Tag sostenibilità

Heritage as sustainability

MR Energy Systems, as a member of GBC Italia, is particularly glad to announce this event which will take place in Venice this coming Friday 22nd of June 2012. The important international event with the participation of international institutions as UNESCO and World GBC, and an exceptional speaker as Rick Fedrizzi, president of U.S. GBC and  chair of World GBC.

The event intends to present the ambitious development of a protocol for the sustainability of Historic Building, where Italy (GBC Italia) will play a leadership role in the international context. The protocol has the aim of merging two very important concepts: the LEED® sustainability criteria on one side, and the enormous Italian knowledge of restoration and conservation of historic heritage. An innovative standard, with the aim of facilitating the culture of sustainability in the built environment, and the conservation and protection of values and culture. A tool which will make the dialogue between operators and public authorities easier and more measurable.

The registration to the event is free of charge until the end of available places.

Click here to register to the event


UNECE – Green Economy Seminar

GBC Italia took part to the meeting organized by UNECE on the 4th of April 2012;  The delegation of GBC Italia was composed by Mauro Roglieri and Francesco Bedeschi, both members of the Executive Board of GBC Italia.

The participation to this prestigious meeting matches very well with GBC Italia’s mission of diffusing the knowledge of Green Building Rating Systems in the relevant National and International authorities, to support the promotion and diffusion of usage of protocols as a tool to drive building market transformation towards sustainability.

The objective of this seminar was to discuss cost-efficient and “green” solutions, which can make the housing sector more sustainable. These include improvements to energy efficiency, environmental performance (water and waste management), and resilience to climate change. Greening homes is a part of the green economy concept, which is in turn at the heart of renewed efforts to integrate environmental and social considerations within the mainstream of economic decision-making in the run-up to Rio+20 and beyond.

The seminar has being organized back to back with a meeting of the UNECE Working Group to discuss a possible framework convention on sustainable housing. More than 70 UNECE member state representatives attended the working group meeting. More than 30 participated to the seminar, which facilitated the identification of priorities for the preparation of the September 2013 Ministerial Conference on Housing and Land Management.

GBC Italia presented the ‘bottom-up’ role that Green Rating Systems such as GBC Home or LEED® can have as an accelerator of change.

Access to the UNECE event page: UNECE – Greening Homes

Download presentation: GBC Italia: how rating systems can drive the change

[Sources: UNECE, GBC Italia, MR Energy]


Kyoto Rotation Fund

The Kyoto Rotation Fund will be finally active since the 15th of March, Ministry of Environment Corrado Clini commented during a conference in Rome. The Kyoto Rotation Fund has been awaited longly by operators. SMEs, PAs or individuals will now benefit from a 0,5% interest rate financial tool to realize their energy efficiency projects (including building sector), distributed generation (tri-generation in particular), or small renewable energy production plants. The initial size of the fund will be € 600 mil, while extra € 400 mil could be added after the auction of the 2013-2020 emissions trading allowances will be finalized (and debts with ETS new entrants since 2009 will have been paid off). Source: www.minambiente.it


Sustainability as a strategic asset

Why?

Emissions Trading

‘Zero impact’ does not exist. Human activities have always had an impact on the environment, since they involve the consumption of resources and energy. Over the centuries, industrial and technological development have dramatically improved our living standard and guaranteed us health, well being, protection from extreme events, food supply and boundless mobility. At which price. Our impact on the environment and climate has increased more and more, reaching today a level which is not sustainable anymore for our planet.

Policy Development

Governments around the world agree that there is an urgent need of a change in this trend. Many policies have been developed at national, European or international level aiming at the broad adoption of best practices which make our activities more sustainable.
Change is not easy though, because it requires us  to change our habits as producers and as consumers too. But we need to act, and we need to do it quickly.

[Continue reading about our Vision..]


Why a Green Economy?

Does a economic development model exists where the three parameters society, health and environment have the same weight? Since a few years, energy and climate sustainability have become an integral part of global discussion about the future of our planet. Energy supply has always been a key element for every country’s government, as well as for any single person. But today people do have a different and higher understanding of the convenience of a sustainable development. The recent environmental disasters in the Mexican Gulf and in Fukushima had an impact on the development of global policies.

It’s from those basis that the green economy has started, an economy aware of environmental impact, which reduces wastes, rather than generating them, and reduces the consumption of non renewable resources, giving the right price to externalities. A low carbon economy, based on renewable energy, caring of social needs.

MR Energy is the consultant which can guide you through your sustainable development path, from strategy until execution of technological solutions. find out how in the  dedicated pages.

Enjoy your Green Economy!


Guidelines on Carbon Management for Italian Universities

Published in September 2011, the Guidelines on Carbon Management for Italian Universities are one of the main results of a project funded by the Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea, as part of the Carbon Management Policy for the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

The project idea is that higher education institutions can take a leader position in turning sustainability into action by stimulating sustainable processes, practices and behaviors to be applied both in their field and to the whole community.

An effective policy on carbon management within a college allows to reduce the emissions of a large real estate assets, to contract the energy consumption and costs, and thus to improve the economic balance of the universities, with the opportunity to invest differently any saving.
It also has a significant educational relapse on students, who can endorse the concepts related to energy and environmental sustainability at first by experiencing them directly during their university years, and then offering them in the professional roles they will play in companies or public bodies.

Through its previous experience in Thetis SpA, Mauro Roglieri, among the main authors of the paper, has contributed to the project ideation working in team with engineers of the Ministry for the Environment and Project Managers of the Ca’ Foscari University.