable Development - ONLINE' WWW ADDRESS

The 'Sustainable Development - ONLINE' website of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (a public funded agency of the European Union) has changed it's webadress.
The European Foundation is committed to developing SD-ONLINE and its free service. This special information initiative currently comprises four online databases with listings of sustainability-oriented conferences, networks, tools, training courses and SME support initiatives.

The new address of SD-Online is www.sd-online.net

CD-ROM Recycling

The average half-live of a CD-ROM is sinking more and more. Millions of used CD's are thrown into the trash bin after a short time of use and valuable recyclable material is wasted million times.
A company in Germany will stop this uneconomical and useless behaviour of consuming and producing CD's for the rubbish heap to save resources.
The company developed a system to recycle CD's and is offering a service to collect the used and old CD-ROMS.

For more information on this service please surf to: www.cd-collect.com (in
German only).

Rio+10 World Summit on Sustainable Development News

The following list of Secretary-General's reports prepared for the first Preparatory committee meeting (30 April - 2 May 2001) of the World Summit on Sustainable Development are now available on www.un.org/rio+10 (direct link under "Breaking News").
The list of these documents is as follows:

1. Changing Consumption Patterns
2. Combating Poverty
3. Demographic Dynamics and Sustainability
4. Education and Public Awareness for Sustainable Development
5. Energy and Transport
6. Finance and Trade
7. Global Status of Biological Diversity
8. Health and Sustainable Development
9. Information and Institutions for Decision-Making
10. Management of Toxic Chemicals and Hazardous and Radioactive Wastes and Environmentally Sound Management of Radioactive Wastes
11. Major Groups
12. Oceans and Seas
13. Protection of the Atmosphere
14. Review of Progress in Forests since UNCED
15. Sustainable Development of Tourism
16. Sustainable Human Settlements Development and Environmentally Sound Management of Solid Wastes
17. Sustainable Mountain Development
18. Transfer of Environmentally Sound Technologies, Cooperation and Capacity-Building, and Environmentally Sound Management of Biotechnology
19. Water - a Key Resource for Sustainable Development

Several more will be available in the coming week. If you have difficulty
accessing these documents on the web site and would like to request a copy
of a specific report please email your request to [email protected] or
[email protected].