Sustainability Now! 2008
The 2nd Sustainability Now-Conference - a success
The 2nd Sustainability Now-Conference was held on Tuesday 7th October in Bergen.
The Speakers' presentations are available from this page - look below!
Emisoft's Sustainability Now-Prize
During the Conference dinner the night before, Emisoft's Sustainability Prize was awarded for the first time. The laureate was Professor Domingo Jiménez Beltrán, who received the prize for his work at the crossroads between environmental and commercial development.
To a large extent, professor Beltrán's professional commitment has been directed towards the fields of Environmental Protection, Natural Resource Management and Sustainable Development. He has worked in private enterprises as well as in public administration at national and international levels.
Among the many positions he has held, we want to focus upon him being the first Executive Director of EU's European Environmental Agency (EEA); - a position he held for eight years.
This strongly underlines his important position in overall European Environmental Development and thereby European Development as such.
Additionally, professor Beltrán's positions - past and present - in his home country Spain, illustrates the significanse of his work; - e.g.
• Adviser to the Spanish Prime Minister
• Founder and Director of the Spanish Observatory of Sustainability.
For his long-lasting and dedicated work in the field of environment and sustainable development, professor Beltrán has already received a number of international Awards. The most recent one being
• Spanish official "National Prize on Environment" 2008
Professor Beltrán is today a towering personality internationally within the environmental and sustainability development sector.
He truly deserves the first ever Emisoft Sustainability Now! Prize.
The Conference
The Conference started off with the prize winner's presentation. Professor Beltran gave a very vivid and - not the least - up-to-date presentation linking the present financial crisis to environment and sustainability. This was most relevant since the theme of the Conference was "Environment vs economy".
Then followed various presentations showing that addressing environmental issues and making sure that sustainability is taken care of, does not necessarily mean increased expenses. In fact, it can lead to increased earnings. Stein Hansen drew the general background and Tore Killingland gave examples on how environmental requirements could be turned into business opportunities and hence increased earnings. Jeanett Bergan showed how KLP integrated sustainability into their investments and gave examples were Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) had been enhanced.
Marta Szigeti Bonifert, Regional Environmental Center, and Odd-Arne Follum, StatoilHydro, presented their challenges and solutions in the Balkans and on the Norwegian Shelf respectively.
Daniel Skjeldam detailed what Norwegian does in order to take care of the environment and Jonny Andersson described how Borealis utilizes Emisoft's Environmental Management and Information System TEAMS in their quest for better environmental solutions.
A most interesting presentation was given by Kirsti Methi, Tromsø 2018, which described how the Olympic Games in Tromsø could be sustainable and how the environment would have been taken care of. Too bad that Tromsø will not be given the opportunity to apply for the Games.
All the presentations were interlinked in a professionally very sound way by professor Annik Magerholm Fet, NTNU, who were the conference's moderator.
In all, a most successful conference which makes us all look forward to the 3rd Sustainability Now-Conference in 2009.
The Speakers' presentations:
