Several variations of environmental communication in Ecomondo

by Silvia Musso

Also this year the editors of AICA will participate in the International Fair of Materials and Energy and Sustainable Development, better know as Ecomondo, which has reached its 14th addition.

The Fair, which was inaugurated on Wednesday the 3rd of November, with the participation of the Minister of Environment, Land and Sea, Stefania Prestigiacomo, will offer, as always, opportunities for discussion and communication between industry and environmental sustainability and institutional stakeholders, trade associations, public administrations, and NGOs concerned with green technology and new sustainable lifestyles.
Within this fair that might at first seem purely technical, one can find many opportunities, even for those who face the same environmental issues from the perspective of communication.
In this respect it seems worthwhile to highlight some of the so-called “special projects” of the Fair of Rimini.

Lets start with the EcoArt Project, an international cultural platform from a creative force of artists who aim to increase the awareness of environmental issues. There are activities involving young people, businesses and institutions at all levels, that aim to inspire attitudes and behaviors that are aimed to save the planet.
The EcoArt Project presents to Rimini and important example of contemporary art entitled “EcoBrain”, a group exhibition in the name of ethics, energetics, ecological sustainability, an accumulation or works created with studied languages, codes and materials which fit into the themes of social and bio-diversity.

Another project is the “Ambiente Festival” (Environmental Festival). Promoted by the City of Rimini in collaboration with the Rimini Fair, Ambeinte Festival was created as an initiative to spread the popular ideas. With “Biadiversiamoci” it will include ten days of events focused on issues of biodiversity and renewable energy that will involve all of society, in the old city surrounded by gardens of biodiversity, to give shape to a sustainability method, which is both tangible and practical.

Also this year, again in partnership with Rimini Fair plc. with E-Ambiente Ltd., after the success of last year, once again they will present “Sustainable City”, an exhibition of international projects whose aim is to provide an original vision on the most representative research of urban-quality construction and the best practices for sustainable design of the “CITIES OF THE FUTURE”. The center of the exhibition center hosts several workshop meetings. In the context of sustainable cities, the staff at Virtual Valley will gather numerous interviews with representatives or organizations involved in environmental communication for present and future projects and activities, and above all to gather thoughts on environment-related communication. Among the participants are: Body Basin Padova 2, E-Ambiente, Labelab and Ravenna 2010, the University of Rome experts, the University of Bocconi, the university of Milan and AICA. To Follow the interviews see the links below.

Finally, another moment to point out that involves, among others, the director of AICA, who will be at the press conference to launch the second edition of the European Week for Waste Reduction, at the same time as the representatives of the organizing committee, and the sponsoring bodies and the main sponsor CONAI. It will be the first opportunity to try to pull the strings on the number of signatures collected in Italy. It should be pointed out that Friday the 5th of November is the deadline for submission of registration forms at segreteria@assaica.org.
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The separate collection and the environment in a cellphone: head-to-head between Apple and Nokia

by Paolo Ghiga

The world of recycling is getting more full of news and encouragement for us collectors who are called to a great responsibility and a threshold of concern relating to differentiate in terms of construction.
A Further aid for holders of iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, arrives on AppStore.
The designers of Artbits SNC by Fabio Trezzi, young softwarehouse web oriented (Magenta - Milan), released an update to a utility, named "Differenziata", able to program on a daily basis the divestiture of over 200 products. Among the duties of this application, reached version 1.2, dimensions contained enough, 0.3 Mb, the ability to search among the waste to be divested.
Moreover, in order to facilitate navigation, has changed graphics, in particular, while the calendar icons allows the planning weekly collection is constantly adapting to the area of residence of the user. The impression is that this is a valid instrument although the guest comments are still a few to release a larger judgment.

If holders of iPhone, iPod touch and iPad spirit ecologist have one more reason to be proud of their smartphones, even users of Nokia, from 22 April, the Earth Day, can be deemed to be met: the Nokia has made 8 "green" applications for its next-generation mobiles, downloadable from Ovi store directly. It goes from Green Charging save energy, to optimize and save the energy of the phone and at the same time help to reduce global warming, the WWF EcoGuru, free tool, able to calculate the personal carbon footprint. Interesting seems to be the Climate Mission, other free application, in a way similar to the Apple and that educates to the environment in a funny way. Some games in it, in fact, put to the test the user on how to reorder the Junk to be sure to correctly, planting trees in the savana, helping farmers in India to maintain productive fields and keep clean the air with the help of ants, alphabetization in store carbon.

We like the idea of the application designed for mobile phone tool imperative of our days, definitely a fun way to raise awareness about environmental issues through a hi-tech within reach of many. More...

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Environmental communication converted to pixels

by Eleonora Anello

Web 2.0 environmental communication is growing. Sites and blogs of associations, institutions and companies dealing with environmental issues are arising and proliferating. After entering the mobile phone, it's news of these days that, LaStampa.it has been enhanced with a new channel dedicated to ecology and, in particular, renewable energy, climate and sustainability. In addition to news, several sections complete the homepage of La Stampa Ambiente: like one devoted to insights, curated by experts, and that of participatory journalism left to the bloggers. “Voci globali. Il meglio della blogosfera internazionale” (Global voices. The best of the international blogosphere), produced in partnership with Global Voices Online, gives visibility to known and unknown.

Through these choices, the Turin newspaper demonstrates once again that it understands the importance of new communication channels. As already done the online edition of The New York Times, also LaStampa.it, tip on the testimony of citizen journalists that providing new viewpoints and information. Recognizing the importance of bloggers, offering the same level of professional journalists, the e-journals submit their readers a new journalism that comes from below, characterized by the centrality of direct experience, though, the real strength of this new journalism is not so much to cover new ground but to consolidate all that is ignored by the mainstream press. This means that the analysis should always be sought elsewhere, in the signatures of professionals. So, there are special occasions, as in the case of disasters, in which the citizen journalism show its full effect. As we saw with the bombs on the London Underground, the tsunami and the hurricane Katrina, recorded live events, posted online, also have been republished by the big media who had failed to cover the news. The best Internet journalism is so when events happen unexpectedly or in remote and dangerous places.

The Stampa Ambiente also leverages the iconic power of the images through the strong presence of photographs, inserted into the left side of the screen, area which, according to the semiotic science, it is as obvious to the visitor.

Thanks to the spread of the Internet, the literacy of people in new technologies and the new interest allocated to the environment, also Italian online newspapers are aligned to the decision made long ago by the international journalism, allowing the player to interact with the news through freedom of expression that only the new media and the households technologies can afford.

The first newspaper to create a web section dedicated just to the environment was The Guardian. Cozy web 2.0 space, main source of information for environmental professionals, was launched in 2008 to meet the growing desire to take action on the environment expressed by readers. The site has reached a wider success, especially because it helps people making informed choices instead of telling them how to live.

Even in France there are excellent cases, L'Express.fr and Le Figaro.fr, for example, in recent years have taken journalists swept up in the network of community leaders to build a personalized relationship with the reader, establish mutual confidence and, ultimately, loyalty among the community of web users. More...

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2012 Odyssey in the sky

by Eleonora Anello

It has achieved a big fame without ever being produced. A new form of collective expression that feeds itself and is capable of producing clean energy, in turn, strictly zero emissions, could make overfly in the sky of London during the forthcoming Olympic Games in 2012.

So far Fantozzi had succeeded in this aim. Famous final scene of Italian movie "Fantozzi contro tutti" (1980) in which the accountant, in a moment of rebellion, with the power of thought, expressed a very bad opinion on “Megadirettore” (the Director), which is stamped into the sky. Will be the case in the City? The design of the spectacular and futuristic observation platform will communicate with and with the help of visitors. A burst of data and digital images will be visible in London simply looking up to heaven in The CLOUD, project conceived by an international team of professionals, led by Carlo Ratti, a pioneer of new technological frontiers of architecture, engineer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and director of the laboratory SENSEable Cities.

«The CLOUD was born as a powerful symbol of the next Olympic Games 2012 -says Carlo Ratti- and as a new landmark for the city of London: a permeable and light structure composed of lightweight ETFE spheres illuminated by thousands of LEDs controlled as pixels to create a three-dimensional display in the skies of London fed by real-time information from around the world».

Composed of a series of transparent towers high 120 meters, «The CLOUD will be able to collect and reprocess data and environmental information in order to redistribute them in an universally accessible way, functioning as a great communication device at an urban scale. Google will provide further aggregated anonymous information relating to online searches made by Londoners, which will then be displayed on surface of The CLOUD, like a barometer that shows in real time the mood and the functioning of the city».

A true crowdsourcing experiment, to be carried out the project requires a collective effort at the time, especially economically. The site Raisethecloud.org is coordinated for the purpose by the experts of the presidential campaign of Obama, while the Facebook page, already has nearly 1400 members.

Ratti is determined to transform the CLOUD «in a symbol of "global"ownership: built through a system of distributed fundraising, The CLOUD will be the first symbol of bottom-up architecture, built by the people and for everyone to participate actively in the Olympics».

It is not the first time that the sport is given to the ecology. We had already given the news about the 2009 World Baseball Cup, a true green event, and the separate waste collection launched by Conai inside Italian stadiums. This time the task of bringing the sport to environmental issues is entrusted to The CLOUD, a spectacular new and sustainable communication space. More...

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Public communication and sustainability

by Alessio Sciurpa

The Italian Public Communicators community meets at Com.Lab, scheduled in Bologna on 14 and 15 October, to discuss, share and improve processes, technology and professionalism .

This “COM.Lab, Communication and Technology Innovation" second edition, is promoted by the Italian Association of Public and Institutional Communication in partnership with Bologna Fiere.

The event will also be an opportunity to reflect on issues of sustainability: On October 15 it will be held the round table "COMMUNICATING ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY: BETWEEN GLOBAL SCENARIOS AND LOCAL POLICIES". Among the topics under discussion, the environmental information, the actual distance between the environmental community and citizens, participation and information by combining up to the policies of local marketing, how to collect the needs of the area to make them true heritage project, and the role that the professional public communicator function and his work, playing in these areas.

Will discuss it together Bompani Mauro, Manager of Communications Area ARPA Emilia-Romagna, Roberto Cavallo, President of International Association for Environmental Communication (AICA), Stefano Cazora, press office of the State Forestry Corps, Marina Galluzzo, City of Udine Communications Manager, Giampiero Mucciaccio, Director Antartide Center. Will coordinate the round table Paolo Tamburini, Italian Public Communications Adviser and Manager for the Emilia-Romagna region of communication, education services for sustainability . Latter region, which includes an excellent environmental portal, Ermes Ambiente, and an interesting "intranet 2.0".
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Eye on Earth: the quality of waters just a click

by Eleonora Anello

What's better, in summer time, to have water quality data of more than 22,000 bathing areas in European seas, rivers and lakes just on click away?
Eye on Earth interactive portal of the European Environment Agency achieved through the partnership with Microsoft is a genuine two-way communication platform that brings together scientific information, thanks to a collection of historical data ranging since 1990 to today, with comments and observations of users through the use of simple icons.

The most interesting project in terms of environmental communication is able to "measure", through a simple graphical interface, as different subjective perception that users have, respect to scientific, and therefore reliable, represented by icons instead used by administrators of the portal.

Eye on Earth is also a social use of technology: not only protects the environment, but fosters communication between citizens and between them and institutions that are open to discussion and participation. Example of dynamic communication with contributions coming from both sides.

Over the next 5 years the portal will be gradually expanded to include information on many other issues (ground level ozone and other forms of air pollution, oil spills, biodiversity, coastal erosion), with the goal of becoming a global observatory for environmental change.

Giving a look at the maps we can see now some discrepancies between scientific data and evaluations of users. The perception of reality differs so much from the purely scientific data? More...

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Rave Tree for T-Mobile

by Alessio Sciurpa

What happens when a mobile telephony leader company as T-Mobile decides to devote itsself to environmental communication?
Borns products, such as the four Flash Mob that you can find on the site MobilizeWithT-Mobile, which stands out clearly the intention of: "Let's make a difference. Together ".
Three principles key which focuses on the green strategy of T-Mobile:

1. Reduce waste (paper), create a green account;
2. Reuse, buying the Moto W233 mobile Renew (which had already been discussed in our previous post), the first mobile composed by recycled materials.
3. Recycle, for each old phone recycled the "T-Mobile Handset Recycling Program" plant a new tree.

To open the series, the first Flash Mob "A green deed, it deserves another", which is rather the leit motiv of the series. Till the last one: during a normal summer day at the park, everything suddenly comes alive and is transformed into a veritable “Tree Rave”.

The videos are not of particular significance if it were not exploiting the popularity generated by the two previous amazing Flash Mobs for T-Mobile: the Liverpool Street Station of Londra and the Sing-along of Trafalguar Square.

Surely an excellent demonstration of how in a purely commercial’s communication strategy, we can successfully integrate a campaign more focused on the social and green issues.

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Social guerrilla, viral warning and super hero

by Alessio Sciurpa

Climate terrorists and common super hero, we have selected, two of the videos produced by Oxfam GB to YouTube & Cannes Young Lions Contest 2009. Both represent good examples, among many, of how to convey the theme of climate change through conventional and unconventional actions.

Oxfam International is a confederation of 13 like-minded organizations working together and with partners and allies around the world to bring about lasting change, in an attempt to combat poverty, injustice and protect the environment. More...

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A mobile phone game teaches to recycle

by Francesco Rasero

A mobile phone game as a tool for boosting the separate waste collection, involving a young target, able to interact with innovative technologies.
This new tool has been added to the “Starve your bin” campaign, promoted by Recycle for London, in the middle of February «downloads were more than 900 since launch, in just one week», states Jonathan Edwards, press officer of the Mayor of London, which supported the initiative in order to increase the separate waste collection in the British Capital (now stuck at about 20%).
«This campaign is using innovative technologies to encourage Londoners to think before they throw away their rubbish and to feed their recycling habit instead –affirm the promoters- Meeting the digital generation, we put the recycling message directly into people’s hands with a mobile phone game. This is the first time that such technology has been used for a public sector campaign».
The software challenges the user to starve its hungry ‘evil bin’ by catching all recyclable materials in a green recycling box before the bin can eat them. Players score points for every item caught, but if the evil bin eats three items which should be recycled it’s “game over”.
This mobile phone game works on the majority of the most popular internet ready mobile phones in circulation, except BlackBerries.
Londoners can download the game by texting “BIN” to 62967 or directly from the campaign’s website; iPhone users can download it from the Apple Store on iTunes. All users can then forward the game to friends and also download ringtones and mobile wallpaper.
Boris Johnson, Mayor of London and Chair of the London Waste and Recycling Board said: «I am very excited that the new Recycle for London campaign is using innovative technologies to boost recycling and my message is to starve your bins and recycle, recycle, recycle».
For the first time, the Recycle for London campaign will feature in TV adverts, based on the adventures of “Alistair vs the Evil Bin” and also spread on the Net (starting from You Tube), in addition to more “traditional” media: radio, press and online adverts plus bus and Tube posters.
The advertising campaign was devised by agency WCRS and planned by Mediaedge; Java software for mobile phones has been developed by Incentivated. More...

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Google PowerMeter at the starting tape

by Francesco Rasero

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it”: Google has adopted as its slogan this sentence by Lord Kelvin, referring it to our individual energy usage, to launch its new project PowerMeter, a future tool for iGoogle that will allow to measure in (almost) real time the consumption of each single user.

“Our lack of knowledge about our own energy usage is a huge problem, but also a huge opportunity for us all to save money and fight global warming by reducing our power usage –is the remark launched on the web by the famous search engine- So we’re studying tools to allow everyone to make smarter energy choices: the first one is called Google PowerMeter, which will show consumers their electricity consumption in near real-time in a secure iGoogle Gadget. We think that this tool will offer more useful and actionable feedback than complicated monthly paper bills that provide little detail on consumption or how to save energy”.

The tool can be used in three ways: “Analyze”, to seehow you use energy; “Save”, to reduce your energy bills and carbon footprint by making smart decisions about your energy use; “Share”, to compare friends’ and neighbors’ usage, striking up a little friendly competition.

Google PowerMeter, at the moment still in prototype, is being personally tested by a number of Google employees. A beta release is expected soon. More...

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Motorola launches eco-friendly mobile phone

by Alessio Sciurpa

Motorola has unveiled a new eco-friendly mobile phone, The Moto W233 Renew, which it claims is carbon neutral and made out of recycled materials.

Not only is the plastic housing of Renew made from plastics comprised of recycled water bottles and 100 percent recyclable, but it is also the world’s first carbon neutral phone.Through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation. The phone has earned Carbonfund.org’s CarbonFree® Product Certification after an extensive product life-cycle assessment.

When designing the packaging, Motorola was able to reduce its size by 22 percent and the box and all of the materials inside are printed on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. In addition, a postage-paid recycling envelope in box makes it easy to return your previous mobile phone for recycling at no cost. Although there goes never tire recall that the best waste, including electronic, is that there is not, then the mobile phone market more environmentally friendly on the market, is that you are using, whether it is still working.

Two things to denote:
- first of all, if the example were taken from other producers, the segment of so-called "eco-friendly mobile phone" would open a new slice of the market in communication, as operators and manufacturers of mobile phones among the largest advertisers in the world;

- second, that this first model intended by the manufacturer is quite essential in the technological content, which could attract only a niche of consumers, but if the experiment works, the competition could develop arguments and features on green (low environmental impact, reduced packaging, accessories produced with the same philosophy and green interactive) and not only on the technical characteristics that will surely implemented to embrace a more diverse and extensive public.

The Moto W233 Renew will initially be available to US customers. More...

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GlobCover, a global look on climate change

by Alessio Sciurpa

The European Space Agency has made public “GlobCover”, the satellite map of the earth downloadable online, through a resolution 10 times greater than any other satellite map land available so far.

The map was produced with data collected between the end of 2004 and summer of 2006 from satellite “Envisat" accompanied by a legend developed using the United Nation Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS).

A useful tool for many applications, including modelling climate change impacts, conserving biodiversity and managing natural resources. More...

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Energy-Star@work, new ENERGY STAR Tool

by Alessio Sciurpa

ENERGY STAR, the joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, for helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and good practices, has released a new tool.

The new web-tool, Energy-Star@Work, that follows that of two years ago Energy-Star @ Home, provides interactive suggestions on how to save and to maximize the energy in the office.

On the site of ENERGY STAR helpful tips that encourages them to discuss with colleagues about saving energy. A good communication initiative which uses both an amusing interface, and the word of mouth.

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