Sunshine Coast Clean Tech Version of Silicon Valley

Strolling around the post-modern buildings at Sippy Downs and you could be in any world-class university or technology park – until you stumble across the wild kangaroos lazing around the campus grounds. Welcome to Australia’s no-worries-answer to Silicon Valley. So went the story on CNBC Europe. Now the Innovation Centre, along with the University of the Sunshine Coast and a healthy bunch of clean tech businesses, is putting on Australia’s first Clean Futures conference (21/22 October).

JULY 2010

Culture, Investment, Real Estate, Travel & Leisure

Hotspot: Sippy Downs, Queensland

Strolling around the postmodern buildings at Sippy Downs and you could be in any world-class university or technology park – until you stumble across the wild kangaroos lazing around the campus grounds. Welcome to Australia’s no-worries-answer to Silicon Valley

Located on the fringes of the Mooloolah River National Park, the 100ha site that is home to the University of the Sunshine Coast is about to become Australia’s first dedicated university town. Under an approved master plan, Sippy Downs will see its population double over the next decade as 2,500 dwellings get built around a self-contained business and technology precinct that will employ 6,000 knowledge workers in the information and green technology sectors.

Around 90km north of Brisbane, the country’s third largest city with two million people, Sippy Downs is a short hop down the Bruce Highway (seriously) to Australia Zoo, the wildlife park that was run by crocodile hunter Steve Irwin until his death in 2006. Further north are the idylls of Noosa Heads, Fraser Island and the pristine coastline near the southern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef. But Queensland wants to be known for more than just sun, surf, sand and dangerous creatures. In a bid to diversify the economy beyond seasonal tourism and property speculation, the state has earmarked this balmy hinterland as a hothouse for innovators and entrepreneurs.

The fact that southern Queensland is such a desirable location has its advantages. Th e region has attracted a surging community of highly-skilled professionals and managerial executives who either vacation here or else have decided to flee the urban stresses of Melbourne, Sydney and countless other cities abroad. All that was missing to perfect their new-found work/life balance was a business-support infrastructure attuned to the needs of home-brewed start-ups.

Which is where the already thriving Innovation Centre enters the equation. Founded in 2002 as a subsidiary of the University, the Centre comprises both a Business Incubator, to help nurture new ideas from their most embryonic stages, and also a Business Accelerator, for those that show the greatest commercialising potential or are in need of expansion. Th e support extends well beyond just office space, shared facilities and a communal pool table; fledgling companies get mentoring advice, professional and legal services and introductions to potential customers, partners and investors.

Under the stewardship of its founding CEO, Colin Graham, the Centre has played midwife to numerous businesses spanning such sectors as software development, electronics and nutraceuticals. Just recently, Big Ant studios, one of Australia’s largest game developers, announced plans to initiate a 30-person development team at the Centre’s Business Accelerator offices; taking advantage of the gaming community flourishing in nearby areas such as Fortitude Valley, Big Ant wants to hire 84 more gamemakers in the next four years alone.

Born in Northern Ireland before making his reputation in Scotland as the guiding force behind the Business Incubator for the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and the author of EPeople: Engaging Talent in the Entrepreneurial Age, Graham typifies the dynamism of many of the expats here.

“Australia has always been a very entrepreneurial country,” says Graham, “initially by necessity, since you needed to be innovative and make use of whatever resources you had to get by and survive. These days, the Australian economy is dominated by the resources industry but there is also a new stream of entrepreneurs – often recently arrived immigrants who have chosen to live in Australia for its quality of life, and have brought their talents and international business networks with them.”

The net result has the makings of a new enterprise hub that is increasingly wired into the global economy. “When I came over from the UK to start the Centre, I thought we had all the ingredients for success but wasn’t totally sure everyone else would recognise this,” reflects Graham. “We are now one of the largest innovation centre’s in Australia – not bad for an area that was a paddock in the mid-90s. We have helped to start over 60 businesses and helped thousands of people connect with each other through high-level business networking events. I think the greatest success is showing that a regional area can compete for talent and ultimately show a new way of working that is more balanced, innovative and effective than what many people experience working in a big city.”

Source: www.cnbcmagazine.com

The Clean Futures conference, to be held on 21 – 22 Oct, is a practical event primarily aimed at entrepreneurs and business managers in the Cleantech sector – including areas such as as building materials and design, wind, solar, water, waste and energy management. It will also be of interest to business advisors, investors, government, educators and students.

The conference includes three main elements and people can attend one or all of these elements:

•           Practical one day workshop delivered by practitioners and industry experts, Fri 22 Oct

•           One day study tour visiting 3 cleantech business, Thurs 21 Oct

•           Green drinks – an evening business networking forum, includes business expo , features John Knaggs, CEO of Sunshine Coast Council and Bruce Napier, head of Cleantech Industry group, Thurs 21 Oct

Businesses will benefit by practical insights and ‘lessons learnt’ by some of Queensland’s leading environmental industry entrepreneurs – people like Bob and Christine Cameron of Rockcote and Gayne Emblin of Ritek, a building materials business with over 150 staff.

Source: www.innovation-centre.com.au

Big Brisbane Boost for Clean Energy & Zero Emission Future

Nothing if not controversial, GCI Research Fellow Guy Pearse takes us behind the ‘Climatesmart’ branding and asks how much longer Queensland expects to tackle climate change by increasing spin rather than cutting emissions. That’s on 28 October, while the night before on 27 October, Brisbane get’s it first-hand look at Beyond Zero Emissions plan for a “Renewable” Australia by 2020. Then the EV & Smart Grid Conference is on 21 October. Phew!

The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, a research collaboration between the climate solutions think tank Beyond Zero Emissions and The University of Melbourne’s Energy Research Institute shows how Australia can move to 100% renewable energy by 2020, using technology that is already commercially available and home-grown resources and labour.

The plan is particularly significant to the ‘sunshine state’ given its natural solar advantage (solar thermal with storage and wind are the two primary technologies).

The Zero Carbon Australia Project has already received widespread endorsements from voices as diverse as Malcolm Turnbull, Bob Brown, Tim Flannery and Robin Batterham (former Chief Scientist of Australia). It has also received a great deal of media coverage. 

To see the report or a list of endorsements/media to date, go to: http://beyondzeroemissions.org/zero-carbon-australia-2020 

The event is FREE but you must register. Go to this link to secure your ticket: http://zcabrisbanelaunch.eventbrite.com

Guy Pearse

Is ‘Queensland – The Smart State’ ?

Queensland’s Continuing Addiction to Carbon

When:

Thursday 28th October

5:30pm – 6:30pm

Where:

UQ Centre

Union Road

ST LUCIA QLD 4072

CLICK HERE TO RSVP

In his GCI Insight Seminar Series presentation, GCI Research Fellow Guy Pearse takes us behind the ‘Climatesmart’ branding and asks how much longer Queensland expects to tackle climate change by increasing spin rather than cutting emissions.

Last year the Queensland government released a glossy 424 page strategy called ‘ClimateQ: Towards a Greener Queensland’. There were lots of new ‘Climatesmart’ initiatives, but no timetable for cutting the state’s greenhouse gas emissions from their current level—the highest in the country. Instead, the government acknowledged that current policy would leave Queensland’s emissions 36% higher in 2050.

Though the emissions generated by the state’s coal exports are Queensland’s biggest single contribution to climate change by far, they were not mentioned in the strategy once. Meanwhile, the government is spending billions of dollars on infrastructure to help Queensland double coal exports over the next decade or so. The legacy of that is a state generating more than 50% more greenhouse pollution at home and abroad than Australia’s current national total. Seemingly en-route to becoming the ‘greenhouse ghetto of the South Pacific’, Queensland looks determined to fuel climate change as much as it feels it.

This event is free and open to the public

Light refreshments will be provided after the event.

Source: http://www.gci.uq.edu.au

It’s taking place again at the Novotel Brisbane on 21 October 2010. With 2 parallel conference streams: EVs and Smart Grid!

EV Conference 2010 is even more exciting!

After the success of EV Conference 2009, this year’s conference is expanding further to explore the short and long term impacts of EVs to all stakeholders and, in a parallel conference stream, will also focus on what Smart Grid really means to us.

Both subjects are closely linked and part of the overall energy puzzle that must be progressively solved by Utilities, councils, governments, developers, suppliers, consumers and many more to deliver a more sustainable society by improving its energy efficiency and reducing its dependency on fossil fuels.

With EV and Smart Grid experts from Australia and overseas, this is a unique opportunity to network and learn about these two fast-growing industries.

In addition, to maximise your day with us, our conference is also displaying exhibition booths within our break areas. 

http://www.evconference.com.au/

How to Get Money for Environmental Projects

There is more than $5 billion in federal and state government grants and subsidies available over the next five years for environmental improvement programs in Australia, according to sustainability strategists Equilibrium OMG, who have produced the second edition of a comprehensive guide on the grants and general assistance available to business and how to access them.

4 October 2010

MEDIA RELEASE

$5 BILLION IN GOVERNMENT GRANTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT

There is more than $5 billion in federal and state government grants and subsidies

available over the next five years for environmental improvement programs.

Sustainability strategists Equilibrium OMG have produced the second edition of a

comprehensive guide on the grants and general assistance available to business and how

to access them.

Since the first edition in 2009, there has been a noticeable reduction in state government

funding overall but a significant increase in federal funds for water, climate change and

environmental education.

Equilibrium OMG Managing Director Nicholas Harford said the Guide is intended to help

bring businesses and government together to maximise environmental improvement.

“Knowing what these grants are, who is eligible and how to apply for them often requires

considerable time and resources that many businesses simply do not have,” he said.

“The Guide makes it easy to search for what grants are available and check eligibility

criteria.”

The Good Guide to Government Grants 2010 Edition provides information on $5.1 billion of

grants and a range of general assistance in the one convenient reference source, giving

details about funding programs, amounts and eligibility and linking electronically to the

source website for further information.

“Government grants are there to help business update technology and systems to achieve

environmental improvement, which can also deliver improved productivity,” he said.

“Governments have also recognised the there is a skills and knowledge gap with

organisations and people and there is increased funding for education that changes

attitudes and behaviour for greater sustainable development.”

“In short, the Guide is designed to help business make the most of government funding

and become more sustainable.”

Further information

Nick Harford +61 3 9671 3666 / 0419 993 234 / nick@eqlomg.com / www.eqlomg.com

Algae Bio Fuel for Ford Cars & Nissan Turns Over a New Green Leaf

There’s been a lot of buzz about algae as an alternative biofuel. Several business and university researchers are looking at algae’s potential as a viable alternative to fossil fuel. Now researchers at Ford are looking into algae as a fuel source for cars. While Nissan has revealed more details of its new electric concept car at the Paris Motor Show this week, designed to indicate the direction the Japanese car maker will take next with its EV technology as its electric Leaf prepares to go on sale at the end of the year.

October 4, 2010 3:47 PM PDT

Ford researchers looking at algae as a potential biofuel

by Suzanne Ashe 1 comment Share 61diggdigg

There’s been a lot of buzz about algae as an alternative biofuel. Several business and university researchers are looking at algae’s potential as a viable alternative to fossil fuel. And earlier this year, the House of Representatives introduced the Green Jobs Act of 2010, which offers investment tax credits for algae-based biorefineries.

Now researchers at Ford are looking into algae as a fuel source, the company announced.

“Algae have some very desirable characteristics as a potential biofuel feedstock and Ford wants to show its support any efforts that could lead to a viable, commercial-scale application of this technology,” said Sherry Mueller, research scientist at Ford Motor Company. “At this point, algae researchers are still challenged to find economical and sustainable ways for commercial-scale controlled production and culturing of high oil-producing algae.”

Certain species of algae have the ability to convert carbon dioxide to oil, carbohydrates, and other cell components through photosynthesis. Unlike soybeans and corn, algae is incredibly prolific; it can be grown almost anywhere in fresh or saline waters. Algae can also be grown year-round–there’s no harvest season.

Earlier this year Ford researchers visited Wayne State University’s National Biofuels Energy Laboratory, which is looking at suitable algae strains that could be used as a feedstock for biodiesel. Researchers at Ford’s Systems Analytics and Environmental Sciences Department are also looking into other bio-based fuel alternatives such as ethanol and butanol, the company said.

“Ford has a long history of developing vehicles that run on renewable fuels; and the increased use of biofuels is an important element of our sustainability strategy now and moving forward,” Tim Wallington, technical leader with the Ford Systems Analytics and Environmental Sciences Department said in a news release. “We look ahead from a technological, economic, environmental, and social standpoint at potential next-generation renewable fuels that could power our vehicles.”

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/greentech/#ixzz11R4LesLC

4 October

Green Car

Nissan has revealed more details of its new electric concept car after the Paris Motor Show opened yesterday.

It’s the first time the new concept has been seen in public and is designed to indicate the direction the Japanese car maker will take next with its EV technology as its electric Leaf prepares to go on sale at the end of the year.

Nissan says the new Townpod is designed to meet the needs of a new breed of professional who does not work fixed hours, and maybe even work for themselves so the lines between their business and social lives blur.  Likewise, the car is designed to be as equally multifaceted. Comparing the new Townpod to a ‘white tee-shirt’ which although usually worn casually, can be combined with a suit to look smart, this genre-busting vehicle is designed to mix the comfort and style of a passenger car with the businesslike utility of a commercial vehicle.

Just as classic sedans and estates have evolved over time into hatchbacks, MPVs, SUVs and now crossovers, to meet the needs of commuting life and weekend pleasure, Nissan’s new EV is the next evolution, it reckons.

François Bancon, general manager of Nissan’s Exploratory and Advance Planning Department explains: “At its core, a car is a means to transport people or goods from one place to another as simply and easily as possible. Nissan Townpod’s design supports the essence of its function. It is a smart car for people who demand more.”

Designed to look more van-like than the Leaf, the car is shaped to maximise internal space while still retaining aerodynamic efficiency.

Externally the Townpod consist of many familiar elements seen in the Leaf and although no details have been released on performance, it is likely that it will achieve similar credentials to the electric Leaf; which goes on sale in the US by the end of the year and in the UK in early 2011. It employs the same zero-emission technology found in Nissan’s first electric production car, with the charging point found in the nose behind an automatically retracting cover.

As it is just a concept car, Nissan has at the moment announced no plans to bring it to full production, but watch this space…

Source: www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk

Bamboo Shoots High in the Green & Sustainability Stakes

Edible shoots and timber are just two of the most recognised uses of bamboo, a plant of economic, social and cultural significance throughout Asia. However, this fast-growing perennial member of the grass family also has a wide range of environmental applications, including carbon sequestration, wastewater reuse, and soil and water erosion control. Australian scientists and environmental engineers are beginning to take another look at this prolific perennial.

Tuesday, 05 October 2010

By Michele Sabto in Eco Magazine

Barriers towards commercialisation of bamboo is high labour cost.

Edible shoots and timber are just two of the most recognised uses of bamboo, a plant of economic, social and cultural significance throughout Asia. However, this fast-growing perennial member of the grass family also has a wide range of environmental applications, including carbon sequestration, wastewater reuse, and soil and water erosion control. Australian scientists and environmental engineers are beginning to take another look at this prolific perennial.

In South-East Asia, where bamboo is used primarily as a building material for low-cost structures, it is mostly harvested from wild stands. In other parts of the world, the area under plantation has been increasing at a fast rate; India and China dominate, with approximately 9 million and 5 million hectares respectively.1 In China, the growth in bamboo plantations has been partly driven by fast-growing domestic demand for wood: the country’s need for wood is expected to reach 260 million cubic metres in 2020, with an expected domestic production of only 139 million cubic metres.2 But, demand has also arisen for bamboo construction products from outside China.

Professor David Midmore, of Central Queensland University, has been involved in an Australian government-funded aid project that investigated silvicultural management of bamboo for shoots and timber in the Philippines and Australia.

Says Professor Midmore, ‘Bamboo growth rates are significantly faster than most woody species soon after planting and for this reason bamboo can be harvested much earlier than forest species. It can produce harvestable culms within 4–7 years of planting, which can subsequently be harvested annually for timber.’

In Australia, initial interest in bamboo in the 80s and 90s as a commercial crop had resulted in 200 hectares under plantation by 2002. However, Mr Bob Gretton, President of the Bamboo Society of Australia, explains that development of an Australian industry has struggled to compete with competitively priced imports, mostly from China.

‘In the late 1990s Australian bamboo growers planted commercial areas of Dendrocalmus asper, Bambusa oldhamii, Dendrocalamus latiflorus and a couple of other species for shoots,’ he says. ‘However, shoots are being imported at about anything between $2.50 and $4.50 a kilo and it is hard for Australian producers to compete.’

A small number of growers have found niche markets in the supply of fresh shoots to the restaurant market. Hans Erken, who runs a business called Earthcare, is an example. He sends the fresh shoots in the early season straight down to restaurants in Sydney.

Competitively priced imports have also hampered Australian growers interested in supplying bamboo for timber. Other barriers to commercialisation include high labour costs.

‘There are some aspects of bamboo growing that are less like a plantation and more like a horticulture project, so that increases the cost, as against a tree plantation’, says Mr Gretton.

Bamboos require summer water, and (edible) shoot production has a high water demand. This poses problems when water supply is affected by dry conditions. Professor Midmore and Mr Mark Traynor, of the Northern Territory Department of Primary Industries, investigated the ability of bamboo to continue to produce biomass under dry conditions, trialling practices designed to capitalise on this feature.3 They identified management strategies with the potential to allow for both shoot and culm production under seasonally dry conditions, including strategic irrigation and thinning regimes. Factors found to affect shoot and culm yields included the number of culms of different ages in each stand and the age of culms at harvesting.

Professor Midmore and other scientists, such as Dr Jeff Parr of Southern Cross University, point out that in addition to the wide range of human uses, bamboo may also provide a variety of potential ecosystem services, including erosion control. Bamboo has an extensive fibrous root system, and new culms are produced from underground rhizomes. This means that harvesting can occur without significant disturbance to the ground or even the dense leaf litter, which also contributes to protecting the soil from wind and rain events. The thick leaf litter produced by bamboo also collects and conserves moisture. Bamboo has been extensively used in South America, China and India for remediation and protection of degraded landscapes.

Dr Parr has been investigating the potential for soil organic carbon sequestration by bamboo leaf litter in collaboration with researchers from the Fujian Academy of Forestry Sciences in south-east China.

‘All bamboo leaves a prolific amount of leaf litter on the ground, and we’ve been looking at the leaf litter because the rest is often harvested,’ says Dr Parr. He explains that the Chinese are interested in this research.

‘A lot of bamboo in China is economic bamboo that is used for the production of lots of things, from flooring to clothing. They are interested in the sustainable harvest and use of bamboo, and at the same time are interested in what it’s doing in the way of locking up carbon. They’re interested in carbon trading,’ he says.

According to Dr Parr, leaf litter is often overlooked in carbon inventories. This is significant, because he says that it is mainly the phytoliths, or plantstones, produced in the epidermal cells of a plant’s leaf, sheath and stem that are good at occluding carbon. Phytoliths form as microscopic silica grains in the leaves and stems of many plant species (see Ecos Issue 145). They are particularly prolific in grasses such as bamboo species, and become incorporated into the soil matrix during decomposition of leaf matter. In a paper published in Global Change Biology, Parr and his co-researchers state that ‘relative to the other soil organic carbon fractions that decompose over a much shorter time scale, the carbon occluded in phytoliths is highly resistant against decomposition’.4

1  Midmore DJ (2009). Bamboo in the global and Australian contexts. Proceedings of a workshop held in Los Banos, the Philippines, 22–23 November 2006. Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.http://aciar.gov.au/publication/PR129

2  Meyer D (2009). Demand for bamboo grows as wood substitute and food, China Daily, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-11/16/content_8975436.htm

3  Traynor M and Midmore D (2009). Cultivated bamboo in the Northern Territory of Australia. Proceedings of a workshop held in Los Banos, the Philippines, 22–23 November 2006. Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. http://aciar.gov.au/publication/PR129

4  Parr J, Leigh S, Chen B, Yew G and Zheng W (2009). Carbon bio-sequestration within the phytoliths of economic bamboo species. Global Change Biology, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02118.x

A story provided by ECOS Magazine – Australia´s most authoritative magazine on sustainability in the environment, industry and community.  This article is under copyright; permission must be sought from ECOS to reproduce it. Visit ECOS to sign-up for a print subscription

Source: www.sciencealert.com.au

Last Word – Shocking, But Did the Message Get Through?

Sometime you have to shock people to get them to sit up and take notice – a la smoking ads and gruesome road safety scenes. But for the first time when climate change is presented in this fashion, going further than Al Gore’s pedestrian powerpoint approach, people are not only shocked they get the ads taken off the air in the UK. Here’s what Sara Philips wrote about it in her environment section of ABC:

Violent ending to climate change ads

BY SARA PHILLIPS

ABC Environment | 1 OCT 2010

The 10:10 campaign shows a bloody end for students who do not want to reduce their carbon emissions.

Timed to capture the zeitgeist generated by the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen last year, the British government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change released a TV advertisement outlining the dangers of climate change, and encouraging people to take action.

It showed a little girl being read a bedtime story in which the nasty CO2 monster seemed set to take over the world. “Is there a happy ending?” she asked her dad, at which point the public service announcement kicked in with: “it’s up to us”.

The advertisement attracted hundreds of complaints. It was viewed by those that opposed the ad as being “upsetting and scaremongering”.

Heaven only knows what the people making those complaints would make of the latest ad doing the rounds on the Internet.

10:10 originally started as a British campaign but has spread beyond that corner of the world. It is supported by green groups 350 and Do Something in Australia. The latest offering from this organisation is titled “No pressure”. It shows a school teacher encouraging her class to get behind the campaign to reduce their own emissions by 10 per cent. “No pressure,” she says, before noting which kids are not planning to participate. She then presses a little red button on a black box and blows the non-conforming children to smithereens. Nearby children are splattered with gore.

The same theme is then repeated in an office, with a soccer team and with Gillian Anderson in a radio studio.

This ad is clearly supposed to be funny and shocking. Franny Armstrong, 10:10 founder told The Guardian, “Clearly we don’t really think they should be blown up, that’s just a joke for the mini-movie”.

But the reaction has not been universally positive. On Twitter, Tim Hollo (who is media advisor to Christine Milne, but was expressing his own views) tweeted, “I cannot possibly imagine this vid convincing one single person to take part in 10:10 #badcomms #climate #fail”.

Meanwhile, Graham Readfearn, freelance journalist and occasional writer for ABC Environment found it “so funny, I had to watch it twice.”

For better or worse, violence seems to be a recurring theme of climate awareness campaigns.

Earlier this year another British green group, Plane Stupid tried to make people aware of the climate impact of flying. They released an ad in which distant objects appeared to be falling from the sky. On closer inspection they are revealed to be polar bears plummeting towards to Earth, where they land with a bloody thump.

Another ad from the US Environmental Defence Fund showed climate change as a racing locomotive. A man on the tracks manages to step aside in time, but a child is left, demonstrating to us that climate change will have the most impact on our children.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace campaigned to have Nestle stop using palm oil in its products. The Internet ad showed a man enjoying a break from work and a Kit Kat, which was in fact an orang-utan’s finger that spattered his keyboard with blood.

Violence in ads can work: the Greenpeace orang-utan campaign was successful.

Australia’s famously graphic transport accident ads have been exported to the world. According to a 2003 study from the Monash University Accident Research Centre, “An international review of road safety media campaigns found average crash reductions of between 8 per cent and 14 per cent”. Support with vigorous policing also contributed.

The UN also employed violence to emphasise the damage that landmines do everyday around the world.

But there is a difference between car crashes and landmines and climate change. With the first two, a gruesome outcome is possible: the ads warn of conceivable risks.

Climate change is not likely to end in a bloody puddle, however. Although wars over diminishing resources have been predicted by some, the worst-case scenarios usually centre around starvation, drowning and natural disasters.

So far, the ad has gone viral. All over Twitter and the Internet, people are sharing the video. By this standard, the violence used in the 10:10 ad has been successful.

When asked about whether they were concerned about offending people, Armstrong told The Guardian, “Because we have got about four years to stabilise global emissions and we are not anywhere near doing that. All our lives are at threat and if that’s not worth jumping up and down about, I don’t know what is.”

But as the panel from the Gruen Transfer repeatedly remind us, it’s not whether people see the ad, it’s whether people do anything after seeing it. The success of this ad will be determined by its ability to make people feel good about 10:10 and encourage more people to sign up to the campaign.

Judging by most of the comments on Youtube so far, it would not seem it has succeeded.

Source: www.abc.net.au

Believe it or not, I’m in Singapore again, in advance of a complete business move in November. I’ve mentioned before the setting up of Sustain Ability Showcase Asia, which is now operational with our first clients on board. This time, I’m in the heart of South East Asia to attend to business, meet old and new friends. But we will return to Australia – Melbourne to be exact – for next week’s Carbon Expo and still have some more time in Brisbane to be part of a flurry of October climate friendly events. No need to worry about ABC Carbon – book, newsletter and consulting – as it will continue and we will make sure we look after our loyal Australian supporters as well as the growing number from other parts of the world.