Esko Aho, Executive Vice President, Corporate Relations and Responsibility Nokia

Information and communication technologies are definitely of central importance when it comes to improving environmental performance and address topics like climate change across the economy. The biggest gains for smarter environmental and economic strategies and applications are in power generation and distribution, buildings and transportation – three areas which contribute to the bulk of greenhouse gases. Further environmental benefits of ITC applications are evident in areas such as virtual meetings, water management, biodiversity protection, and pollution reduction.

Therefore, ICT innovation is a key element to spur green growth. However, most government and business initiatives are still following business-as-usual paths and do not sufficiently tap the sector’s innovation potentials.

Among these innovation potentials are:

• Modern simulation and analysis software to optimize energy efficiency
• Use of sensors and controls in buildings to improve efficiency
• Technologies to enable two way communication between energy users and producers less polluting transport systems
• Virtual meetings, with excellent resolution, to replace physical meetings

Don’t miss your chance to participate when 4 key players in the Green ICT area takes on the above topic at Globe Forum 2010 Stockholm, April 28 at 4.25 pm.

1. Esko Aho, Executive VP , Corporate Relations and Responsibility NOKIA
2. Lorie Wigle, General Manager, Eco-Technology Program Office Intel Corporation
3. Kamal S. Qaudir, Founder and CEO Cellbazaar
4. Hannu Syrjälä, President and CEO Tieto

Information and registration: www.globeforum.com

The second round of the competition was opened by Hans Hassle who won the Innovator’s Contest in Stockholm last year. His project of a revolutionary, multi-storey greenhouse was widely applauded by the public and since last Forum Plantagon the concept has developed significantly. The award helped the company promote the product and just before the Globe Forum in Gdansk first contract was signed.
Second part of the first stage of the contest was opened by Maciej Wieczorek, Mabion, which specialises in development of humanized monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) technology, the newest generation of biotechnological drugs. Company’s strength is based on a new production technology, which allows to achieve far better efficiency and much lower costs than its competitors. Their first products will be used in therapy of breast cancer and lymphoma.
Krzysztof Gajdamowicz, presented a company, Visimind, specialising in 3D maps of road assets and power&energy infrastructure. The company also supplies information, models and monitors cities and buildings. Providers of energy use information on their product, transmission and possible hazzards to minimise their risks, increase quality of their service and increase safety of the installation. Maps for the models are prepared using high-tech equipment mounted on cars and helicopters.

Next contester was Janis Oslejs from MolPort, an on-line supplier of chemicals. The company copied Amazon’s business model in order to supply scientists all over the world with chemicals necessary in various research projects. Database of nearly 200 suppliers gives a perfect access to over 7 million products. The possibility to make purchases on-line smoothens research programmes and allows scientists to work on new projects instead of developing already existing products. It’s not only changing the supply chain for research departments, but most importantly, it gives the opportunity to save lives of many people in need.
The last speaker at today’s stage of the contest was Bartosz Marciniak, representing Promar, a provider of remote energy control for buildings. This system significantly lowers energy consumption. An example of Opera House in Bydgoszcz shows that efficient management of energy balance can bring savings on energy spending up to 50% of the initial value.
After the presentations there was time for the public to analyse the presentations and vote. Winners of the second part of the first stage of the contest were MolPort and Promar.

During the Forum, an onstage innovators contest took place. In the first part of the first round of the contest five exciting innovative companies had the opportunity to present their sustainable innovations. The format of presentations was short, each one had 60 seconds for an “elevator pitch”.
Companies that entered this stage specialise in waste management, building’s energy management, IT and charity donations.
After the presentations there was time for public to analyse the presentations and vote. Winners of the first part of the first stage of the contest are EnergoPlasma (waste management) and Optiguard (reducing energy consumption).

Moderators:
Patrick Dixon, Futurist, Founder & Chairman Global Change
Gustav Gorecki, Business Development Manager at Globe Forum

Companeies:
Daniel Bandachowicz, EnergoPlasma S.A.
Bartosz Pilitowski, Optiguard Sp. z o.o.
Tomasz Woźniak, SiGarden
Ewa Błażejewska, Aton
Patryk Urban, SiePomaga.pl

The session began with Gustav and Patrick explaining the process of selecting companies for the contest. Initially there was a website with on-line applications launched. Participants uploaded information about their projects and from the database of all the companies, ten most interesting and extraordinairly innovative candidatures were selected and invited to Gdansk.
The contest started with presentation of EnergoPlasma conducted by Daniel Bandachowicz. The company uses plasma gasification to convert waste in green energy. In approximately 50 seconds, household’s waste produced in 5 years is converted to clean gas, water and other materials. In the same process, 7kW of energy is produced as well. The technology is able to destroy various hazardous materials, medical and toxic waste and even asbestos. Their goal is to become a major public waste management company.
Bartosz Pilitowski from Optiguard talked everyone through the technology that uses people sensors to reduce use of energy in buildings. Information on how buildings are used, when processed appropriately, contributes to savings of energy up to 50% of the initial consumption. Their success is based on using intelligent technologies (both hardware and software) to manage videly understood energy consumption: heating, air-conditioning, ventilation systems, etc.
Tomasz Woźniak presented Sigarden’s product. The IT company specializes in production of small, energy-efficient and easily adaptable workstations that could replace PCs on our desks. The product’s largest advantage is low energy consumption (10% of a standard PC) whilst the configuration allows to smoothly run office/web based software. Each PC weighs about 400g and is relatively small (comparable to standard WiFi router).
Aton’s idea for innovation was to use microwaves to convert toxic waste into reusable materials. Ewa Błażejewska described this technology (microwaves in big containers installed on lorries “cook” toxic materials until they become nontoxic products) which is incomparable to those used by competitors. This patented technology is approximately 10 times cheaper.
The last one to give a speech was Patryk Urban from SiePomaga. This young entrepreneur is responsible for creating and running a webpage www.SiePomaga.pl which assembles all charity projects in one place and allows for much easier and multiple donations. Company’s main goal is to unite as many charity organizations as possible and promote itself within web users. Everything is in place, the technology is running, the only thing needed is better marketing and more active users.
After the presentations there was time for the public to analyse the presentations and vote. Winners of the first part of the first stage of the contest were EnergoPlasma and Optiguard.

MolPort, a privately held cheminformatics company, is to chemical molecules what Amazon marketplace is to books.

Approximately seven million unique research chemicals are sold worldwide by thousands of companies, many of them small labs. Finding if the molecule can be bought and who the seller is, let alone sourcing, is inefficient, time consuming and expensive. Even if seller is identified it often requires multiple communications between supplier and buyer – unnecessary chore for any PhD and large cost for employer.

Often, the purchase of the desired molecule is foregone due administrative difficulties, and the scientist resorts to creating one from scratch himself, generating waste and pollution and spending his valuable time in what is a routine task, instead of concentrating on new drug development. MolPort removes these obstacles, provides a way to reduce chemical waste, pollution and CO2 emission, gives a fair chance to developing nations and, most importantly, facilitating drug development process, helps save human lives.

MolPort is developing a world-class platform for finding, sorting and grading chemicals, so a molecule could be found and bought just as easily as a book.

For chemists we provide a comprehensive database, unique search engine, world – class research and collaboration tools for free in our website. Then we replicate the business model of Amazon Marketplace, where a database of commercially available goods from multiple suppliers is commercialized via organization of purchases. We also sell upgraded version of molport.com with advanced online research tools and a version for installation at customers’ site. To suppliers we provide a showroom for their products, industry leading chemical structure search for their catalog, order and payment processing solutions.

Our target market includes universities, research institutes, custom synthesis companies, labs and government agencies in Europe, US and worldwide with hundreds of thousands of individuals and multi-billion dollar annual budget for chemical compound purchases. Just launched we have become regular supplier of several European institutions and have the first customers in Asia in this multi-billion euro market.

 MolPort is seeking for equity financing in amount of EUR 1 million that would facilitate further growth and expansion of the business.

http://www.molport.com/buy-chemicals/marketplace

Vironova AB is a privately held Swedish biotech company based in Stockholm, which develops and markets virus analysis products and services, based on its proprietary automated (computerized) image analysis platform. The technology offers faster and more objective virus detection and identification, which is of particular importance for both national and regional Centres of Disease Control in times of emerging new viral pandemics and epidemics. Since time is of the essence to mobilize all possible counter measures for a threatening mass infection, Vironova’s technology offers a unique tool to the responsible authorities and stakeholders.

A rapid identification of the pathogen will save time and reduce health care expenditure, since this will enable the appropriate medication and patient care to be prescribed by the physicians. This, in turn, will save costs for the entire health care system and national economies, since mis-targeted prescriptions (such as antibiotics) and mass hospitalizations can be kept to a minimum or even avoided. Last, but not least, unnecessary human suffering can be avoided. 

Vironova’s primary customers for its virus detection software are the hundreds of CDCs worldwide. In addition, there are military labs and national and regional reference labs as part of the national preparedness systems, which would find the Vironova automated virus detection products of significant value.  A joint development collaboration with Olympus Soft Imaging Systems GmbH has resulted in a first virus diagnostics support product, which was launched in June 2008.

For the 2008 fiscal year (ending 31st of August, 2008) revenues amounted to SEK 3.5 million.
Vironova is seeking SEK 25 million in capital for the continued development; productification and global marketing of its virus detection software to include all viruses listed by i.a. US national authorities posing serious threats to the public.

About the author: Johan Inborr, PhD, VP Sales & Marketing
VIRONOVA AB, www.vironova.com

Ten years ago, sustainability, the management of the social, economic and environmental impact that business has on society, was a marginal issue on the radar of several select companies: Just a few enlightened energy multinationals, materials suppliers and consumer goods producers had sustainability on their “watch list”. Since then, as the carbon agenda has risen above issues such as ethical purchasing or social innovation, “the environment” has gone mainstream and today it is at the heart of many a corporate strategy. However, for many companies, sustainability is still largely seen as a risk issue rather than as an area of opportunity: Whether an internal supply chain risk or an external reputation risk, most organisations have focused more on how to mitigate the challenge than exploit the available potential.

The exceptions, the companies that have successfully embraced sustainability as a catalyst for innovation, are however growing in number: From Toyota’s hybrid Prius or Renault’s 95% recyclable Twingo to GE’s $17bn Ecomagination programme and M-PESA – Vodafone’s money transfer service, leading firms are seeing higher sustainability performance as a source of advantage. This is occurring at both an external product differentiation level as well as driving internal margin improvement: This is a shift from risk to opportunity.
As carbon has become a hygiene factor for many, we now see that the water agenda is accelerating fast as the next major innovation catalyst. It is increasingly obvious that as populations grow, economies develop and consumption increases, our demand for fresh water is outstripping supply. Historically we have used water in production and manufacturing with little thought of the consequences – but next time you have a break remember it has taken 140 litres of water to produce the cup of coffee you are drinking. 
As consumers, companies and regulatory authorities alike wake up to the global water challenge, more and more are now asking for support in defining the most appropriate water strategies for the next decade. As part of our scenarios work for the likes of Shell and P&G, we have been tracking the water issue since 2003 and have been helping companies understand the drivers of change and associated implications.

Now, as the first strategic bets that have been placed become public, it is clear that, as with carbon before, we are witnessing the shift from risk to opportunity: Recognising the supply chain and reputation risks from decreasing fresh water supply, the likes of Coca-Cola, Nestle and Dow have been changing their production processes and seeking to mitigate water risk. At the same time, other companies have taken a proactive stance that seeks to create opportunity: SAB Miller has gone public with its ambitions to reduce embedded water in its beer by 25%; Nike has announced its intention to label products with embedded water and embedded energy; and IBM has just launched a major new business unit focused on smart water metering.

In less than a decade, sustainability as a whole has moved from niche to mainstream and the leading organisations have been quick to see the potential: As more companies recognise the benefits that stand to be gained from seeing it just as much as an opportunity for innovation as an area for mitigating risk, the financial and reputation impacts are becoming evident and attractive. Going forward, expect a wider range of companies to surprise you with the extent of both their sustainability understanding and associated innovation ambitions.

Tim Jones – Founder, Innovaro and Water Strategies
www.innovaro.com
www.waterstrategies.co.uk

“The invitation to be a speaker at Globe Forum is a welcome opportunity to share our perspectives on the leading edge of innovation and sustainability practice and highlight where the two are converging to greatest impact.”

In Asia deforestation is driven by a fast growing demand for timber. In Africa by the gathering of fuel wood and the clearing of new land for farming. In Latin America it’s the growing demand for soybeans and beef that are to blame. Half of all the deforestation occurs in only two countries; Brazil and Indonesia.

On the other hand three countries have implemented partial or complete bans on deforestation; China, Thailand and the Philippines. Floods and landslides have been the causing factors, which made rulers realize that it made more economic sense to keep the forests that logging them. Since then loggers in China are paid to plant trees instead of cutting them down.

It is also known that to stabilize the climate it would be needed to stop deforestation worldwide and instead plant more trees. Today deforestation is the single major source of CO2.

Deforestation is no longer a matter of local, or even national interest, as it has become the major driver of global warming and worldwide rising seas.

The leading Swedish energy firm Vattenfall, has examined the large-scale potential for foresting wasteland to sequester CO2. They believe that of 1.86 billion hectares of degraded lands that exist (land that used to be forestland, cropland or grassland), half could be profitably reclaimed. They say that the maximum technical potential of these 930 million hectares is to absorb roughly 21.6 billion tons of CO2 per year, more than what is currently released every year from deforestation and many other polluting activities together.

This means we have a chance to stop global warming and its effects; all we have to do is plant those trees. And this is what Treehoo.com works for, intending to use some of the huge revenues Internet advertising and e-commerce generates, to plant new trees worldwide. Treehoo.com aims to offer services similar to search engines and web portals like Yahoo.com or Google.com and use part of the profit to forestation, thus becoming the worlds first green search engine (today search engine revenues sum up to more than 30 billion U.S. dollars and e-commerce in the U.S.A. alone sum up to about 140 billion dollars annually).

Treehoo.com was started in 2008 and without making any pr campaigns it has already received visits from more than 100 countries, many visitors return and about 80 % add the page to their favorite bookmarks on their browsers. Today Treehoo.com is looking for partners, investors and media coverage. The idea is to keep on developing the page that today offers web search through Google or Yahoo and some e-commerce, to become a complete web portal offering more services like: webmail, broadcasting, IP telephony (VoIP), chatting, virtual communities and much more, always using part of the revenues generated to reforestate our planet.

Facts for this entry where taken from the article “Planting trees and managing soils to sequester carbon“ at www.earthpolicy.org and from an article by Johan Liakka (in Swedish), Sveriges Television (Sweden’s public broadcasting network) .