TEESNet (Teacher Education for Equity and Sustainability Netwoek) Annual Conference. London, 12 July 2012

Posted on: 24 September 2012
By: mackene
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TEESNet, formally known as the UK Teacher Education Network for education for sustainable development and global citizenship, evolved from collaboration with World Wide Fund for Nature UK, Oxfam and teacher educators. In the UK, environmental and development NGOs have been in the forefront of promoting and supporting Education for sustainable development. The Network has representation from nearly all UK providers of teacher education. The key purpose of this event was to explore what competencies educators need in education for sustainable development. Presentations and papers are available online.

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Better Buildings Partnership iPad Apps

Posted on: 24 September 2012
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The Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) is an exclusive collaboration of London’s leading commercial property owners and allied organisations, supported by the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority. Their aim is to develop solutions to improve the sustainability of London’s existing commercial building stock and achieve substantial CO2 savings in support of the Mayor’s target of 60 per cent by 2025. The BBP is in the process of converting a number of its Toolkits into iPad apps. The following are available to download from the iTunes app store:

The BBP Transactional Agents Toolkit app provides sales and letting agents with concise, clear information on the key sustainability features of commercial buildings. Transactional agents sit at the heart of activity in the property industry as the brokers who match supply of space with potential occupiers across the markets, and this Toolkit plays a fundamental role in helping to push the green agenda forward. It will also help to improve an agent’s service to clients, generating reputational and competitive advantages. Whilst aimed at sales and letting agents, the Toolkit will prove useful for anyone interested in the sustainability of commercial buildings.

The BBP Managing Agents Sustainability Toolkit app sets out a full range of sustainability services which a commercial property owner should consider requiring its Managing Agent to provide and Managing Agents should consider providing for their clients.

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Knowledge brokerage for environmentally sustainable sanitation

Posted on: 24 September 2012
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Knowledge brokerage is the activity and the process to facilitate knowledge and technology to move from one place to another, in order to help individuals and organisations learn, innovate and improve. This report summarises the main findings pertaining to knowledge brokerage in the EU-funded project BESSE (Brokering Environmentally Sustainable Sanitation for Europe). The project examined how to facilitate innovation in the sanitation sector to make it more sustainable’. BESSE also studied different innovations in environmentally sustainable sanitation, which can be seen in the resource file on the BESSE website.

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Social Housing Lettings & Sales in England, 2011/12

Posted on: 24 September 2012
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This Statistical Release presents official statistics on new lettings and sales of existing social housing stock in England for 2011/12. Statistics on new lettings in England are given for both local authorities and private registered social housing providers; and on sales of social housing in England for private registered providers. Information about the tenancy or sale, the tenants or buyers, and the property, are collected each time there is a new letting or sale transaction. Lets of general needs and supported social housing are collected, and, from 2011/12, providers have also been asked to report on affordable lettings. Social housing sales include sales under Right to Buy, Preserved Right to Buy, Right to Acquire, Social HomeBuy, other outright or shared equity sales to tenants, and sales of existing stock to the private sector.

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State of World Cities 2012/2013

Posted on: 24 September 2012
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UN-Habitat has launched the State of World’s Cities Report 2012/2013. Titled The prosperity of cities, the report recommends that those engaged in development work need to explore a more inclusive notion of prosperity and development. What this new edition of State of the World’s Cities shows is that prosperity for all has been compromised by a narrow focus on economic growth. UN-Habitat suggests a fresh approach to prosperity beyond the solely economic emphasis, including other vital dimensions such as quality of life, adequate infrastructures, equity and environmental sustainability. The report proposes a new tool, the City Prosperity Index, together with a conceptual matrix, the Wheel of Prosperity, both of which are meant to assist decision makers to design clear policy interventions. The report advocates for the need of cities to enhance the public realm, expand public goods and consolidate rights to the ‘commons’ for all as a way to expand prosperity. This comes in response to the observed trend of enclosing or restricting these goods and commons in enclaves of prosperity, or depleting them through unsustainable use.

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Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for Local Authority Major Schemes

Posted on: 21 September 2012
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The Department for Transport has published guidelines on the level of monitoring and evaluation it requires Local Authority Major Scheme promoters to carry out for ‘Supported Pool’ and ‘Development Pool’ Local Authority Major Schemes. Monitoring and evaluating the investment in Major Schemes is important to assess whether the programme has delivered value for money and to ensure that lessons are learnt for further investment decisions.

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Analysis of trends in EU road freight transport

Posted on: 21 September 2012
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European road freight transport declined in 2011 in terms of tonne-kilometres (tkm) after a slight recovery in 2010, reflecting the economic climate. However, there was a small rise in tonnage terms. Cabotage bucked the trend by growing strongly in 2011. National, international and cross trade transport declined. Further details can be found in this publication from EUROSTAT.

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Onshore wind: Call for evidence

Posted on: 21 September 2012
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The Department of Energy and Climate Change has published two calls for evidence on onshore wind energy, seeking information on:

The different types of engagement activities being carried out between onshore wind developers and communities and the various community benefit packages offered across the UK and internationally. This will be used to examine how communities can have more of a say over, and receive greater economic and wider social benefits from hosting onshore wind farms.

The latest data on pre-development costs, capital costs, operating costs and financial costs of onshore wind development in the UK . This will be used to identify any changes to the costs faced by developers/investors and operators of onshore wind.

Comments are requested by 15 November 2012.

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Rethinking environmental governance

Posted on: 21 September 2012
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In this talk, given on 13 September 2012, Prof. Hajer reviews 40 years of environmental discourse, noting the long dominance of ecological modernisation as well as the impact of recent attempts at valuing and costing the environment in terms of mobilising new coalitions of actors.

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Harnessing market mechanisms to promote sustainable development: Lessons from China

Posted on: 21 September 2012
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The Climate and Development Knowledge Network issues a series of papers in a series entitled Inside Story on Climate Compatible Development. The latest in the series describes how China took advantage of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), created under the Kyoto Protocol to enable developing countries to sell carbon credits to developed countries, and what lessons it has learned.

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