Team SOAK (Smart Operational Agricultural ToolKit) impressed the judges with its unique software designed to help farmers monitor their water usage.
Team member David Burela, 24, said about six months was spent consulting with engineers and farmers and developing the software.
It gives farmers a virtual image of their farms and the ability to work out how much moisture is in their fields and what their dam storage levels are.
ACT Opposition spokeswoman Vicki Dunne says government must get the public on board as it develops policy from the findings.
“I think that what I’d like to see from the report is perhaps something a little more consumable for the average person than the 500 odd page report that there is now,” she said.
“I think there needs to be a lot more engagement of average voters, average citizens on the subject.”
THE powerful Group of Eight developed nations have taken a cautious step towards a new global climate change deal, agreeing to a goal of at least halving world carbon emissions by 2050.
He went on to say that govies should: “Get out there in the blogs. I’ll see you in the blogosphere,” he stated. He also emphasized that writing doesn’t have to be long articles. Anyone can start by writing a short response in a blog. “Start small and think big.”
The activities of thinking, reading, writing and publishing are all important. I was a very bad writer and generally could not put my thoughts into words. However, blogging changed all that. If you want to learn more, blog.
Take this website. During my MBA I realised that I needed to understand how business can work better in sustainability/environmental area. I took up some courses, read books, read stuff online, used some ideas in my job, however, when I actually started blogging here everything changed.
I understand the subject better. The content needed to be summarised, linked to articles/sources, a structure was needed (like categories), I had to find interesting ideas to blog (more information and reading), comments from readers helped (new perspectives), I made new connections and networking (always useful) and I learnt a lot about the subject matter.
So, if you are thinking about blogging, start now. If you need a bit of help to get started, do contact me!
Adelaide Green Drinks is off to a great start. Even though I started sending out invites just last week we managed to get about 14 people. Out of the 14, there were 3 interesting cases which will determine the way we will grow in the future.
One person came with his friend, another found us through greendrinks.org and the third one was invited by a friend who did not make it to the Green Drinks.
Overall, people were happy with the event and the venue. I stayed back with a couple of friend till 8:30 PM and then headed back home.
The next meeting is on schedule on the 12th (second Tuesday) of August.
I am contacting some other Green Drinks founders in other cities to learn about how they grew the network. I think we will have a bigger event next time.
That is changing with the company’s relatively new corporate environmental site. One big shift in the past six months has been the focus on software as a means of controlling or affecting carbon footprints. The potential for analytics and management technology that helps businesses run scenarios to better plan around emissions, geographic concerns and data center limitations suddenly seems boundless. The other big transition that Microsoft faces, of course, is the Software as a Service (SaaS) movement, which will see its data center footprint mushroom extensively in the coming years.
That corporate Australia would realise the business opportunities provided by aligning core business with the Millennium Development Goals, which seek to eliminate global poverty.
According to reports in The Sydney Morning Herald, the Virgin boss is preparing to launch a new division, Virgin Green Owls, this August dedicated to advising businesses and governments on how to deliver carbon neutral projects.
Today, the State of Utah announced moving to a four hour work week beginning August 1st in order to reduce expenses. Workers will work ten hours for four days, Monday through Thursday, with no cut in salary. Some offices will close on Fridays reducing the cost of utilities and saving the State $3 million per year from their $11 billion budget. This is also being promoted as a green strategy as it’s anticipated the State of Utah will also reduce its consumption of gas as Fridays it’s fleet will be parked.
Garnaut describes a few categories of economic modelling: The first category is ‘conventional market economic effects’, things you can measure and have data for. The scond category is ‘things you can measure and model but for which you have no real data’. Tourism falls into this category and so his core model excludes tourism for now. The third category is ‘things we value but that fall outside conteporary economic models’, things such as the Great Barrier Reef, which, when we lose them forever there’ll be a national sense of mourning. He emphasised that the numbers only tell a story in category one, tell a made up story in category two, and tell no story at all in category three.
Ross Garnaut has released his draft climate change plan for Australia today afternoon. It is a big report to digest and there will be a lot of commentary.
I will try to digest the report over the weekend and also read some commentary. In order to help myself to keep track of this I have created a Diigo List. For those interested, you can follow the links here .
Or you can click on the webslides and go through all the websites and commentary.
John O’Brien provides some performance updates to the recently launched Australian Clean Tech Index.
In the report, there is a good explanation of how clean tech sector is different from the traditional Socially Responsible Investments SRI) or Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance.
SRI and ESG look at incremental improvements in company performance and can be seen as ‘operational hygiene measures that find the best in class. Cleantech focuses on companies whose output positively enhances the communities and ecologies in which they reside. It is about doing more good rather than less bad . With over 70 companies falling under the coverage of the Index and with a combined market capitalisation of over $15Bn, the ACT Australian CleanTech Index presents for the first time a picture of the Australian cleantech industry s growth in a single measure.
Comparative Performance of the Index:
Percentage Change
FY06
FY07
JUN’08
YTD CY08
FY08
ACT Australian Clean Tec Index
93.3%
42.9%
-1.8%
-10.9%
-16%
S&P/ASX 200
17.2%
25.4%
-8.3%
-17.4%
-16.4%
S&P ASX All Ord
19.6%
40.4%
-12%
-20.6%
-23%
For a good explanation, sub-sectors, charts of performance and other information download the performance report provided by Australian Cleantech.
In the eve of the draft climate change report from Ross Garnaut , Reputex, a ratings and research firm released the best low-carbon companies in the ASX 300.
Yesterday, in view of the BCA release of passing on costs due to carbon to consumers, I commented that
“This will surely happen but for businesses which will start implementing carbon reduction programs from now on will have a competitive advantage to hold or reduce their prices. This is an opportunity for forward thinking businesses. Did you start talking to a carbon consultant ?”
Reputex says:
Regardless of the shape and scope of a local scheme, at the end of the day it s a simple equation, companies with lower emissions will be better positioned. These companies will better insulated from any carbon tax, and better positioned to benefit from constraints oncompetitors. Other stocks will simply be playing catch up , he said.
Babcock and Brown Wind is leading in Australia especially since it is “able to generate electricity with 97% less emissions than its sector peers. When this is translated into life under an emissions trading scheme it will represent a considerable competitive advantage.”
