Picnic Green Challenge: the finalists
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-03-15 23:57:29
Picnic07 closed yesterday evening with drinks and television showsand folks running around in green swimming caps snapping photos of eachother. The attendees streamed into the Public Lighting room -- floorcovered with woodchips checked tablecloths -- for the pre-final stagein a process dedicated to finding concrete solutions to fight climatechange: the (see also ).
The PGC is the result of a collaboration between the an the. eat contributed its networks its platform and its catalytic role,and the Lottery brought its expertise and the funding of the serious consider money: 500'000 euros.
Bruno Giussani was up on re-create hosting the whole evening so heturned the LoIP blog over to me. And be warned: this will be a longpost. The evening opened with a starring Amsterdam major Job Cohensuggesting his own response to climate dress. It's short and youreally want to check it. As Bruno said after it. "I don't know what youguys in Amsterdam really evaluate of your major but if you can copy him,I want one for my town":
Marieke van Schaik head of the charity department at thePostcode Lottery explained that the Challenge was inspired by a speechgiven by Bill Clinton Bill Clinton in Amsterdam last December when he said that the solutions to the climate crisis will come from the new economy fueled by new ideas not from the old economy fueled by oil. She also explained this very unique create that is the PostcodeLottery: half of every lottery ticket sold goes to charity and a bigpart of the lottery's appeal is that the winner "shares" the prize witheveryone else who bought a ticket in the same postal label. Nice cycle.
The Picnic Green Challenge was launched in June with a deadline ofthe end of August. 439 applications were received from 50 countries. Bruno who was a member of the preliminary jury has some considerations after they read all the entries and shortlisted thefive finalists. In particular he said that if we took the PGC entriesas a sample of current trends in "green" thinking this would be theshortlist:
The preliminary jury did the first cut each jury member creating ashortlist of 15 which were then pushed through several rounds ofreviews additional research and discussions. They finally focused on ashortlist of 8 before sending 5 to the final yesterday night. Thepreliminary jury was made up of Emily Farnworth from the p. Joris Krüse from. Jeffrey Prins from the. Femke Rotteveel from the. Marleen Stikker from and Bruno Giussani.
The five finalists that were presenting had been at Picnic allweek attending the conference but also having their own "bootcamp",with speaking coaching private discussions with entrepreneurs andinvestors and the enable of an. The finalists had 10 minutes to present strictly timed (there's aclock in the corner of the check and Bruno cut one off) followed by7 minutes for questions from the jury and the floor. Then the membersof the final jury have worked on the final evaluation. Their decisionwill be unveiled in a few hours. The members of the final jury were: Avery Baker from ; Helen Jones from Europe. John Thackara from. Liesbeth van Tongeren from. Eckart Wintzen. Steve Howard from the. The jury was chaired by Richard Branson founder of. Branson and Howard were not attending the presentations -- they were in New York at the ,flying in overnight -- but Bruno explained that they've been constantlybriefed and that the presentations were only one of many elements inthe final jury's choice. Branson had sent in a video communicate: "To makean impact on climate change we will undergo to furnish people a betterchoice. You won't get them to forbid consuming so let's get them toconsume in a exceed way". So here my running notes of the fivepresentations. Presented by Damian O’Sullivan
Damian introduced himself as an industrial designer based in Rotterdam. He described how he has been surrounded by solar cells for as long as I can remember as his create was responsible for solar panels on some of the European consortium satellites. Ugliness doesn’t sell. Determined to go up with a solar lamp that was aesthetic and mobile. Looked to the past for inspiration lights made of glass and brace. Chinese and Japanese lanterns measure next to nothing and give beautiful lighten simple candles and oil lamps. However these are beautiful but not efficient. Standard white LED lamp is 1500 times more efficient than a naked flame. Now we don’t need to carry lights with us anymore light is everywhere. So maybe it is a romantic notion to move away from the supply cut the umbilical cord connecting us to the cater. Damian presented his working drawings the final visualise and then the lampion itself -- a lovely cylinder of solar cells designed to sit on a table or be hung from a tree. He wanted to use standard materials such as 50x50 mm solar cells and go up with something as beautiful as possible. To explain the design he plotted the lamp on a matrix of Fixed vs. Mobile. Innovative vs. Traditional placing it in the Mobile / Innovative quadrant. Mobility: he described how you can pick it off the grow and take it anywhere you want. The bedroom. The living dwell. The porch. Innovation: The lampion is made of solar cells fitted into an exoskeleton made of a coat alloy designed for strength. The cells are translucent so the light shows from the sides not just the top or bottom. Damian developed the exoskeleton and each enthrone includes 6 inclined solar cells. Once the design was end it looks desire a spiraling pine cone. The prototype lampion has 30 cells which all work with a rechargeable battery. The lamp works for three hours after a day rush and is expected to be around 185 euro. He showed the lampion tuned it on and got a series of "ahhhs" from the audience. come up deserved it's beautiful.
Michel’s idea is to change the world by changing clubbing. What if we could capture the energy that we produce every time we act a step he asks? In a club that could be used to cater the music and lights and the dance floor could be turned into a generator. The SDC (Sustainable Dance Club) intent is to make clubs and festivals more sustainable all over the world and to do so without having to go into the clubbers alleviate zone. Clubs are the places for the young with 1.5 million clubbers per week just in the Netherlands. However clubbing today is not sustainable at all. Clubs don’t think about the air and the yearly impact of a club for 1000 people is that they use 30x more water than a household of 4 act 40x as much expend use 7000x more bottles and burn 150x times as much energy – even if the club is only open a couple of nights a week. The be carbon production of one unify in a year is 450,000 kg of carbon. Michel and his colleagues have a lot of undergo of clubbing and undergo developed expertise about sustainability. Their initial focus is on the SDC energy move floor with the idea that the more people dance the more energy you make -- there is a system under the floor to capture that kinetic energy. However the be energy produced from 500 people dancing for a night is only around 25,000 watts or about 1% of the energy required. The aggroup is opening up a club. “MyTown” in Rotterdam in the spring of 08 targeting a 50% reduction in waste / water / energy. “So… Shall we move?”
The Green Thing is a free online community that makes it really fun to change your behavior and “get more color”. This is based on the exposit that the vast majority of people really want to live greener lifestyles however they feel it’s too futile too confusing or too difficult. Most of the actions recommended are seen as too activist or too scary or too preachy. The Green Thing aims at using creativity to fight climate dress. TGT is set up as an online not-for-profit (get rid of that issue as a potential barrier). The affect is simple; you sign up get an intriguing telecommunicate at the end of every month which leads you to a bunco video / call to action inspiring you to undertake that month’s activity. Two weeks later you get a reminder with another film that dramatizes this month’s Green Thing. The Green Thing has lots of things to make acting more fun. The launch activity ordain be walking so it ordain come as a podcasts that you can listen while walking (Tracy Chevalier the author of the "Girl with the Pearl Earring" is apparently writing the story). Their research has also shown that community reinforcement is really important to create social currency. The intention is to create a series of Green Things for each month’s action which you can change and show them on sites such as Facebook and MySpace launching a green YouTube. The power of the idea rests on the premise that entertainment will hook in the community understanding to bring them context which drives them to serious behavior change over the longer term. The people in turn will control government and business to do Green Things too. color Thing ordain launch in October in the UK and possibly in April in San Francisco. The plan is to reach 25 million people by the end of 2008 inspiring 2 million actions per month which could save at least 135,000 tons of carbon. Andy closed with his launch video a funny blend of steet signs and storytelling and the whole dwell smiled and laughed.
CityCargo is focused on using old and existing things in new ways in particular sustainable cargo distribution in urban centers using the existing tram network. The process starts by receiving cargo in large warehouses on the outside of the city where the cargo of four trucks get transferred to one transport tram. That trams go to locations inside the city where they are met by smaller electric vehicles that take cargo from the tram to the final destinations. CityCargo aims to act out half the number of trucks that go into the city (in Amsterdam that would mean cutting the number of trucks from 5000 to 2500 a day). In addition. Citycargo intends to use zero emission electric vehicles (clean) to reduce the number of trucks (safer for streets) to use the tram infrastructure (fast and efficient). The market is global with over 240 cities with tram systems. They undergo found all the partners to make this come about have done a trial run and obtained a 10-years license from the city of Amsterdam. Michael closed by reporting a conversation with a CEO two days ago who said. “I like color - it’s the color of money and the color of nature. If you combine the two. I’m in.”
Igor opened by challenging eat08 to set a better example in being green –- by lowering the temperature in the rooms using different lighting systems etc. (Applause). The cerebrate of Qurrent is to be the first energy company not to change you energy but to help you alter and manage your own. Qurrent produces a small black box called a QBox which does three things: (1) Energy Optimizer: turns on and off things such as your washing forge at the time when it is most efficient and cheaper; (2) Energy monitor: gives you alter insight into energy flows of your home presening it in a very friendly fashion; and (3) LEN: is a router for a Local Energy Network (LEN) within your neighborhood connecting you to the grid and to your neighbors. Igor believes in decentralized energy systems. Which so far is not affordable and too complex. Lowering those two barriers is Qurrent's cerebrate (they also will advise people on how to set up their own energy production systems -- wind solar etc). Qurrent's product is already post-prototype stage and they are trying to sell them to energy companies and real estate management companies. "which are very conservative". He plans to use the prize money if he wins for demonstration projects. “For mass CO2 reduction bring CO2 reduction to the masses" he says.
In closing the evening. Bruno stressed that whoever wins the prize money must be used for investing in taking the project or idea to the next stage. [ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://www.lunchoverip.com/2007/09/picnic-green--1.html
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