The City of Melbourne maintains more than 70,000 trees. To manage them they launched the Melbourne Urban Forest Visual project which is a web-based map that gave every tree in the city an individual ID, as well as noting the species and probable life expectancy. The mapping site invited residents to report dying, damaged or vandalised trees so that they could be repaired or replaced.
Melbourne BioBlitz is the City of Melbourne's first major citizen science program, where experts and members of the community work together to discover, document and learn about the species that call their city home. The most recent Melbourne BioBlitz took place over 24 hours on 4 and 5 March 2016. During the BioBlitz 744 members of the public joined 27 activities which included spotting birds at Royal Park, identifying insects at Westgate Park, and searching for plants in the Fitzroy Gardens.
A Wiener Stadtwerke project is bringing hundreds of eTaxis to Vienna’s streets from March 2016. waff and AMS are assisting with the search for taxi drivers. Wiener Stadtwerke’s eTaxi project has won an Austrian Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (bmvit) tender and is one of the world’s largest e-taxi projects. In two years’ time, a total of 250 eTaxis will be on Vienna’s roads. This represents almost double the electric cars registered in Vienna and around five percent of all Vienna’s taxis.
Almost all metros and trams of Wiener Linien already possess the ability to recover the energy of movement (braking energy) as electric energy when braking the train, and to feed it back to the direct current power system. This energy can be used by a train in the nearest environment for acceleration. If there is no vehicle in the vicinity of the regenerative vehicle, the energy is converted into heat in the brake resistors of the train. The aim of the project is to test in a pilot system how to more efficiently use the accumulated energy from braking a metro train.
The Boutiquehotel Stadthalle is the first city hotel with a zero-energy balance. 80 rooms including 38 rooms in the new building which is designed as a passive house and 42 rooms in the original house, a house built at the turn of the century. With 130 square meters of solar panels, 93 square meters photovoltaic panels and a water-heat pump, the hotel which is designed as a passive house, produces the energy that it needs itself. Unique for a city hotel, the drinking water is vitalised with a Grander water revitalisation device.
By investing in community-funded solar power plants, Viennese citizens have the opportunity to participate in the development of renewable energies. Citizens’ power plants mark the beginning of the dawn of a solar energy future for Vienna, and show the city’s clear commitment to developing solar energy. Setting up your own ecological energy supply system is not always an option, particularly in a big city where 80 per cent of the population lives in rented flats.
PiMi is a participatory indoor air quality data sharing project launched in January 2014. Hundreds of PiMi air boxes, a low-cost indoor air quality monitor, were given out to volunteer users across China. The volunteer users access the PiMi air box for his personal air quality data through smartphones, and then upload the data to the PiMi cloud for further analysis.
The vision for Bright Green Island is to be a 100 % sustainable community by 2025. A community which creates local, sustainable solutions, eco-friendly growth and inspires and welcomes new businesses.They want to turn this fringe area of Denmark into an asset: an island replete with green initiatives, projects and enterprises. They wish to share our knowledge and experiences with other islands and regions around the world, which have set their sights on green, sustainable development. Bornholm is one of the best places in the world for testing new renewable-energy technologies.
T-Systems Hungary is currently developing a technology solution package based on aerial photography used in agriculture as part of its 'Drone as a Service' project. This aims to offer data and information gained from remote sensing as management support for farmers. A pilot project of the program looked at hatching rates of a 100 hectar rapeseed field. The technical concept includes drone-recorded images uploaded to a cloud database, where their pre-processing includes quasi-automatic image corrections, assembly and positioning on a map.
A unique environmental protection program was started at the site of the LEGO factory, during which a 26 hectar area is planted with indigenous species. The initiative aims to protect the unique and endangered flora and fauna of the region. The concept was developed by the researchers of the Hungarian Academy of Science Ecological Research Center's Ecological and Botanical Institute, creating an exceptional opportunity to integrate industrial development with environmental protection.