EU INRA 10

SHIFTINGSHIFTINGSANDSSANDS

www.euinfrastructure.com • Q3 2010

IN FOCUS: Air safety with IATA

Rebuilding the BalkansHow the war-torn Western Balkans have been rebuilt

Waste managementEU Commissioner Janez Potocnik talks waste management strategies

Green capital 2011Why Hamburg has been given the green light

Desertifi cation in Spain is a growing problem, and time is running out to fi nd a solution

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FROM THE EDITOR 5

Humans are creatures of habit. There’s a certain comfort we glean from routine – we wake, shower, dress and go to work fi ve days a week, with two days off in between

in order to relax and recharge before yet more routine. Written down, it sounds faintly hellish; the type of thing you would spend every waking hour striving desperately to avoid, but in reality this structure is something we all crave.

And once we have made our habits, our habits come to make us. Breaking free from our pre-programmed cycle of comfort can prove diffi cult – just look at a smoker’s pleading, darting eyes, restless fi ngers and sudden proclivity for salted snacks as they try to quit a habit that has become second nature to them for proof. Our bad habits are happy to persist until an overriding factor – expense, health, a greater sense of responsibility – wins out.

And so it is with the environment. Slowly but surely Europeans are overriding their bad habits and being educated on a newer, more sustainable way of living. Better care over water resources and waste management are issues that are being adopted at ground level, with every nation in the EU being urged and incentivised to do its bit for the environment. Spaniards of all ages know to turn the tap off while they brush their teeth, for they are acutely aware of the importance of preserving their water resources. Every German can sift swiftly through their rubbish, separating plastic from glass, cardboard from tin and depositing each into their own specially marked receptacle with the minimum of fuss. The Brits are expertly drilled in switching off superfl uous lights and power outlets, while all Scandinavians are shot-through with the urge to cycle whenever and wherever they can.

Make habits,

break habits

We can dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot

dodge the consequences of our responsibilities.

Ian CloverEditor

Europeans have much to be proud of in this respect. They are global leaders in breaking bad habits and making new, greener ones. The European Commission has instigated a great many initiatives that makes it even easier, with every passing day, to live a sustainable life, for which they should be applauded.

Yet there is still much work to be done before the continent can truly consider itself fully sustainable. Newer EU countries must be fast-tracked along this path, urged to break their own bad habits and adopt the greener strategies of their neighbours. Our travel and tourism industry must take greater responsibility for not just its carbon footprint but also its impact upon various destinations throughout the continent, as our report on Spain’s desertifi cation shows. As consumers too, we need to address how, and how often, we import and export food and goods over land and sea, seeking ways to reduce the impact our desire for year-round choice in the fruit and veg aisle is having on the environment.

Awareness of the need to change is high, attitudes are some way down the right path and government assistance has so far been commendable. But we still need better inter- and intra-national cooperation, a greater collective sense of responsibility and more incentives to break the habits of a lifetime.

“Th e Spanish are

some of the most

effi cient water users

in Europe already.

Consumptions per

capita are among

the lowest in the EU.

Awareness is already

excellent” Asagua, Director

General, Adrian

Baltanas (page 32)

“If you visit Sarajevo

or Belgrade today,

you will be surprised

by the lack of

reminders of the war

in the 1990s. All of the

buildings have been

renovated. Bridges

have been repaired.

Tourism is back” Professor of Politics

and International

Relations, University of

Peloponnese, Greece,

Asteris Huliaris (page 46)

FROM THE EDITOR.indd 5FROM THE EDITOR.indd 5 30/07/2010 14:3330/07/2010 14:33

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CONTENTS 7

32

40

46

Building bridges Rebuilding the Western

Balkans region is an

ongoing project that has

received the aid and as-

sistance of a number of

banks, investors and in-

stitutions in recent years;

yet there is still much to

be done

Just desertsSpain’s desertifi cation is a prob-

lem with very real human cause

and eff ect, so what can be done

to halt it?

Trash talkJanez Potocnik, EU Environ-

ment Commissioner, off ers

an insight into the EU’s waste

management and biodiversity

policies, revealing how far we’ve

come, and how long there is left

to go on the road toward sus-

tainable living

Plane safeIATA’s SVP of Safety,

Operations and In-

frastructure, Gunther

Matschnigg, talks

about the challenges the

aviation authority has

faced over the past 12

months and his plans

for the future

76

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CONTENTS 9

62

100

Up and awayA number of components,

companies and systems must

work together to get you from

terminal desk to cabin safely;

so what exactly goes on behind

hangar doors?

Euro visionRaimund Desalla of STRA-

BAG on how Europe’s improv-

ing infrastructure is bringing

the continent together

Extra terrestrialTETRA Association Chairman

Phil Godfrey discusses in depth

the planned improvements and

expansion of the TETRA mo-

bile radio network

Sensor webs for defenceTh e Executive Director for

Marketing and Communica-

tions at Open Geospatial Con-

sortium Steven Ramage reveals

the defence possibilities made

real by real-time sensor webs

Polished up?Th e road and rail infrastructure

of Poland is receiving an in-

tense overhaul and investment,

but will standards be raised

suffi ciently in time for 2012’s

Euro Championship?

Well trainedHans-Georg Zimmer-man, Spokesperson for

Track Infrastructure at

Deutsche Bahn, talks to

EU Infrastructure about the

rail company’s strategy for

track expansion and sus-

tainability

A breath of fresh airTh e winds of change are

blowing through Europe’s

renewable energy sector

Mix it upRW Energy’s Kevin Mc-Cullough explains the

industry’s need for a mixed

energy portfolio

Low carb dietNpower’s Head of Busi-

ness Energy Services, Dave Lewis, talks us through the

UK’s new Carbon Reduc-

tion Commitment Energy

Effi cient Scheme (CRC) and

explains how companies

can benefi t

Playing it safeRinus Brinks, President

of the European Safety

Federation (ESF), the

European organisation of

manufacturers and suppli-

ers of Personal Protective

Equipment, talks to EU

Infrastructure

84

56

62

70

58

90

94

98

100

86

58

54 Dr Ing Stefano Mainero, EPN

Consulting

82 Th irza Rojer, Multifunctional

Solutions

92 Stefaan Volkaert, Stevo Electric

104 Ricardo Moro, Global Energy

Services

Executive Interview


COMBI BOX.indd 1COMBI BOX.indd 1 28/07/2010 10:5728/07/2010 10:57

CONTENTS 11

136 City focus: Smart cities

138 Project focus: Th e Netherlands

141 Book reviews

142 36 hours in: Budapest

138

128

Details

126 Antti Korhonen, Ekahau

72 Ian Spence, Spacemetric

74 Phil Douglas, 2e Systems

Industry Insight

Next big thing

60 Zoltan Pap, Intertoll

68 Manuel Torres, Motorola EMS

Ask the Expert

Hamburg – European Green Capital for 2011 Hamburg will be 2011’s European Green

Capital; EGCA Project Manager Th ea

Pieridou tells us why the city was chosen

Tomorrow’s world: a master plan EU Infrastructure talks to Matt Kitson

about his revolutionary vision for de-

signing the communities of the future

Project management Gregory Balestrero off ers his thoughts on

how the project management industry is

changing – and what it could look like in

the future

The road to a smarter planetIBM CEO Sam Palmisano outlines his

vision for more intelligent transport

solutions

Urban legendsWith more than half the world’s popula-

tion now living in urban areas, EU Infra-

structure investigates the unstoppable rise

of the megacity

112

106

118

120

128


CASENEWHOLLAND.indd 1CASENEWHOLLAND.indd 1 28/07/2010 10:5728/07/2010 10:57

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Editor Ian CloverManaging Editor Ben ThompsonAssociate Editor Lucy DouglasContributors Ian Clover, Rebecca Goozee, Nicholas Pryke, Julian Rogers, Stacey Sheppard, Marie Shields, Timon Singh, Huw Thomas

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VP North America Jason GreenOperations Director Ben KellyIT Director Karen BoparoyMarketing Director John Funnell

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CREDITS.indd 13CREDITS.indd 13 30/07/2010 14:3230/07/2010 14:32

THE BRIEF14

Summer roundup

The traditional summer lull in newsworthy events that ordinarily descends on Europe as the continent enjoys its holidays has been conspicuously absent this year. With ash

clouds and economic woes, oil spills and World Cup thrills, it has been a busy few months, with Europe at the forefront.

It has been a summer to forget for BP. The British oil giant has fi nally managed to plug its ruptured oil well pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico, but not before spending close to €5 billion on numerous failed attempts. In the wake of this disaster, the company has begun touting some of its assets to interested buyers in an attempt to raise capital following the hit to profi ts they have suffered since the crisis fi rst began to escalate – BP’s assets in Vietnam and Pakistan (worth €2 billion) – are set to be offl oaded as soon as a suitable buyer can be found.

If the BP debacle has taught us anything, it is that the need for renewable energy is stronger than ever before. Investments in European renewable energy are proving to be a viable option for pension funds and insurance companies, according to BNP Paribas

Clean Energy Partners’ CEO Joost Bergsma. Mr. Bergsma spoke at July’s Investing in Renewable Energy Infrastructure conference in London, and commented that the EU’s goal to generate 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020 “provides a backdrop for strong demand and lower subsidies in feed-in tariffs for sustainable energy projects.”

After the furore that followed the Icelandic ash cloud, civil aviation authorities have urged Europe and the USA to work together with more harmony by adopting new satellite-based air traffi c control systems. Representatives of the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association in Europe met with their North American counterparts at the Farnborough Airshow where, says AIA chairwoman Marion Blakely, “they told government authorities to work in close collaboration with all sectors of the industry to get it right when it comes to the harmonisation of the system.” A global standard for operations designed to deal with volcanic ash issues was also discussed, although a satisfactory outcome on this issue is yet to be resolved.

The European Commission has been extremely active over the past few months and will be investing

A ‘Property Investment in Europe’ study found that 64% of construction companies in Europe have embedded sustainability criteria into their real estate investment strategy.

Upfront_Infra Eu11.indd 14Upfront_Infra Eu11.indd 14 30/07/2010 15:2330/07/2010 15:23

THE BRIEF 15

6.4 billion on research and innovation within science, public policy and commerce in 2011, including a €1.2 billion fi nancial boost for the Information and Communication Technology sector Europe-wide. Such an investment will assist Europe’s next generation network and service infrastructures, electronic and photonic components, robotic systems and digital content technologies. Funding will also be directed into what the EC calls ‘The Future Internet’ – a European broadband infrastructure.

As the construction industry’s slump continues into the third quarter of the year, some positive news was posted by Volvo, who delivered forecast-beating earnings in the second quarter thanks to an uptake in the demand for their pick-up trucks. Volvo is the world’s second largest manufacturer of trucks, and is a favourite throughout the construction industry. Volvo Chief Executive Lief Johansson told the Financial Times that a reduction in costs in the construction sector across Europe had helped drive demand: “During the second quarter, the Volvo group’s sales continued to increase as a result of the gradual recovery in demand in most of the group’s markets.”

In the commercial real estate sector, a 15 percent increase in transactions for the second quarter of the year was reported by CB Richard Ellis, with the market for Europe reaching a turnover of 23.5 billion between April and July, compared to €20.3 billion in the fi rst three months of the year. Investment activity in the UK, Germany and France accounted for 62 percent of the total turnover.

Spain’s four million unemployed were afforded a few days’ respite from their worries in mid-July following their football teams’ inaugural triumph at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Economists have predicted that the country’s victory will help to spread a feel-good factor that will prop up Spain’s ailing economy through increased consumer and tourist spend over the summer months.

In Greece, the Prime Minister George Papandreou fi nally faced up to the severity of the country’s economic situation by vowing to follow Ireland’s example by raising taxes and cutting pay for state workers. “Ireland’s wage cuts are a blueprint for Greece and other European countries that lost competitiveness,” Frankfurt Trust advisor Ralf Ahrens told Bloomberg.

And fi nally, British scientists have discovered a new star that they claim is 265 times heavier than the sun, seven times hotter and shines nearly 10 million times brighter. The R136a1 cluster was discovered by the European Southern Observatory and is estimated to be 165,000 light years away in a star cluster of the Tarantula Nebula, which is currently shooting its way through a neighbouring galaxy. Which begs the question – if the star is so bright and massive, how come we didn’t spot it sooner?

News in pictures

The Airbus A380 parks triumphantly alongside an Etihad Airways Boeing 777 at the Farnborough Air Show as a bumper crop of orders for the aircraft prompted civil aerospace commentators to claim that a recovery for the industry was fi nally under way.

Figures released by the International Bottled Water Association in July revealed that 90 percent of water bottles worldwide are not recycled, with 38 billion bottles ending up in landfi ll sites throughout the globe in 2009. In Europe, the average consumption of bottled water is 105 litres per person per year.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne arrives at the Economist UK Energy Summit in London prior to discussing the coalition government’s plans to back a £200 billion (€249 billion) drive to invest in the renewable energy sector over the next decade.


NEWS AND NUMBERS 1616

London gallingThe European Commission has issued a second and fi nal written

warning to the UK insisting it cleans up London’s air or risk being taken to the European Court of Justice where it could face a fi ne

of up to £300m (€360m).Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik (interviewed by EU

Infrastructure on page 40) has warned that London’s dangerously high levels of minute airborne particles called PM10s could lead to asthma, lung diseases, strokes and heart attacks. A study by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee estimates that particle pollution in London is responsible for as many as 4300 premature deaths a year.

A statement by Mr. Potocnik said: “For the Greater London urban area, the commission considered that the UK had not shown that com-pliance with the daily PM10 limit value would be achieved by the time the exemption period expired in 2011…If the UK fails to take the neces-sary measures to comply with the legislation, the commission could refer the case to the European Court of Justice.”

London’s air pollution levels are among the worst in Europe, with the city having failed to meet air quality standards that were intro-duced at the end of 2004. The last act of the outgoing Labour govern-ment was to apply for a time extension until 2011 in order to comply with these air quality laws.

Th e top fi ve worst off enders in EuropeBad air day

GRANADAPARISMARSEILLELONDONCADIZ ALMERIA

…and the best20

100100GRANADA8888PARIS8787RSEILLE8585NDON77DI

Figures based on the EU’s Air Quality Index


NEWS AND NUMBERS 17

Plans to halve road deaths by 2020The European Commission (EC) has set a new target to halve the number of road deaths in the EU by 2020.

Currently, the annual death toll on the EU’s roads stands at 35,000, a target that the EC believes can be cut by 50 percent. The European Transport Safety Commission (ETSC) has welcomed the targets, but warned: “The measures announced by the European Commission call seriously into question the chances of reaching it.” The ETSC said that the EC had failed to place enough emphasis on making road infrastructure safer, prioritising the best methods for cutting deaths by speeding, and highlighting the dangers of drink driv-ing and not wearing seatbelts.

The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) also criticised the EC for what it calls a ‘missed opportunity’ to place greater Europe-wide emphasis on driver train-ing. “There is convincing evidence that further training makes drivers safer, and could be relatively cost-effec-tive,” said Neil Greg, IAM’s Policy Director.

However, in the UK, where road fatalities have fallen by 12 percent in the past year, the EC’s targets were praised. “Moving forward together on road safety is good for the EU – Member States have much they can learn from each other and, given its position as a road safety leader, the UK can share a lot from its experi-ence,” said Head of Road Safety for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents Kevin Clinton.

Top Ten road deaths per year by EU Member State

POLAND – 5437 fatalities01

ITALY – 4731 fatalities02

PORTUGAL – 885 fatalities10

GERMANY – 4477 fatalities03

FRANCE – 4275 fatalities04

SPAIN – 3100 fatalities05

UK – 2645 fatalities06

GREECE – 1553 fatalities07

HUNGARY – 996 fatalities08

BELGIUM – 944 fatalities09

Source: International Road Traffi c and Accident Database

Latvia has the highest rates of road deaths in

Europe, with 223 deaths per mil-

lion inhabitants, which is two and a half times the EU average of 90. Po-land’s figure is 193 deaths per million

inhabitants.


NEWS AND NUMBERS18

Less energy consumed during recession

BP’s 2010 Statistical Review of World Energy revealed that energy consumption in 2009 was lower than in the previous year, marking the fi rst decline since 1982 as the global economy

retracted for the fi rst time since WWII.Throughout the globe, consumption of oil, gas and

nuclear power declined, with coal consumption re-maining stable and only renewable energy sources – such as hydroelectric, solar and wind power – show-ing an increase in consumption in 2009, hinting that CO2 emissions from energy use fell for the fi rst time since 1998.

“Energy consumption refl ected the pattern of recession and recovery,” said BP Chief Economist, Christof Ruehl. “For the world as a whole, primary energy consumption fell by 1.1 percent in 2009, the fi rst decline since 1982. Consumption in the industrialised countries of the OECD fell by fi ve percent – more than their decline in GDP; those countries consumed less energy last year than ten years ago.

“Energy consumption outside the OECD increased by 2.7 percent – more than their increase in GDP and driven by growth in China. The

shift toward the developing world continues.”Oil consumption fell on a global scale by 1.2 million bar-

rels per day, which equates to 1.7 percent. In the OECD, this fi gure was 4.8 percent (two million barrels per

day), which is the fourth year in a row that there has been a decline. Outside of the OECD, oil consumption again grew, but at its slowest rate since 2001, at just 860,000 barrels per day.

Gas production declined for the fi rst time ever, with Russia producing 21.1 percent less gas, and

Turkmenistan 44.8 percent as consumption demand declined throughout most of Europe. As a result, the US sur-

passed Russia as the world’s largest producer of gas. Hydroelectric generation grew by 1.5 percent, which was below-

average growth but still enough to make the commodity the world’s fastest-growing major fuel in 2009.

A Hay Group survey of HR profes-sionals in the renewable energy sector found that:

Talent shortage

86%86%

64% reported concerns over a skills shortage in the renewable energy sector

69% of respondents fi nd it diffi cult to recruit in the current market due to salary infl ation

72% of businesses reported that career progression, rather than money, were the main reasons departing employees cited for leaving

73% of employers are concerned with retaining key talent, with 75% of those surveyed looking to overcome the problem by training existing staff to a higher level

86% of employees fi nd a new job within the renewable industrySource: Hay Group UK

69%9%

64%64%

72%

73%


STEVOELECTRIC.indd 1STEVOELECTRIC.indd 1 28/07/2010 11:0128/07/2010 11:01

NEWS20

ROMANIARomania’s construction industry suffered more than any other Central European country’s during 2009’s economic downturn. Figures released by research fi rm PMR Consulting showed that the construction industry contracted by 15.1 percent last year, following impres-sive growth of 33.6 percent and 26 percent in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

The reasons behind Romania’s poor performance are numerous, but the key driver behind the contraction was a combination of political instability, the economic deterioration within the EU and a 12 percent decline in civil engineering, which had acted as a counterbalance for other eastern European countries to help buoy the construction industry’s slump.

Despite there being sizeable EU funding readily available to Romania, its government’s inability to use these funds effectively has exacerbated the situa-tion. However, such a transition period is – says PMR Consulting – normal for new EU entrants.

SPAINSpain has lowered its solar and offshore wind power targets by 14 percent, according to a draft released by the country’s Institute for the Diversifi cation and Saving of Energy.

The Spanish government was keen to reiterate that they intend to generate more than 20 percent of their total electricity output from renewable sources. Figures from their Renewable Energy Plan predicts installed capacity of 13,446 megawatts of solar power by 2020, which is some way down on earlier predictions.

The European Commission demands that all EU countries produce at least 20 percent of their power through clean sources by 2020. Despite these cutbacks by Spain (offshore wind power will reach 3000 MW rather than the predicted 5000 MW), the country is still on course to produce 22.7 percent of renewable energy by 2020 – within the agreed target.

BULGARIABulgaria’s export growth is at its strongest for the past fi ve years, according to offi cial fi gures released by Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov.

Against the backdrop of increasing fi nancial insta-bility in southeastern Europe, Bulgaria’s minister was

Europeannews

01

02

03


NEWS 21

suggesting that such growth could even bring about increases in public sector wages, bucking the downward trend of much of Bulgaria’s central and eastern European neighbours.

“Statistics for April 2010 indicate 40 percent export growth, the highest monthly growth over the past fi ve years,” said Mr. Dyankov. “The most positive part of the data is that growth, on a monthly basis, is very strong, not only in exports to the European Union – which is at 23 percent – but also to countries in the Middle East, Asia and other regions, where it is 57 percent.”

FINLANDIn the land of Nokia, the iPhone is king. According to a survey by Finnish analysts QAim, Apple’s iPhone is the most popular mobile phone model for web browsing services, with one in three of every page load and page view coming from users of Apple’s groundbreaking device.

Despite the iPhone’s pre-eminence in browsing services, Nokia still remains the dominant player in Finland’s mobile phone industry, accounting for 60.7 percent of all browser-based activity. However, these fi gures originated from a total of 199 dif-ferent Nokia phone models, whereas Apple’s 33.9 percent share is down to one thing – the popularity of the iPhone.

“The fragmentation of the market for mobile devices creates a huge headache for developers of mobile services,” said QAim CEO and founder, Janne Aalto. “The Android-based devices already on the market, as well as many more probably still to come, will have a major impact on both Apple and Nokia’s market shares in the use of mobile services.”

AUSTRIAAustria’s mountainous landscape could be more at risk from climate change than other, fl atter countries, according to a recent collaborative study by the University of Exeter and Austrian researchers.

The study focused on the effects on Austria of the last two examples of extreme weather – the heat wave of 2003 and the fl oods of 2005 – and concluded that un-predictable hazards from landslides, rock falls, debris fl ows and melting glaciers in-creases as climate change continues to play havoc with the country’s seasons.

The 2003 heat wave pushed that summer’s mean temperature fi ve degrees above average, triggering record Alpine glacier loss that caused increased rock-fall activity as the permafrost receded. Severe rainfall in 2005 created record levels of water sedi-ment deposited downstream, causing €555 million in damage. “While human activity and land management are important factors, we expect global warming will cause accelerated ice loss in the Alps over the next decade,” said professor Jasper Knight of the University of Exeter. Temperatures in the European Alps have increased by more than double the global average since 1900.

ITALYThe Italian government has seized billions of euros worth of former mafi a properties as Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi steps up the country’s efforts to smash organised crime and break up Italy’s three main mafi a syndicates.

The renowned Cosa Nostra of Sicily, the ‘Ndrangheta’ of Calabria and the Camorra of Naples have lost more than 15,000 properties between them – including residen-tial villas, factories and farms – totalling more than ten billion euros in value.

In 2009 alone, 1223 mafi a ‘businesses’ were closed by the authorities, with a total of 9198 pieces of real estate confi scated – 73 percent of these turned into not-for-profi t farming and social initiatives, or handed over to local public utility companies for infrastructural redevelopment. “It is a complicated task targeting mafi a assets,” said the head of Palermo’s anti mafi a unit (DIA) Elio Antinoro, “because their holdings are often registered under the name of dummy corporations abroad or fi gureheads.” Citizens and those with physical and mental disabilities are the main benefi ciaries of the scheme, which includes a rural farm run by Terra Futura for the rehabilitation of psychiatric patients.06

04

05


NEWS & NUMBERS22

Concentrated Solar Power: Can it Power the World?

Sources: Greenpeace and Desertec

Annual Production /Consumption of Fossil Fuels

Equivalent Solar Deliveryin Deserts

107,000 TWh 5.7 hours

It would only take 47 days to acquire the equivalentin solar energy from the deserts, for all proven fossil fuel reserves.

Annual Global Investment Required($ billions)

250

200

150

100

50

0ReferenceScenario

ModerateScenario

AdvancedScenario

2010

2030

2050

CSP to Support Entire Region’s Power Needs

World120,144 km2

0.08% of total landLatin America5,872 km2

0.03% of land

Africa3,656 km2

0.01% of land

EU 2722,032 km2

0.5% of land

India3,824 km2

0.12% of land

OECD N.America35,224 km2

0.1% of landMiddle East4,008 km2

0.07% of land Developing Asia6,128 km2

Transition Economies8,808 km2

China16,280 km2

0.17% of land

12,680 km2

0.15% of land

Concentrated solar power could

meet up to 7% of theworld’s power by 2030

and 25% by 2050

Africa in the hope that the continents hot climate can help power the world.The fi rst commercial CSP plant opened in Spain in 2007, and now similar projects are being lined up for north Africa in the hope that the continent’s hot climate can help power the world.


NEWS & NUMBERS 23

What is CSP?

The Sun emits3.877 x 10 26 J per second

Total fossil fuel potential3.9 x 10 22 J per second

1km2

of CSP

Enough to generate 100 - 130 GWh ofsolar electricity a year. This is the same

Ideal Landscape

Low humidityLow dust

Low fumesLocated within less than 40 degrees

of latitude north or south

0.3%of the area ofNorth Africacould supply all of the energy required by the EU

80%of the African

landscape receives almost 2000 kwh

per m2 per year

Approx area of CSP, requiredto generate as much

electricity ascurrently consumed

by the World

Enough solar energy falls on the

Earth’s surface in 20 minutes to meet our

needs for a year

CSP (Concentrating Solar Power)systems produce heat or electricity

using hundreds of mirrors to concentrate the sun’s rays to a temperature

typically between 400 and1000ºC.

A report by the European Commission has revealed that 62 percent of new electricity generation capacity installed in the EU27 in 2009 was renewable, a fi ve percent increase on 2008.

The study published by the Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) showed that for the second year running, among the sources of renewable energy utilised by the EU27 wind energy provided the largest share of energy generation. In terms of ab-solute European energy generation, 19.9 percent was produced by renewables, with hydropower holding the largest share (11.6 percent), followed by wind (4.2 percent).

The report – entitled ‘Renewable Energy Snapshots’ – aims to produce an up-to-date picture every year of the EU’s progress towards the binding target of 20 per-cent for energy generation from renewable sources by 2020. The report is compiled based on two types of data; offi cial fi gures from EU countries or EUROSTAT, and those provided by industry associations, research industries.

In each case, the JRC notes that due to the methodology of collection, values might deviate and claims there is therefore a margin of uncertainty that should be taken into account.

According to the fi gures, renewable sources provided 17GW of new electric-ity generation capacity installed in the EU last year, out of a total of 27.5GW built, with wind accounting for 10.2GW (38 percent) of that fi gure. It is believed that if fi gures keep increasing at this rate, by 2020 up to 1400TWh of electricity could be generated from renewable sources, which would account for approximately 35-40 percent of overall electricity consumption in the EU.

While this is excellent news for the continent, there are some issues to be resolved; namely ensuring fair access to grids, substantial public research and development (R&D) support and the adaptation of current electricity systems to accommodate renewable electricity. It is also believed that the fi gure can be further reached with the increase of biomass usage with seven member states (Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Finland, Italy, Sweden, Hungary) announcing biomass as the main renewable energy resource for the future.

62% of new EU electricity in 2009 was renewable


IN MY VIEW24

Safety fi rstImproving safety levels on construction sites is a constant challenge, Philip White, Head of Construction Division for the Health and Safety Executive, tells EU Infrastructure.

Overseeing the construction industry’s safety procedures is an ever-evolving task.

At the HSE we continually work on those areas where we think the biggest risks lie; where we still see problems. This means that we deal with sites where refurbishment is going on, smaller sites where as-bestos has yet to be removed, picking up the themes of the HSE strategy, taking enforcements and secur-ing justice – a lot of our work covers these issues. Regarding asbestos for instance, in the UK there is a licensing ratio that restricts the removal of the more dangerous forms of asbestos (lagging on pipe work and sprayed insulation) and we normally license some 600 contractors to do this. But what we are doing is paying more visits this year, managing the whole pro-cedure more effectively.

Ensuring the safety of migrant workers on construction sites requires an additional set of practices and awareness campaigns.

Last year we employed someone from the Polish, Romanian and Asian communities of London to help distribute over 100,000 safety cards providing basic information in the native language of those communi-ties, and set up a helpline and an email response unit. Approximately 40 percent of London’s construction workers are migrants, so our outreach workers have tried a number of novel strategies to open doors to communities that were previously diffi cult to reach. We are hoping to expand this program to the Chinese community and the Lithuanian community too, while also reinforcing our safety messages within the Polish and Asian communities because they are extremely large groups, with many working in the construction industry.

Smaller building projects require greater assistance and focus from the HSE.

If there is one area that the HSE should be con-centrating more on, it would be the smaller projects throughout the UK. This is because of ignorance among smaller builders and also – dare I say it – complete fl outing of legal requirements in some cases. This could be anything from reroofi ng a domestic house, a small extension to a factory or similar type of property for example – these are issues that need to be tackled and where considerable improvements are still needed. For some it is a case of cutting costs, but there are other examples where it is complete ignorance of the rules and regulations. To tackle this, we have revamped our

website to make the language and advice much more accessible and understandable for SMEs. We are also publishing a range of leafl ets that are pretty much pictorial do’s and don’ts. It’s all very direct and straight-forward.

The London 2012 Olympics has proven a valuable learning experience for the construction industry in the UK.

There are a lot of major companies operating on many different parts of the Olympic project. I think that they have learnt a lot thanks to the high standards the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) are expecting, but also just through sharing experiences between themselves, and that has had an impact when it has been fed back to companies, a lot of whom are national companies. So we see it as having a very positive experience – learning the high standards and taking that back into other projects. We hope that will continue as time goes on.

The economic downturn has drastically reduced the level of building activity, which has impacted favourably upon safety levels.

The level of overall construction work in the UK is down, and that does have an impact in terms of fewer people working fewer hours. Our research into this has showed that companies are still investing in health and safety despite the downturn. It is being considered as an extremely important priority, and obviously, when gearing up for an upturn, we need to make sure that people and organisations are up to speed on safety measures. The challenge for us, if you look historically, is that when coming out of recession you tend to have new people coming into the industry as companies tend to grow a bit faster than they would normally do, so we need to be prepared for that.

Even in the safety industry, it is important to keep your eye on the future.

If we see companies growing quickly but not really taking on any responsibility for their health and safety, we’ll consider taking enforcement action. We advise these companies, but if we see failings we will issue an improvement notice to make sure that they have the proper training arrangements in place and that they have competent staff on board to manage projects and their systems of work. It is highly important to keep a look out for where the industry is going, and who is coming into it unprepared.

Coming out of recession you tend to have new people coming into the industry as companies tend to grow a bit faster than they would normally do, so we need to be prepared for that


IN MY VIEW 25

The last ten years have seen sustained improvement in the safety procedures of the construction industry.

In the past ten years I have seen a much bigger shift in attitudes towards better safety in the industry, and this has been achieved partly through big challenges that were laid down by the last Labour government – to turn concern into action. The industry rose to that chal-lenge. You can change things through legislation but ultimately it is culture and attitudes that drive changes, and that is what we address at HSE. We said nearly ten years ago that HSE had a plan and a program to change the culture of the industry through a number of initia-tives, by getting people to show better leadership in the industry, even at the very largest companies. And while we had hoped that more of this approach would trickle down to the medium and smaller businesses, this hasn’t necessarily been the case – we now almost have a two-tier industry; at one level where the big compa-

nies perform pretty well, and the other end of the scale where we still see a lot of poor practices among smaller companies. This, I think, is an inevitability of the nature of the industry.

Environmental sustainability is likely to drive and shape the construction industry in the near future.

There is obviously going to be a big drive for a low-carbon economy, and that is going to present us with a number of challenges in terms of the types of work that is being carried out. We are going to be building more wind turbines, more nuclear power stations, erecting solar cells, installing mini generators and insulating domestic houses – all of these activities will ultimately impact how we operate. This is a big challenge and we need to take a long, hard look at how we are going to deal with this growth area and ensure that the stan-dards of the industry are maintained.

Workplace fatality rates in

the UK construction sector are down

by 14%

Britain’s safety record is the lowest of the

EU’s five largest countries


Generic MasterPage_JULY10.indd 1Generic MasterPage_JULY10.indd 1 28/07/2010 10:5928/07/2010 10:59

27NEWS AND NUMBERS 27

Welsh wind

Rumoured to be one of the biggest wind farms in Europe, let alone in Wales, Gwynt y Mor is destined to be a major task for RWE Innogy, Stadtwerke München (SWM - Munich Municipal Utility)

and Siemens who have joined forces to oversee its construction.It is expected that the entire project will cost €2 billion, including

the grid connection to the coast. Of the joint venture, RWE Innogy will hold 60 percent, while Stadtwerke München and Siemens take 30 and 10 percent respectively.

The 576MW wind farm will consist of 160 3.6MW Siemens SWT turbines and has an expected output of 1,950 GWh per year, enough to power 400,000 homes (40 percent of the homes in Wales). Construction is expected to begin next year with fi nal commissioning occurring in 2014 – it is hoped that the wind farm will prevent the re-lease of about 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

Gwynt y Mor will be installed in Liverpool Bay, some 18km off the North Wales coast, with the fi rst foundations of the turbines being erected in late 2011. It will cover an area of 79 km2.

The wind farm’s construction is expected to create more than a thousand jobs, as hundreds of long-term maintenance roles are needed, and by next year, 1000 construction jobs will be created at the Port of Mostyn where the giant windmills will be put together, with up to an estimated 250 permanent jobs to follow.

European DIN Rail power supply manufacturer PULS has been awarded a prestigious LEED Gold certifi cate in recognition of the energy saving

credentials of its new factory in China. The company was also awarded €50,000 by the Suzhou Industrial Park Authority for the energy saving concepts incor-porated in the building’s design.

LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certifi cation provides independent, third-party verifi cation that a building project meets the highest green building and performance standards.

The new PULS factory, which will be offi cially opened in October 2010, will employ approximately 450 people and provide additional production capacity for the company’s range of DIN Rail power supplies, mainly for the rapidly developing Chinese market.

“Our products are very much about high-effi ciency and saving energy, so it’s fi tting that our new factory should incorporate all the latest energy saving design and technology,” said Harry Moore, Managing Director of PULS UK. “As China is a rapidly growing market, it makes sense to have a manufacturing plant as close to those customers as possible, rather than shipping prod-ucts all the way from Europe.”

Power supply manufacturer PULS wins green award

In a statement, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, said, “This is the fi rst, of what I hope will be many examples of how we can make the most of our island’s huge renewable energy potential. I want to make sure we grab all the op-portunities the rapidly expanding renewables industry has to offer, and that wind power can come of age under this government.”

Secretary of State for Wales, Cheryl Gillian, agreed: “Gwynt y Mor will be one of the single biggest private investment projects ever seen in Wales, creating up to 1000 quality jobs and contributing many mil-lions of pounds to the regional economy of North Wales. It will also become one of the largest off-shore wind farm projects in Europe.”


NEWS28

Smart stadiaNarodowe Centrum Sportu (NCS) National

Sports Centre and NextiraOne have signed and agreement for the implementation of an IT and

communications network for the National Stadium in Warsaw – a multi-functional facility which is being pre-pared for major events, including the UEFA European Football Championship, EURO 2012.

Under the contract, NextiraOne will deliver, install and commission network equipment together with security components, implement system and appli-cations software for the new stadium’s network and conduct all necessary project and integration work. In addition, NextiraOne will provide training for system users together with ongoing support and mainte-nance.

The National Stadium’s new IT and communica-tions network will be an effi cient, fl exible, secure and reliable framework for a wide range of applications,

including video surveillance, video transmission, appli-cations for automated systems, such as for ticket sales, and the security of the facility. It will also provide the platform for voice communication, data transmission and access to the Internet.

”Creating an IT and communications network for such large and prestigious facility as the National Stadium in Warsaw is an enormous undertaking, and we were therefore looking for an experienced partner that was cost-effective and could meet all our specifi c re-quirements,” said Robert Wojtaś, Vice President of NCS.

”We recognize the challenge and responsibility of this project for the NCS,” said Marek Kobielski, President of NextiraOne Polska. “The knowledge and expertise of our expert teams is our guarantee that the National Stadium in Warsaw will achieve a modern and reliable IT and communications infrastructure, ready for use by - among others – the organizers and participants of EURO 2012.”

The new network for the National Stadium will be completed by February 15th, 2011.

Increasing commercialisation of biological waste-to-energy plants throughout Europe is spurring demand for a new wave of green energy technologies on the continent.

Government regulation and support, allied with increased fund-ing from banks and demand from energy conscious companies have helped raise the profi le of biological waste plants that treat waste to produce greener energy.

Analysis from growth partnership fi rm Frost & Sullivan estimates

that the market for biological waste energy in Europe could be worth as much as €2.9 billion by 2016. In 2009, the German market alone – which accounted for 76.8 percent of the total European market – was worth €812 million, with countries such as Italy, Czech Republic and the Netherlands expected to grow exponentially over the next few years.

Wasting energy, logically

For more onPoland’s preparation for the 2012 European

Championships,go to page 58


INTTERTOLL AD.indd 4INTTERTOLL AD.indd 4 28/07/2010 10:5928/07/2010 10:59

NEWS30

Th e Costa rapid construction

Spain’s beleaguered construction industry is facing four more years of woe as analysts predict it will take that long for the country to clear its glut of empty, unsold holiday homes.

With the country facing the prospect of close to one million empty properties by the end of 2010, Spain’s economic recovery is unlikely to be helped by the previously robust construction industry, which is all but dormant as developers and agents try frantically to cut through the oversupply of homes.

Figures from the Association of Developers and Constructors of Spain (APCE) revealed that there were 700,000 new homes on the market at the end of 2009, with an additional 220,000 either under con-struction or in the planning stages. The worst affected areas are the pre-viously popular holiday regions of the Costa del Sol, the Costa Brava and the Costa Blanca. Conversely, areas with greater internal demand for homes, such as Madrid, have fewer excess properties and so are better placed to reduce their inventory of empty properties much sooner.

“The excess of new homes in Cantabria in the north of Spain will be gone in less than two years,” says Jose Manuel Galindo, President of the APCE. “On the other hand, the provinces of Andalucia and Valencia (home to the Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca respectively) are looking at maybe four to six years before the market can digest this glut of housing.”

Don’t Miss…

“Councils are pushing to promote developments and strip more vegetation, so who is fi ghting for the environment? Th e scale of Spain’s desertifi cation problem needs to be escalated” Dr. Leopoldo Serrano of the UNCCD, page 32

“I can clearly say today that it was a wrong decision not to open the airspace quicker, and the whole ash cloud debacle was all handled based upon incorrect information”

Gunther Matschnigg of IATA, page 76

“Progress is its own reward, but I believe the satisfaction and pride involved in winning a prestigious European award spurs cities to invest in further implementation of EU environment policy”

Th ea Pieridou of the EGCA, page 112

Companies in this issue are indexed to the fi rst page of the article in which each is mentioned.

Company index Q3 2010

2e Systems 8, 74, 75Asagua 32Case New Holland 12, 48CombiBox 10, 85Deutsche Bahn 90Ekahau 126, 127EPN Consulting 54, 55European Safety Federation 86Global Energy Services 4, 104, 105Health and Safety Executive 24Hilson Moran 106Indutex 26, 89IATA 76IBM 120

Intertoll 29, 60, 61KfW Entwicklungsbank 46Longphone 66Mentura 64Motorola 6, 68, 69Multifunctional Solutions 82, 83Npower 100Open Geospatial 70Powerclimber wind 97PTF Hausser GMBH 43Qfree 50RW Energy 98Spacemetric 31, 72, 73Stevo Electric 19, 92, 93Strabag AG 56TETRA Group 62


SPACEMETRIC.indd 1SPACEMETRIC.indd 1 28/07/2010 11:0128/07/2010 11:01

32 DESERTIFICATION IN SPAIN

Sun, sea, sangria and sand. Too much sand. As desertifi cation continues to be a problem for southern Spain, Ian Clover investigates what can be done to halt the march of the desert.

Just Deserts

Desertification in Spain2.indd 32Desertification in Spain2.indd 32 30/07/2010 14:4030/07/2010 14:40

33DESERTIFICATION IN SPAIN

Squint and it almost doesn’t look real. Th e

distant craggy horizon rises and falls like

an overwrought ECG needle. Azure, cloud-

free skies proff er zero protection from the

relentless burn of the scorching sun. Green

tuft s of hardy vegetation poke optimistical-

ly through the ground, standing lonely on vast plains of

red and dusty rocks as tumbleweed – actual tumbleweed

– sits idly by, the non-existent breeze rendering their

only purpose obsolete. Everything is still. Everything is

parched. And everything is quiet.

Yet this isn’t the wild west of 19th Century USA; this

is the vast Tabernas Desert of 21st century southeastern

Spain. Th e busy airport of Alicante is just over an hour

away, easyJetting in millions of northern European tour-

ists every summer for sunshine frolics and fun. A total

of 54 golf courses can be found within a 100km radius

of here, and the intense climate has made this corner of

Iberia Europe’s leading grower of fruit and vegetable –

the ‘Costa del Plastico’ an aff ectionate moniker given to

a strip of coastline blanketed by row upon row of plastic

greenhouses growing lettuce, tomato, almonds, fi gs and

all manner of fruits; primed, picked then packaged up

and shipped off to a supermarket near you.

Th e human demand for water in this region of Spain is

intense. Golf courses soak up water like a yawning hippo,

hotels and holiday developments boast huge swimming

pools and perfectly green lawns and gardens, and the

agriculture industry demands intense irrigation in order

to match Europe’s hunger for aff ordable fruit and veg all


34

Spain: Deserted.

DESERTIFICATION IN SPAIN

2

4

1

5 3


35

Semi-desert: Bardenas Reales (Navarre) covers 45,500 hectares

and boasts a weird and wonderful landscape forged by millions of years of sun exposure, intense heat, scant rainfall and high winds.

Semi-desert: Cabo de Gata-Nijar Natural Park (Almeria) has the lowest

rainfall in Europe, receiving just 12 centimetres annually. The stark landscape, hot weather and beautiful coastline made it a tourist favourite for decades, but human impact upon the landscape has seen the Spanish authorities take action to cut the number of visitors to the park.

Fully desert: Tabernas Desert (20 miles north of Almeria) spans 280

square kilometres and receives just 24 centimetres of rainfall per year. The desert is home to the Texas Hollywood, Mini Hollywood and Western Leone studios and provided the backdrop to some of the most memorable spaghetti westerns.

Spain’s Desalination

Europe’s fi rst ever desalination plant was built by Spain in the 1960s, and the country leads the Western world in its consumption of desalinated water. As a result, Spanish technology and innovation contributes to bringing clean and sustainable water to millions of people worldwide, including the Middle East and India.

At Carboneras in Almeria, southern Spain, the largest seawater desalination plant quietly hums its way through millions of gallons of seawater each day, chemically and physically fi ltrating it before reverse-osmosis membranes kick in and convert brine into fresh water. While the CO2 emissions of such a plant leave a lot to be desired, its effect on Spain’s water supply has been worth it. A total of 20 desalination plants have been built throughout the country in the past six years, providing Spain with 50 percent of its entire water requirements.

2

1

3

At Risk: Alicante is an extremely popular resort that has been drawing

package holidaymakers for decades. It suffers from extreme weather oscillations, not least in rainfall – average rainfall is 33 centimetres a year, but torrential downpours can bring as much as 20 centimetres in 24 hours. Such irregular weather leads to a mere 30-odd rainy days a year.

4

At Risk: Almeria city is the capital of the Almeria Province and has the

warmest average temperature in the whole of Europe. While tourism is extremely important, it is the region’s agriculture that most defi nes it – its greenhouse-covered valleys produce tonnes of fruit and vegetables, of which 70 percent is exported to the rest of Europe.

5


year round (88 percent or all water used in southern Spain

goes on agriculture). Ostensibly, this is a thriving corner

of a country hit hard by the economic downturn. Business

is booming, tourism is steady and golf spend is a sustain-

able, year-round source of income. Yet the fact remains:

this is a semi-arid landscape, and human activity is only

speeding up the inevitable process of desertifi cation.

Wild westTh e Tabernas Desert’s unique landscape has been

eyed-up by Hollywood movie producers for decades. Some

of the most iconic wild west backdrops ever committed

to fi lm were shot not in the Nevada Badlands or Arizona

desert, but in Franco’s Spain: lower-production costs made

it a simple and accessible location for actors, directors and

producers. Classics such as Th e Good, Th e Bad and Th e

Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars, Th e Magnifi cent Seven, Johnny

Yuma and even parts of the original Lawrence of Arabia

were shot at the Texas Hollywood studios here.

Tourists can even visit these fi lm sets today, wander-

ing through a complete replica of an old America west

town complete with saloon, bank, jail, shops and stables.

It’s a strange experience – being able to stroll through

what one believes to be the unmistakable landscape of

America’s mid-west, yet being only an hour’s drive away

from Mediterranean resorts clambering over themselves

to off er the lowest-priced lager-with-full-English-Break-

fast combos by the beach.

Th is quasi-Saharan landscape has been this way for

thousands of years. Th e Sahara itself is a mere 400km due

south, and the climate of Murcia province and Almeria

is the driest in Europe (average rainfall in the Cabo de

Gata-Nijar Natural Park is just 12 centimetres per year,

compared to an average of 80 centimetres in Manchester,

England), and the hottest too – temperatures surge past

40c on a daily basis between June and August. However,

United Nations estimates warn there will be a 40 percent

reduction in rainfall by 2070, with statistics to show

that, since 1880, the global surface temperature increase

is 0.8c, while in Spain that fi gure is 1.5c. Such dramatic

climate change can only mean one thing – the desert is

returning to reclaim its land.

So how to combat it? Th ree experts: one on soil, one

on vegetation, and one on water provision, give their

opinion on what can be done to halt the sand’s march

across the parched landscapes of southeastern Spain.

Soil salvationStudies by the United Nations Centre to Combat

Desertifi cation (UNCCD) have shown that six percent of

Spain’s arable land has already been lost forever, and the

Spanish Environment Ministry estimates that one-third

of the country’s 500,000 square kilometres is at ‘signifi -

cant risk’ of desertifi cation, with the resorts and cities of

Almeria, Alicante and Murcia most at risk, their situation

exacerbated by human activity that has upset the delicate

soil-water relationship of the land. “Desertifi cation has

strong human components, so humans have the capac-


36

“Th e Spanish

Environment

Ministry

estimates that

one-third of

the country’s

500,000 square

kilometres is

at ‘signifi cant

risk’ of

desertifi cation”


ity to halt the process,” says Jose Luis Rubio, President of

the European Society for Soil Conservation. “Societies

in Spain do not always realise that soil is the base of the

ecosystem. If air is polluted you cannot breathe it; if water

is contaminated you cannot drink it; and if soil is tainted

then we lose it, and if we lose soil, we lose everything.”

Rubio has studied the eff ects of soil erosion on Spain’s

landscape for decades and believes that, while desertifi -

cation will always be something of a concern for south-

eastern Spain, better management of resources can help

halt the desert’s creeping advance. “When soil is damaged

through human activity, it becomes deeply degraded and

can be easily washed away, which means there can be no

vegetation cover, landscape, biodiversity – nothing. But

the eff ect that concentrated human economic activity

is having on the land can be avoided with a little more

forward planning.”

Faced with such intense demand for tourist provisions

such as golf courses and swimming pools, in addition to

the stripping of indigenous olive groves for a more water-

intensive crop output, environmental authorities face

an intense battle. “Agricultural restoration of the most

aff ected parts of the southeast – Castilla, the Ebro Basin,

Almeria, Alicante and Murcia – would help,” says Rubio.

“Th is can be achieved through better water management

that protects against salinisation, tree planting, and res-

toration of land gradation aft er forest fi res, which destroy

1000 hectares of land every summer, stripping the vegeta-

tion cover and removing all nutrients from the soil.”

Poor town planning has exacerbated the situation

in some towns, believes Rubio. “Inadequate planning of

buildings and infrastructure works in tandem with the

torrential rains that hit this part of the country to aff ect

the stability of the soil and inhibit its ability to hold

organic matter. Th is looseness in the soil leaves it with

less buff er capacity to resist extreme climactic events – a

situation that is made worse by civil works such as roads

cutting off the natural pattern of rainfall runoff .”

Soil should not be treated so lightly. Like the hard-

pumping legs of a graceful swan, soil drives the earth’s

ecosystem almost unnoticed, yet it is the earth’s living

skin, holding everything together. In the EU alone, soil

holds 70 billion tonnes of carbon, which equates to seven

percent of the world’s entire carbon storage. EU member

states pump out two billion tonnes of carbon a year, so

even something as little as a 0.1 percent loss of carbon

from European soils is the equivalent of an extra 100 mil-

lion cars on the road. With no soil, there is no life, and

Spain had better act fast to hold on to what it has.

“Areas like Almeria are really quasi-desert,” admits

Rubio. “Desertifi cation will always occur there to some

extent, but the problem we are seeing is that other areas

with better biological balances are beginning to experi-

ence desertifi cation, which is happening in part because

of climate change and in part because of socioeconomic

pressures on the government to develop tourism, which

has been tremendously important for the economic

strength of Spain.

“In many cases, this all-too recent and rushed explo-

sion in infrastructure has increased the pressure on the

land, dismantling the capacity of the soil to control its

natural fi ltration process and, in many cases, increas-

ing the likelihood of, and damage caused by, landslides

and torrential rain, which is a natural component of our

climate.” It is indeed a catch-22 situation – Spain needs

tourists’ money, tourists want the sunshine, warmth and

year-round dryness that characterises this corner of the

country, but the landscape? Th e landscape needs a rest.

Vegetation vitalityOr does it? Can careful agricultural planning, allied

with determined soil conservation and better future in-

frastructural planning help slow the desertifi cation pro-

cess and salvage the lands of Almeria, Valencia, Alicante

and Murcia for future generations to enjoy as we have for

so long? Dr. Leopoldo Serrano is the General Director

of Spain’s Natural Environment and Forest Policy at the

Ministry of the Environment, and believes that the level

of vegetation cover in Spain’s southeastern corner is no

worse, or better, than before. “In quantitative terms at

least, vegetation cover and biodiversity remains the same.

However, mismanagement and overexploitation has had a

qualitative impact on the state of the vegetation, and this

needs to be addressed.”

Left to its own devices, the landscape does possess

some recovery capacity, but Serrano is of the opinion that

human intervention is required to nullify the damage

caused by human activity. “Th e occupation of land for ag-

ricultural purposes – greenhouse agriculture in particu-

lar – has had a very drastic impact on the quality of the

land. Urbanisation has been damaging too; it is a complex

situation that cannot be solved by a simple policy of de-

sertifi cation control but via various programmes of land

management and prevention of wildfi re. Institutional and

socioeconomic systems need to adapt to these threats if

they are to be able to detect problems, react to them and,

ultimately, improve the situation.”

Serrano is an advisor for the UNCCD and has worked

on various systemic integrated missions designed to lessen

the human impact suff ered by Spain’s vegetation. “We look

at land planning, at the water policy of the region and the

use of other natural resources. Th ere is enormous pressure

on Spain’s water resources but, largely, water distribution

policies are good – the administration is correct and the

knowledge is there. Quite simply, however, we need to look

at a better system for land planning. More and more people

are trying to live in the southeast region of Spain and the

institutional system is more interested in local socioeco-

nomic interests than general environmental concerns.

“Councils are pushing to promote developments and

strip more vegetation, so who is fi ghting for the environ-

ment? Th e scale of this problem needs to be escalated –

people need to get involved with their community and their

neighbourhoods, pushing for better urban planning that

takes environmental concerns into account.” Drastic action

is, believes Serrano, unnecessary: just a greater awareness


37

“In the EU alone,

soil holds 70

billion tonnes of

carbon, which

equates to seven

percent of the

world’s entire

carbon storage”


What is desertifi cation?Desertifi cation is the process of degradation of land in arid and semi-arid regions. This degradation can occur for a number of reasons, including climatic variations and the impact of human activities, such as overgrazing of livestock, river water diversion, overdrafting of groundwater, and increased water consumption caused by overpopulation.

Desertifi cation reduces biodiversity in the soil, which inhibits its capacity to enrich vegetation, leading to increased scrub and soil erosion. Poorly planned roads and urban areas can affect natural runoff courses of rainfall, further exacerbating the situation.

from the councils, the land planners, the developers – and

the general public – that the current system of infrastruc-

tural development needs to change before the country’s

desertifi cation process goes beyond the point of no return.

Ironically, Spain’s current economic malaise will

likely prove benefi cial for its landscape. Th e collapse of

the construction industry has enabled local councils and

planners to take stock of what they have, what they need

and what can be improved. Th e agricultural industry – so

thirsty for water – has slowed as Europe-wide demand

has fallen. “Everything is less intensive at the moment,”

admits Serrano. “We have less intensive farming, less

intensive building and no real growth. For some, this is

a dilemma, but it will hopefully lead to a more considered

approach to development in the future which will help the

biodiversity of southeastern Spain.”

Over the past few years as the construction industry

has slowed down, the Spanish government has embarked

upon the plantation of 45 million trees throughout the

Mediterranean east of the country at a cost of €90 mil-

lion. Th is plan will not only help to hold the soil and its

nutrients in place but will also soak up an additional 3.5

million tonnes of CO2 emissions. By 2012 the plantation

process will be complete. “Th e plantation of these mil-

lions of trees, correctly planned and executed, will prove

extremely benefi cial for the landscape,” says Serrano.

Water worriesTh ere is little wriggle room for Spain’s water authori-

ties. Th e country receives 346 billion cubic metres of rain-

fall annually, leaving behind 109 billion cubic metres aft er

evaporation and runoff . Th e annual water demand for the

country is just 35 billion cubic metres, but the country is

subjected to a number of stark climatic imbalances.

Th e green and lush lands of Galicia and Cantabria

in the north and north west of the country are some of

Europe’s wettest regions, while the driest region of the

continent – Almeria – is in the extreme southeast of the

country and ferociously thirsty for drinking and irriga-

tion water. Getting this excess rainwater from northwest

to southeast is no mean feat, encountering a multitude of

physical, infrastructural and political hurdles along the

way before even a drop is diverted.

“Th e Iberian Peninsula is subjected to two very dif-

ferent climatic systems – a Mediterranean one, which has

minimal and inherently irregular rainfall; and an Atlan-

tic system, which is characterised by heavy and steady

rainfall,” explains Adrian Baltanas, Director General of

water lobby group Asagua. “So these water shortages and

droughts in the south and southeast are nothing new – the

Roman Empire even built impressive hydraulic infrastruc-

tures to assure the water supply of its big cities, including

the famous aqueducts of Segovia, Tarragona and Merida.

“Th is ‘water supply guarantee’ has been a permanent

worry in Spain, and so it has only been logical that irriga-

tion methods have developed alongside the pace of Span-

ish society. However, the 20th and 21st centuries have

brought with them enormous technical and economic

advances at an unprecedented pace, of which water reser-

voirs and transportation have played an important part.


38 DESERTIFICATION IN SPAIN

“Th e Spanish

Environment

Ministry

estimates that

one-third of

the country’s

500,000 square

kilometres is

at ‘signifi cant

risk’ of

desertifi cation”

Simply put, Spain’s impressive growth in recent years

would have been impossible without a steady supply of

water. We now take advantage of 50 percent of all rainfall

in Spain, which has allowed us to assure the needs of all

cities and resorts in southern Spain. Without this, tour-

ism, construction and intense agriculture could never

have happened.”

Spain’s erratic and dispersed rainfall has resulted

in a highly sophisticated water management and irriga-

tion system. Despite this, between 30 and 60 percent of

the country is at risk of some stages of desertifi cation

according to the UNCCD. Ambitious and innovative

programs, such as the Water Framework Directive and

the National Plan of Water Quality, are designed to

assure more sustainable water management for Spain in

the future, including ambitious programs of reutilisation

and desalination. “In the Mediterranean littoral of Spain

there is an eff ective desalination and reutilisation scheme

that will be fully completed by 2015,” says Baltanas. “Th is

program will supply fi ve million people with desalinated

water and 75,000 hectares of agricultural irrigation, as

well as 30 percent of purifi ed water to be put to industrial

and tourist use such as golf courses, for instance.”

Ah yes, the golf courses of southern Spain. So ubiq-

uitous and eye catching, alien visitors to areas around

Marbella and Murcia might well deem this the true

Garden of Eden. Lush lawns, fairways and greens dazzle

like emeralds next to the scorched browns and yellows of

Spain’s true, unassisted Mediterranean landscape. Ecolo-

gists have estimated that a single 18-hole golf course in

southern Spain consumes the same amount of water as

a town with a population of 5000 inhabitants. Th row

in the presence of thirsty crop farms (tomato farms are

extremely prevalent in the sun-rich, rain-poor Murcia

region) and you have a two-pronged assault on a resource

that has been scant in the region long before rich folk

began clubbing balls into holes for fun, or Europe began

demanding seasonal fruit and veg all year round.

“Th ere is pressure, of course, but these water man-

agement programs are necessary as we move towards a

more sustainable future,” says Baltanas. “In some ways,

desalination, reutilisation and modernisation of water

infrastructure can only be achieved if it is obviously

necessary that something has to be done. And so, fi nance

for these projects is assured by both the public and the

private sector because if we are able to guarantee water

supply for all of our tourists, all of our golfers and all of

our farmers – which we are – then funding and continued

development of sustainable water supply will remain and

continue to evolve.

“Tourism is an incredibly important sector for Spain’s

economy, so it is only logical that we have invested in, and

will continue working on, programs that will ensure we

remain a world leader in this fi eld.”

Striking a balanceDespite the lack of rainfall in southeastern Spain,

Baltanas is confi dent that a steady water supply for tour-

ists and agriculture can be maintained, but does this not

exacerbate the problems outlined by Dr. Serrano and Jose

Luis Rubio? If the tourists keep on coming, will the land

not continue to suff er, despite the fact that water is being

managed eff ectively and effi ciently?

“Th e additional resources provided by the reutilisa-

tion and desalination of water we assure will allow for

the execution of other programs that will help to fi ght the

onset of desertifi cation,” assures Baltanas. Th e Spanish

government and its Autonomous Communities are fully

compromised by their strategies on sustainable manage-

ment of their resources. Th ey have begun implementing a

number of measures designed to raise awareness among

the general public about the importance of water, soil and

vegetation to their country’s fragile landscape. “Th e Span-

ish are some of the most effi cient water users in Europe

already. Consumptions per capita are among the lowest

in the EU. Awareness is already excellent,” says Baltanas.

“Ecologists have

estimated that

a single 18-hole

golf course in

southern Spain

consumes the

same amount

of water as a

town with a

population

of 5000

inhabitants”


39DESERTIFICATION IN SPAIN

Summer 2005 was Spain’s worst

drought in 60 years

(source: UNCCD)

The UNCCD says 12% of

Europe is at risk of turning into

desert

It would appear that the general public is empowered

and encouraged to do its bit, and the current economic

downturn has come at an opportune time for the land-

scape – construction has ceased, roads are less busy and

demand on agriculture has eased off . “Th e process of natural

reforestation, while an extremely long process, has already

begun happening in a number of areas,” says Dr. Serrano.

“Th ese fallow, quiet periods are helping the vegetation to

recover some of its natural habitat, particularly in more

mountainous areas. However, we have to understand that in

some ways Spain’s recent socioeconomic development has

actually been benefi cial for the environment because we no

longer have farmers surviving on the land by herding goats

that eat and destroy everything in their sight. Moving away

from this exploitative farming has not only been the mark of

Spain becoming part of a developed Europe, but has, in some

places, been benefi cial for the landscape.”

Spain’s socioeconomic shift from simple farming

techniques to large scale tourism and specialised agri-

cultural produce may indeed have helped the landscape

in some ways, but as Rubio points out, if future land and

urban planning is poorly implemented, desertifi cation

will continue to worsen. “Th e UNCCD’s actions for Spain

– which include a national program to combat desertifi -

cation, have been delayed and underfunded since initial

plans were fi rst drawn up in 2006,” reveals Rubio. “It is

my opinion that there have been nowhere near enough

economic resources applied to confronting the desertifi -

cation problem in Spain, but there is hope that the Euro-

pean Union will soon agree upon a common strategy to

help deal with the problem, because we are able to show

evidence that positive human intervention can help.

“Little by little we are seeing a better understanding of

the interrelationship between the terrestrial ecosystem and

human impact, and a greater awareness that we need to take

care of the whole system.” If this means more considered

urban planning, artifi cial reforestation and better water

management, then so be it. Deserts might well be romantic,

evocative and exotic landscapes, but only when viewed in

their correct context. A man-made, destructive desert that

ruins the livelihood of millions is not good: just bad, and

extremely ugly.


BIG INTERVIEW40

Big Interview.indd 40Big Interview.indd 40 30/07/2010 14:3930/07/2010 14:39

BIG INTERVIEW 41

The role of European Commissioner for the

Environment is undoubtedly a challenging

one. Th e European Union, lest we forget, is a

political and economic entity comprised of 27

separate member states, each with their own

unique climate, landscape, wealth, culture and

history. Getting them all to agree on matters of any import

takes time, careful negotiation, persuasiveness and more bu-

reaucracy than you could shake a stuff ed Manila fi le folder at.

As Greece’s recent fi nancial woes have proved, a shared

commonality with 26 other countries is not always for the

best, especially when other countries have greater resources,

a greater understanding or more knowledge on a particular

subject or issue. Overcoming these disparate starting points

and achieving a collective goal cannot be easy.

Each country has its own set of priorities, and where

the environment is concerned, member states like Germany

(stalwarts and co-founders of the EU) and Bulgaria (joined

as recently as 2007) are poles apart. So how does the EU

Trash talkEU Environment Commissioner Janez

Potocnik talks to EU Infrastructure about the current state of the Union’s waste management sector, its biodiversity awareness, its green successes and the work that is still to be done.


42

ensure that it delivers a harmonised strategy that all of its

members can abide by? Janez Potocnik is the current Eu-

ropean Commissioner for the Environment at the EU and

has faced a number of challenges since ascending to the

post in 2009. “Designing our policies in an environmentally

friendly way is one of the basic objectives of the EU – pro-

tection and improvement of the environment are important

elements of the EU treaty,” says Mr. Potocnik. “Sustainable

development is based on three pillars: environmental, eco-

nomic and socio-economic. We need to constantly assess

if these three pillars are considered in the right balance in

diff erent policy areas, such as, for example, trade, industry,

energy, agriculture and many others.

“Th e challenge for me is to develop – together with

my fellow Commissioners – policy options that can create

opportunities for economic growth and environmental pro-

tection alike; the aim is for a fl ourishing but more resource-

effi cient and greener economy. Th is is best explained by one

particular example – the proper management of waste. If

waste is managed well it provides price-competitive recycled

materials, signifi cant emissions of greenhouse gases are

avoided and pollution is minimised, thus helping biodiver-

sity while creating jobs and employment.”

Attitudes towards waste management no doubt diff er

throughout the continent: in some countries this is a hot

topic; an issue that is at the forefront of the minds of most

individuals and businesses, while in others the notion of

‘managing’ waste rather than simply ‘disposing’ of it pre-

vails. Mr. Potocnik is faced with the challenge of changing

this imbalance, tackling attitudes throughout the EU and

engendering a more proactive view of waste management.

“One of the biggest and most challenging steps we face is the

new Waste Framework Directive. Th e directive lays down

‘measures to protect the environment and human health

by preventing or reducing the adverse impacts of the gen-

eration and management of waste and by reducing overall

impacts of resource use and improving the effi ciency of such

use’. Th is means that not only has waste management to be

an environmentally acceptable process in itself but it also

needs to contribute to a more effi cient and ‘greener’ use of

natural resources. Waste prevention and recycling are good

examples of this.”

Issuing and developing an EU-wide waste directive is

just the fi rst step; implementing, managing and advertis-

ing the need to better manage waste quickly becomes the

biggest challenge, reveals Mr. Potocnik. “Th e directive

requires Member States’ waste policies to be aligned with

what we call a ‘waste hierarchy’. Th is means that prefer-

ence should be given to waste prevention, followed in

descending order by preparing waste for re-use, recycling,

other recovery (for example energy recovery), and disposal

such as landfi ll as the last resort. Th e directive will become

national law across the European Union by the end of this

year. It should encourage a fundamental change in at-

titudes towards present policies in many Member States,

notably those who still rely heavily on waste management

with low environmental value, such as landfi lling or inef-

fi cient incineration.

BIG INTERVIEW

“While the

front-runners

have achieved

zero landfi lling

of untreated

waste for some

years now,

others are still

dumping over

90 percent of

their secondary

resources into

a hole in the

ground”

“It’s not just a matter for the authorities – every citizen

can contribute to better waste management, for example by

engaging in separate collection of waste for recycling. We

set the frame through legislation on packaging waste, waste

batteries, electronic waste and old cars. But citizens need to

participate if the full environmental potential of separate

waste collection schemes is to be realised.

“Last but not least is the issue of waste prevention. We

are encouraging less wasteful production processes and

product design. Th ese must be complemented by less waste-

ful consumer attitudes. Some studies indicate that house-

holds could save hundreds of euros each year through simple

changes of attitudes in purchasing food. It would be good for

their budgets and would help avoid environmental damage

due to unnecessary food production.”

Such a unifi ed framework towards waste management

is a nice idea in principle, but Mr. Potocnik is realistic in his

aims. He knows that some member states are more proac-

tive than others. “Producing large amounts of waste is oft en

associated with low overall productivity of the national

economy,” he says. “Simply put, the most resource effi cient

member states are oft en those which also have the most

advanced waste management policy. So a thriving economy

and environmentally good waste management are not only

compatible, they also reinforce each other. In Germany,

for example, nearly half of the copper comes from recycled

scrap. Th is brings signifi cant energy savings, which is good

for the climate, and it avoids unnecessary mining of copper

ore that may help protect bio-diversity.

“At EU level we have a comprehensive system of regula-

tions that enables all member states to have advanced waste

policies, but political will is needed if they are to be eff ective.

One example is the attitude to landfi lls: while the front-

runners have achieved zero landfi lling of untreated waste for

some years now, others are still dumping over 90 percent of

their secondary resources into a hole in the ground.”

Improving attitudesWhile the EU’s directives are clear-cut, the commission

allows some fl exibility for each member state to initiate and

implement its own strategies within the parameters of the


PTFHAEUSSEUR.indd 1PTFHAEUSSEUR.indd 1 28/07/2010 11:0028/07/2010 11:00

44

framework, an approach that Mr. Potocnik believes allows

for responsibility, freedom of choice and a fostering of trust

between nations. “EU directives leave a lot of discretion to

individual member states in terms of detailed implementa-

tion. Th is is encouraged because frame conditions vary a lot

across the Union – just think of geographical conditions, cli-

mate, population density and traditional consumption pat-

terns. However, with this freedom comes the responsibility

to take EU law seriously. Take the example of bio-waste from

kitchens and gardens: this waste can be extremely problem-

atic for the climate if it is left to decompose in a landfi ll. On

the other hand it can deliver valuable compost and bio-gas if

managed well. It is remarkable to see how well some member

states exploit this environmental and economic opportu-

nity, while others do not do enough, although they all have

the same EU legislation at their disposal.

“I have made it one of my priorities to work with all

member states towards the best possible implementation of

EU environmental legislation. For this purpose I will further

encourage and support dialogue between the front-runners

and those who would like to learn from their experience.

I should add that we hold over 30 meetings every year in

Brussels where experts from national waste management au-

thorities come to exchange experiences and learn from each

other. Together with them we are continuously checking the

legislation and, where needed, adapting and modernising it.

“But the Commission is also the guardian of the EU

treaty. Where we fi nd continuous under-performance and

violation of EU law, I have to intervene. Legal proceedings

are a last resort.” Although a last resort, the legal frame-

work that the EU Environment Commission has in place is

binding and should act as enough of a deterrent for every

member state. However, Mr. Potocnik reveals that there are

still unacceptable shortfalls throughout the Union. “Not

only are the diff erences between the implementation and

enforcement of the legislation unacceptably large – a situ-

ation which is bad for the environment – but it also distorts

the competition in the internal market. Th e present crisis

should teach us that we can no longer allow short-sighted

economic solutions such as landfi lling, when structurally

sound long-term investments, for example in recovery and

recycling schemes, produce more value, generate more jobs

and are environmentally superior.”

Top prioritiesSince ascending to the role of EU Environment Com-

missioner, Mr. Potocnik has identifi ed three main priorities

that he believes could and should be tackled during his

tenure, these being biodiversity, resource effi ciency and

implementation of EU Environment law. On the issue of

biodiversity, Mr. Potocnik is eff usively positive at the poten-

tial impact increased awareness of this mandate can have.

“Th is year is the UN International Year of Biodiversity. In

October 2010, the tenth meeting of the Conference of the

Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity

will be held in Nagoya. Th e aim of this meeting will be to es-

tablish a global strategy to halt biodiversity loss and to agree

on common targets.

BIG INTERVIEW

“It’s not just a

matter for the

authorities –

every citizen

can contribute

to better waste

management,

for example

by engaging

in separate

collection

of waste for

recycling”

“In mid-March 2010, the European Environment Min-

isters agreed on a new long-term vision and mid-term head-

line target for biodiversity in the EU for the period beyond

2010, when the current target expires. Th e new target looks

to ‘halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of eco-

system services in the EU by 2020, restore them in so far as

is feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting

global biodiversity loss’. At the end of March, the European

Council committed to this EU post-2010 vision and target

and underscored the urgent need to reverse continuing

trends of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation.

“Concretely, the European Commission plans to pro-

pose a post 2010 EU Biodiversity Policy by the end of 2010 or

early 2011.” Th e decline of biodiversity in Europe is an oft en

overlooked issue, particularly among the media and, by as-

sociation, the general public, but the fact remains that biodi-

versity is an important issue for the continent, and one that

Mr. Potocnik would like to see addressed more seriously. “In

order to raise awareness about the decline in biodiversity (31

percent of Europe’s butterfl y species are declining, more than

40 percent of our birds are threatened, only four percent of

our natural forests remains) and what implications this may

have on our lives and economies, the European Commission

is running a public awareness-raising campaign. We have a

website available in all EU languages [ec.europa.eu/environ-

ment/biodiversity/campaign/] and events have been or will

be launched across the EU.”

Th e issue of resource effi ciency is ostensibly very simple,

but one that Mr. Potocnik is aware can easily be overlooked

or misunderstood. “Resource effi ciency is a key part of the

EU2020 strategy, which aims to transform Europe into a

knowledge-based, resource-effi cient economy. Simply put,

it is about using less of what we have to achieve the same

output, or even greater – a sort of ‘common sense revolu-

tion’. Th is way of thinking has to be applied to our energy

consumption, our natural resources (biodiversity, clean air

and water) and waste management.

“Resource effi ciency is not only about environmental

protection, but needs to be integrated horizontally into other

EU policy areas, such as agriculture, transport, fi sheries,

regional policy etc. Th e European Commission aims to put

forward a Roadmap for a Resource effi cient Europe in 2011.”

Th e third and fi nal priority identifi ed by Mr. Potocnik’s

commission is the implementation of EU Environment

legislation and law. “Th e EU Environment legislation is ex-

tensive and has direct and concrete consequences on many

aspects of European citizens’ lives. Some 80 percent of en-

vironmental laws that exist in EU Member States originate

at EU level. We spend years negotiating between Member

States before agreeing on a common direction. It is impor-

tant that these agreements are followed up, and are fully

and correctly implemented and enforced in all EU Member

States. Th is is one of the tasks of the European Commission,

as guardian of the Treaties. Upon a breach of EU law, the Eu-

ropean Commission will launch an infringement procedure

against the Member State that has failed to comply with EU

regulations. On average, 20 percent of all infringement cases

relate to breaches of EU Environment law.”


45BIG INTERVIEW

Fast FactsThe EU disposes of three billion tonnes of waste annually, 90 million tonnes of which are hazardous (source: Eurostat statistics)

This equates to approximately six tonnes of solid waste per year for every man, woman and child (source: Eurostat statistics)

10% – the increase in waste generated in Europe between 1990 and 1995 (source: OECD)

Estimates by the OECD predict that the EU will produce 45% more waste in 2020 than it did in 1995

67% of waste is either burned in incinerators or dumped in landfi ll sites rather than managed appropriately (source: EU Commission)

Municipal waste generation in Germany and The Netherlands fell in the 1990s, and continues to fall today (source: EU Commission)

Waste, energy and awarenessWith raised awareness comes a greater scrutiny and

responsibility to see through actions and plans. Th e EU

Environment Commission certainly has the vision and the

manpower in place in order to aff ect change, as well as the

technology and cooperation of most Member States. Th e

next challenge, believes Mr. Potocnik, lies in encouraging

greater adoption of new techniques and a wider under-

standing of the potential of technology. “Technologies are

continually developing, but there is also a need to encourage

innovation and dissemination, refi ning known technologies

and making them more widely available on the market. One

example is refi nements to current thermal processes like

gasifi cation and pyrolisis. Another example is bio-refi neries,

where thermal and biochemical processes are used to pro-

duce a wide range of chemical products from biodegradable

waste, including second generation biofuels. Or there is the

well-established example of anaerobic digestion technology

for production of biogas. But the success of these technolo-

gies in the market may depend on the carbon market or

renewable energy subsidies.

“We are also seeing considerable progress in technolo-

gies which allow for more effi cient use of energy that has

already been generated (co-generation, heat recovery, energy

effi cient devices etc.). EU legislation is facilitating their en-

trance to the market.”

Another technology and technique that can be easily

adopted and adapted by EU Member States is the proper

management of bio-waste, which is something that holds

great environmental and economic opportunities, believes

Mr. Potocnik. “Good management approaches [toward

bio-waste] can turn a serious problem, i.e. uncontrolled

climate-gas emissions, into benefi ts for European soils from

high quality compost, renewable energy from bio-gas or

combinations of both. Th e Commission presented its analy-

sis with recommendations for authorities and operators a

month ago. Th e Communication clearly shows that all the

necessary legal instruments are in place, and that it is up to

national authorities to make full use of them.

“Several Member States are already showing that excel-

lent bio-waste management is possible if the law is applied

correctly and rigorously. I am keen to see how this com-

munication will be used by the diff erent actors involved.

Our investigations confi rmed that the maximum benefi ts

are achieved when bio-waste is collected separately and not

contaminated by other waste. I have asked my services to

assess if legal provisions for such separate collections can be

developed to further assist Member States.”

The futureWith such a clear set of goals for the EU’s waste manage-

ment progress and biodiversity awareness, Mr. Potocnik can

be rightly proud and excited about what the coming years

hold. Greater Member States’ awareness is a perpetual goal,

but the signs are that all nations within the EU are keen to

pull together to help implement EU Environment legislation

and improve their green credentials. Th ere is still work to do,

however, before Mr. Potocnik is fully satisfi ed.

“Th ere are three exciting steps ahead of us,” he says.

“One is the imminent review of the long-term strategic

basis for our waste policy. Th is will result in a progress

report on our present ‘Th ematic Strategy for the Preven-

tion and Recycling of Waste’ by the end of this year, fol-

lowed by a full review in 2012. Secondly, Member States

have to transpose the new Waste Framework Directive into

national law by December this year. Th is is arguably one of

the most modern pieces of waste management legislation

in the world. It will be a big challenge and an incredible

opportunity for the EU and Member States alike to make

it work and reap its benefi ts – we foresee a 10-year process

until its last measures, a new set of recycling targets, will be

fully operational. Th e third step is a comprehensive over-

view of our waste legislation in the next few years. We want

to be sure that we are aiming at the right problems, that

we are employing the right instruments and measures and

that we are setting ourselves the right targets for making

the best possible contribution to greening the economy and

improving Europe’s resource effi ciency.”

Exciting times indeed. Tangible achievement of these

aims will spur the Member States on to greater things –

better awareness, more integrated policies, increased civil-

ian participation and the realisation of a greener future for

all. Th ere is still a long way to go, but Mr. Potocnik is happy

with the strides that have been made. “Over the last decade

or so, the EU waste management industry has been a major

success story,” he concludes. “It has provided continuous

growth when many other sectors were struggling. I hope

that this positive trend will continue – what could be more

indicative of a greening economy than a sector that is thriv-

ing because it contributes to better environmental protec-

tion and better management of natural resources? I see a

very dynamic future for this sector – it will probably evolve

from ‘simply’ managing the waste that others are producing

into one of the key players when it comes to managing the

overall life cycle of material and energy resources. For this

it will be necessary to establish a level playing fi eld on the

internal market as well as internationally.

“Th ere must be fair competition between primary and

secondary resources, giving full credit to the environmental

benefi ts created by re-use, recycling and recovery. I believe

that the key elements for this process are in place; my hope is

that together we will make best use of them.”


That familiar sound of chinking cutlery and background chatter fi lls the air all along the picturesque embank-ment of the Ljubljanica River, which winds its pretty path through the historic heart of Ljubljana, the capi-

tal city of Slovenia. Th e local literati mingle contentedly with wealthy German, French and Italian tourists on the plazas of the numerous cafes and restaurants that vie for custom along the riverbank. Th e distant horizon is formed of dazzling snow-peaked mountains, while the imposing Ljubljana Castle looms large from a hilltop over the city, at once charming and peaceful, yet also hinting at a tumultuous past.

Th us far undiscovered by the invading hordes of stag weekenders, Ljubljana’s old world charm, beautifully kept squares, mountain backdrop and laid-back, bohemian atmosphere is reminiscent of Prague perhaps 30 years ago. Quaint yet modern, this stunning city is a testament to its inhabitants and its geographical location. Its progressive residents have helped to forge a national GDP that is among the highest in south eastern Europe; no mean feat when one considers just how close the country came to all-out war with its neighbours less than 20 years ago.

Today, Slovenia remains the only former Yugoslav country to be granted EU entry, having been admitted in 2004. Prior to the troubles in the Balkan region in the early 1990s, Slovenia was seen as the most likely to thrive and prosper. Independence from the Social-ist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFR Yugoslavia) was declared in June 1991 and – but for the brief interferences by the Yugoslav army in Slovenia’s Ten-Day War – the country escaped pretty much unscathed from the catastrophic fallout of the ensuing war in (the former) Yugoslavia.

However, peace in Slovenia became the exception to the rule. By the summer of 1991, a series of confl icts were sparking up throughout the Western Balkans region hundreds of kilometres to the immediate south. Th e entire area (now comprised of Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of Macedonia and Albania) imploded along ethnic and nationalistic lines; Europe and the EU turned its back on the belligerents, and NATO was brought in to try to bring peace and stability to the region, oft en with disastrous consequences as fi re was fought with fi re across the land.

While Ljubljana dodged the damage, other cities of a similar character and size were not so lucky. Sarajevo, Belgrade, Zagreb, Dubrovnik and Mostar all suff ered heavy infra-structural damage throughout the war, forever altering their landscape and severely hin-dering their economic capabilities aft er the wars ended. Smaller towns were incapacitated; road and rail networks destroyed and, perhaps most iconically, Mostar’s Old Bridge was obliterated: images of its rubble-strewn foundations severing the city’s two sides became a powerful symbol of a formerly united region at war with itself.

BUILDINGBRIDGES

CONSTRUCTION46

The Western Balkan region suffered massive infrastructural damage during the troubles of the 1990s. Even today there is still much work to be done, but great strides have been made already, as Ian Clover discovered.

f

Balkan Blues 46Balkan Blues 46 30/07/2010 14:3030/07/2010 14:30

Road to recoveryWe live in relatively trouble-free times today. While Kosovan spats continue to

niggle sporadically, the rest of the region has set about rebuilding, restructuring and, while not quite reuniting, at least displaying some degree of harmony and collaboration. Much of this harmony has been as a result of better economic stability thanks to the aid eff orts of a number of banks and organisations that have been instrumental in assisting the region’s recovery.

One such bank is Germany’s KfW Entwicklungsbank which, along with the Euro-pean Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), has delivered not just fi nancial aid but a guiding hand to the region since the troubles fi rst subsided in the mid 1990s. “Jointly with the EBRD and the EIB we off er long-term fi nancing and, because we are an AAA-rated bank, we combine this fi nancing with a very strong support network and implementation support for infrastructure projects,” says Roland Siller, First Vice President at KfW. “So our support is not all about fi nance; it is also about technical assistance and knowledge transfer.”

By 1995 the Yugoslav troubles had dissipated enough to allow and enable foreign aid to reach the region safely. Th e immediate aft ermath of the war was an immensely critical time – wounds were raw, emotions were high and one false move by any authority, politi-cian or offi cial body could have easily reignited the fragile truce that had tentatively settled across the beautiful but battered Balkan landscape in the weeks and months immediately aft er guns were downed. “Foreign aid to the region peaked twice,” reveals Asteris Huliaris, Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Peloponnese in Greece, and a noted scholar on the Balkan region. “First in the 1995 to 1997 period – when a signifi cant amount of assistance was given to Bosnia, and secondly in 2001-2 aft er NATO bombings had severely damaged Kosovo.”

Huliaris reveals that development assistance for the Balkans between 1995 and 2006 ranged between €6 to €6.5 billion per year. “In Bosnia for the fi rst three years aft er 1995, foreign aid received by the locals was approximately $1400 per head, which is higher than any other fi gure for national state building projects since WWII. Th is money largely went on rebuilding much of the infrastructure that was destroyed by the bombing, with hu-manitarian expertise instrumental in ensuring the money reached its intended recipients.”

Th e situation in the immediate aft ermath of the war was bleak. Europe was faced with its greatest humanitarian disaster since the Second World War, with thousands of dis-placed refugees without homes, running water, electricity or hope. “At KfW, we started with emergency help right aft er the war,” continues Siller. “Th is entailed rehabilitating the major infrastructure of all of the countries that comprise the Western Balkans. Initially this meant ensuring that the water supply was turned back on and remained stable for

CONSTRUCTION 47


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the full 24 hours a day, and then it developed into more structured investments.”

Infrastructure investmentSince that fi rst post-war cleanup and calming period,

the Western Balkans region has hit a number of roadblocks on its path to recovery, but has also overcome just as many hurdles and attained a great number of successes. “Our as-sistance in the region developed over time into a focus on three main issues,” says Siller. “One is municipal infrastruc-ture in the environmental area, such as water sewerage and solid waste management. Th e second area that the KfW is focusing on is renewable energy and the challenges of re-building and integrating the regional electricity market.

“In Bosnia we have, for instance, invested in new hydro power plants and in a new wind farm. Finally, we off er sup-port for micro enterprises and SME-development via the banking sector.”

Working as part of the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF), KfW have entered into a number of collaborative eff orts with the EBRD, the EIB and the In-ternational Monetary Fund (IMF) to help bring stability and prosperity back to the Western Balkans. Following the initial focus on shoring up the countries’ existing infrastruc-ture, the WBIF has pooled and coordinated various sources of fi nance (in the form of leveraged loans and grants) and expertise for ‘priority projects’ in the region, which include supporting SMEs and investing in energy effi ciency.

At the launch of the WBIF, Olli Rehn, European Com-missioner for Enlargement, remarked: “In turbulent times, the EU’s enlargement process provides an anchor of stabil-ity to the countries of the Western Balkans. Th e EU stands by the region to help it alleviate the impact of the economic crisis. Th e Western Balkans Investment Framework is a tangible demonstration of this joint eff ort to support the integration and the economic recovery of the region as it will pool together resources for priority infrastructure projects.” Th e European Commission has so far allocated €110 million in funding for municipal infrastructure proj-ects in the region, in addition to invaluable man hours of technical assistance and expertise. EU Member States are invited to donate, and the various banks involved in the joint frameworks for the region have devised a number of strategies for the careful apportioning of aid and expertise to those countries most in need of it.

“Th ere are a number of joint programmes that KfW and other banks are involved in where it makes sense to share risk,” says Siller. “We co-fi nance bigger projects with the EIB and EBRD, and have just put together a ‘Green for Growth Fund’, an energy-effi ciency framework with the EIB and European Commission, where we also invite private investors to invest. Another project we are co-fi nancing with the EIB is a major investment in the port infrastructure of Zadar in Croatia.”

Th e EU’s involvement in the Western Balkans is an encouraging and clear indication to countries such as Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia that accession to the Union is achievable and something that should be

CONSTRUCTION 49

Bosnia and HerzegovinaIn the immediate aftermath of the war, it soon became apparent that Bosnia and Herzegovina was the most widely devastated region, losing most of its existing transport network and suffering extensive damage to residential areas. Even today, the number of residential dwellings is below 1991 levels.

Bosnia has much work to do on its transportation infrastructure, while Herzegovina’s only rail connections are with Serbia.

SerbiaThe bulk of Serbia’s damage was infl icted upon the country’s bridges and institutional buildings, but the Serbian government has grand plans for its transportation corridors, which it sees as the lifeblood for a reinvigorated economy and infrastructure. It has earmarked €4 billion for its infrastructure, with €1.6 billion to be spent on road networks and €1.1 billion to be spent on its rail networks over the next four years.

CroatiaMany of Croatia’s cities and towns escaped widespread damage, so the country has been able to focus its efforts on repairing its damaged transport network and infrastructure, boosted by EU, public and private funds.

KosovoMassive amounts of foreign aid was ploughed into Kosovo between 1999-2004, totalling $3.1 billion altogether. Today, residential housing remains a problem, as does general utility infrastructure, such as water, electricity and sanitation.

AlbaniaThere is no rail line connecting Albania to its neighbouring Balkan countries. However, the country is on course to complete its section of a four-lane highway connecting Kosovo and Albania to the region’s main road network. This investment is costing €1.4 billion.

MontenegroThe EU has invested more than €131 million in Montenegro’s infrastructure in the past few years, with the country’s road network receiving the bulk of the funds. Other recipients will be local authorities and several government departments.

WORK IN PROGRESS


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CONSTRUCTION 51

strived for. Currently, Croatia is the front-runner thanks to the great strides its infrastructural and political landscape has made since the end of the troubles. “Croatia is certainly much more advanced than a good part of the rest of the Western Balkans,” admits Siller. “I think they still need more investment on their larger infrastructure. Th ey are well-placed to be admitted to the EU in the coming years. However, for us at KfW Development Bank, our focus has now switched to those countries that are still a little way off accession, countries like Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and even Kosovo, who may be looking at 2020 before being granted entry to the EU.”

Corruption concernsSo what could be holding these countries back from

EU membership? Billions of euros have been spent on roads, railways, electricity and water supply, schools, TV and phone lines and other areas of infrastructural impor-tance in the region, yet there remains a very real problem of corruption at some governmental levels. “Much of the aid to the Western Balkans has been wasted,” reveals Huliaris. “Money that was meant for development assistance has been either embezzled by corrupt offi cials or was badly co-ordinated in the fi rst place and hampered by bureaucracy.

“In 1998, the Offi ce of the High Representative, which oversaw the initial stages of Bosnia’s reconstruction, cre-ated an investigative unit that discovered that at least $20 million in aid intended for the rebuilding of public build-ings was embezzled by corrupt offi cials from all ethnic groups. And in 2005, it was revealed that $11 million from the USA meant for the support of national redevelopment in Montenegro’s electricity grid was diverted to overseas accounts. Again in June 2008, the United Nations taskforce on EU-fi nanced operations in Kosovo found evidence of extensive theft , corruption and widespread breaches of contract totalling $80 million.”

Despite the relatively recent fi ndings of corruption in 2008, Huliaris is positive that lessons have been learnt and

foreign aid is now not only making it through to its intend-ed recipients, but that the countries of the Western Balkans are acting more responsibly and transparently than ever before. Aft er all, if EU accession is their aim, they realise that they had better start toeing the line. “Donors have learnt from their mistakes. Th e administrative capacity has gradually improved. Corruption – while still a problem – can be overcome by better aid monitoring and evaluation. In Bosnia for example, there is the Peace Implementation Council, which is a group of 59 countries and interna-tional organisations that provide short humanitarian and construction assistance, sets objectives, monitors progress and establishes benchmarks. A similar programme off ers guidance and oversight in Kosovo too so, although belat-edly, the problems of poor coordination and application are being addressed and overcome.”

One problem that has emerged from such intense in-vestment, involvement and attention on the region is that of ‘enlargement fatigue’, better known as aid dependence. Countries like Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo have an en-trenched mindset and way of doing things that has been forged by decades of striving for independence, decades behind the Iron Curtain and the recent troubles at the turn of the Millennium. Such a fractious history has engendered a diff erent mentality from those in the rest of Europe, and as a result the infl ux of aid and investment has had an impact on the people there. “Bosnia and Kosovo have been suff ering from aid dependency, without a doubt,” remarks Huliaris. “Th ey have found it increasingly diffi cult to cope with fewer grants and reduced free access to aid.”

Such dependence on fi nancial assistance has led to high unemployment rates in the region, particularly in Bosnia where jobless fi gures stand at 45 percent. Old So-cialist mentalities prevail; State help is expected and the relationship between working hard and a better quality of life is skewed. However, there are signs that the people of the Western Balkans are taking on board the lessons and expertise being cast their way by foreign investors.

Despite the vast quantities of funding that have been ploughed into the region, the economic crisis has, inevitably, had a negative impact upon the fi nancial aid fi nding its way to the Western Balkans. A recent

lack of funding has hindered the simultaneous construction of road, rail and air projects, hindering the region’s ability to generate a truly harmonised transport network. When times are tight, it is only natural for governments’ stimulus plans to focus more internally, and the Western Balkans is no different.

However, an improved transport network for the Western Balkans would increase the region’s collective GDP, create jobs and help offset the high trade balance defi cits that currently damage the region’s ability to trade on a level playing fi eld. It would also help to attract tourists and improve social mobility – key indicators of a progressive and stable society. The global

fi nancial crisis has slowed investment into the country, but awareness remains strong; as does the will to assist wherever possible. Integration into the EU is not only sought by the states of the Western Balkans, but by the EU itself. “The Balkans are part of Europe, geographically, culturally, historically, economically, in fact in every way you care to think,” wrote EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik in Eurozine earlier this year. “The fact is that all Balkan countries would today be members of the European Union had the recent terrible war in the region been avoided. But it was not. It happened, and it is a reminder to all of us of how fragile Europe, and especially this region, still is.”

ECONOMIC CRISIS

FACT: Today, the income of the average Croatian is double the income of the average Serb and four times higher than the income of the average Albanian

Above: The Croatian national bank


The beautiful Old Bridge in Mostar had stood for centuries in the heart of the

town in the Herzegovina region of the Balkans before it was bombed in 1993. In 1999, a project to rebuild and restore the Old Bridge to its former grandeur was implemented, jointly fi nanced by the EBRD and via sizeable donations from Spain (who had a large contingent of peacekeeping troops in the town during the troubles). The project was completed in the spring of 2004 and the bridge reopened in July of that year.

REBUILDING THE MOSTAR BRIDGE

The Old Bridge stood for 427

years, until it was destroyed on November 9,

1993

In 1999the World

Monuments Fund formed a coalition

to oversee the reconstruction

The reconstructed

bridge was inaugurated on

July 23, 2004

Reconstruction commenced on

June 7, 2001

Construction began in 1557 and took nine

years

CONSTRUCTION52


If you visit Sarajevo or Belgrade, you will be surprised by the lack of reminders of the war in the 1990s. All of the buildings have been renovated. Bridges have been repaired. Tourism is back

“Th ere is a lot of entrepreneurial spirit in the Balkans,” says Huliaris. “If you travel throughout the region you will be surprised by just how much people are trying to make a living by devising personal strategies for survival and economic stability.

Siller agrees. “We have invested in building up sub-bands of investment like the Pro-Credit network or the European Fund for South East Europe (EFSE), and we can see that there have been strong changes in small and mid-size companies building up. However,” he warns, “I would still say that the infrastructure for these companies is not at a level that we would like. Th ere is still much to be done.”

Modern marvelsChange in the Western Balkans has been impressive,

frustrating, dramatic, bedevilled and sweeping since the end of the troubles. Th e goal of EU membership seems very real for Croatia, while the other countries in the region know that they have some way to go before that dream can become a reality. Political stability and peace have been largely achieved. Prosperity is next on the agenda. “I think we need to be a bit more modest in what we ask for from the region,” says Siller. “Th e changes that have occurred so far – political stability being the main one – have been quite dramatic. But there is still some way to go. We have, for instance, begun programmes on municipal infrastructure such as water and sewerage in Serbia’s secondary cities – this level of regional focus is very important.

“It is the same situation for Albania: KfW is working on a large programme, co-fi nanced by the EU and other investors, on water infrastructure. A third example I could give is on energy, where we are fi nancing a €70 million programme for the fi rst wind farm for Bosnia. Th ere will be a transmission line from Albania to Kosovo, delivering a truly regional project for the energy community in south-east Europe. Having the same standards of energy, water and transport infrastructure in every country in the region is really important.”

Region-wide projects such as these take time. A po-litical climate that is steady helps, as does the continued investment of European banks, the EU and private bene-factors. Corruption is being tackled on a daily basis, and mentalities within the Balkan nations are slowly but surely coming around to a more enterprising way of thinking. “Th ere is certainly a good amount of knowledge there that we can build upon,” says Siller. “At KfW we have a lot of experience in helping municipalities, and in the Balkans we are experiencing a gradual increase in the quality of management of the services and a reduction in technical and administrative losses. For instance, in the programme we have in Serbia we have instilled competitive elements, so if a company is successful in reducing its technical losses, it receives a higher investment in the second term of our programme. So that helps increase professionalism, plus we have engineers on hand to off er support, which is very well received by the institutions. Tendering for projects is better than ever too, so we can be sure that the money gets to where it should go.”

Increased professionalism and transparency is helping the Balkan nations to help themselves. With infrastruc-tural progress steady, cultural and political modernisation is following suit. “I think the Balkans are changing in ways that are not always apparent in statistics,”’ says Huliaris. “For example, if you visit Sarajevo or Belgrade, you will be surprised by the lack of reminders of the war in the 1990s. All of the buildings have been renovated. Bridges have been repaired. Tourism is back. Th e Balkans were, even before the war, portrayed as the Th ird World of Europe, which led to the creation of the term ‘Balkanisation’. Th is is no longer correct. Th e region is improving spectacularly.”

Th e reasons behind such rapid improvement are manifold, and foreign aid and investment has played a massive part in modernising the countries aff ected by the war, enabling citizens to pursue their goals and dreams unhindered, just like their fellow Europeans. “You now have more accountable institutions,” concludes Huliaris. “You have democracy. In almost all of the states the media is freer than ever. A number of well-educated people are returning from the rest of Europe as the economic crisis has forced them home. Economic policies have improved. Foreign aid policies are better. For example, in Kosovo recently 120,000 houses were rebuilt with the minimum of fuss. Refugees have come back. Serbia’s infrastructure has been improved dramatically. Sarajevo is like a diff erent place – even those who have lived there for decades remark at just how much the situation has improved.”

Th ere is still some way to go for Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania. Public infra-structure is still in need of investment; road and rail links between the countries need improving, as do relation-ships; brain drain is still an issue in some of the countries; and ethnic tensions remain. Th at being said, a more pros-perous region, with more economic equality, will lead to greater harmony and collaboration, which can only help ease future tensions and set every nation on the path to-wards the promised land of EU membership. Th e EU’s Foreign Aff airs Chief, Catherine Ashton, said recently in a statement: “Integrating the Western Balkans into the European family of nations remains one of the last challenges to building a democratic and unifi ed Europe.” Music, no doubt, to the ears of the millions in the region who still remember the all-too recent horrors of the last war, and the hopelessness of a situation that looks to have a bright future over the not-too distant horizon.

KfW Entwicklungsbank (the German Development Bank) Acting on behalf of the German federal government, KfW Entwicklungsbank fi nances investment and advisory services in developing countries. It generally works together with government institutions in the countries concerned. Its aim is to build up and expand a social and economic infrastructure and to create effi cient fi nancial institutions while protecting resources and ensuring a healthy environment.

CONSTRUCTION 53


EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW54

Why did you decide to set up a consultancy that is also a professionals network?Stefano Mainero. I have been working in European proj-

ects for 15 years and I’ve found that working together with

professionals who possess diff erent cultural backgrounds

and experiences makes everyone grow faster.

One of my main expertises is Intelligent Transport

Systems (ITS), a transport discipline that appeared during

the mid-1980s as Road Transport and Traffi c Telematics

(RTTT) and evolved into ITS one decade later. At that

time ITS was concerned only with solutions for traffi c in-

frastructures. In this century, ITS was seen also as a tool

to improve air quality and road safety. Today, ITS includes

new services for travellers and communications between

vehicles and road infrastructures to enhance safety. Th ere

are also psychological studies on how ITS infl uences driv-

ers’ behaviour.

As we see, experts in diff erent topics can now sit to-

gether to work on an ITS project, which was impossible to

foresee 25 years ago. A professionals network helps to fi nd

the right skills at the right time for a specifi c project. Th is

generates an economy of scale.

How does belonging to a Professionals Network give added value to individuals as well as companies?SM. Each of us has a number of friends and acquaintances

that work in diff erent fi elds. Th e same happens to organisa-

tions that have their own relationships, either commercial

or technical. When someone has got a question to ask, a

topic to discuss, a partner to look for, usually they go fi rst

to their closer circle of connections. If they belong to a

Network, such as EPN Consulting, they can ask whether

these requests can be satisfi ed by some members. If nobody

is able to do it, then the Network will search for solutions

among its 2nd or 3rd level of connections, which increases

exponentially the chances of success.

Does a professionals network help to prepare Euro-pean projects and national/international calls for tenders?SM. Sure. For example, EPN Consulting is a not only a

professionals network but also a consulting fi rm. One

of its services is assisting clients in preparing European

projects proposals and helping them to manage project

activities once it is approved for funding and kicked-off .

Th ere are basically four situations companies can be

in: i) they have innovative ideas but lack partners; ii) they

have partners but not ideas; iii) they have both partners and

ideas but not the time nor skills to prepare the proposal and,

fi nally, iv) they would like to participate because they have

innovative ideas/products but don’t know how to proceed.

Each of these cases can be tackled more easily if they

are part of a network. In particular, EPN Consulting could

help them to fi nd tailored solutions.

Th e same applies to call for tenders. Larger bids are

divided into lots and each lot covers a specifi c topic (ITS,

Telecommunications, ICT, etc.). Within EPN Consulting

it is easier to fi nd the right partner(s) for the right lot.

Conversely, EPN Consulting informs members about new

calls for European projects and/or bid opportunities that

individuals and companies may not be aware of.

How can a professionals network deliver innovation?SM. When professionals are inter-connected they can be

easily contacted by other members or their acquaintances.

Innovation is the act of introducing a new idea or concept;

when ideas are shared among professionals with diff erent

cultural background they can be discussed and improved.

Th e fact that comparing diff erent solutions to fi nd the one

that will meet all requirements will introduce a harmoni-

sation that didn’t exist before. Th is is innovation.

EPN Consulting fi rmly believes in networking and its

consulting service greatly benefi ts from expertise and sug-

gestions coming from all members.

Connected professionals produce better results

Dr. Ing Stefano Mainero explains why connecting professionals together is important to accomplish innovative results.

Dr. Ing Stefano Mainero is Founder and Managing Director of EPN Consulting, The European Professionals Network. He has 15 years’ experience in consultancy on European projects and Intelligent Transport Systems, helping private companies and public organisations to solve their issues by promoting innovation.

EPN.indd 54EPN.indd 54 30/07/2010 14:4430/07/2010 14:44

Business Hub

• Raising Awareness• Promoting Expertise• Exchanging Know-How• Generating New Business Opportunities

EPN Consulting LimitedPortland House | Stag Place | London | SW1E 5RS | United Kingdom

• Different Cultural Backgrounds Put Together• Different Expertise Merged and Complemented• Promoting Lateral Thinking To Find Bright Solutions• Focused to Europe To Value Commonalities and Differences

Innovative Network of Professionals

Business Hub

Consultancy

Tel.: +44 (0) 207 869 8015

Fax: +44 (0) 207 869 8001

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.EPNconsulting.eu

European Projects

• Consortium Building• Ideas Evaluation• Proposal and Budget Preparation• Project Management, Coordination and Dissemination• Partnership

ITS & Sustainable Transport

• Road Transport• Public Transport• Multi-modal Transport• Logistics

Innovation

• Methodologies• Procedures• Technologies• Products

Knowledge Transfer

• Communication Methodologies• Business Management• Productivity Enhancement• Resources Optimisation

BE CONNECTED. BE CONTACTEDJOIN EPN CONSULTING

INNOVATIVE NETWORK OF PROFESSIONALS | CONSULTANCY | BUSINESS HUB

EPN CONSULTING.indd 1EPN CONSULTING.indd 1 30/07/2010 14:3430/07/2010 14:34

TRANSPORT FOCUS56

There have been numerous attempts to bring

Europe together over the past few decades.

As a former warring, disparate and occasion-

ally fi ercely independent corner of the globe,

the challenges of uniting this kaleidoscope

of nations have been great and wide-ranging.

Th ere have been a few successes – the European and mon-

etary union (largely, anyway), the ability to get by in the

de facto lingua franca of English, and the unfathomable

hysteria generated by part-time talent show rejects given

their 15 minutes of fame at the annual Eurovision Song

Contest – but the continent is still some way off a United

States of Europe.

However, in terms of physical, tangible cooperation,

there have been a number of successes. Motorists can now

drive comfortably from the depths of Deptford in England

to the French Riviera with barely any problems, save for

a bit of queuing at Dover and the occasional erratically

driven Citroen C2V swerving comically into a beret-wear-

Raimund Desalla, Commercial Head of Directorate for Central and Eastern Europe at STRABAG speaks to EU Infrastructure about the challenges involved in knitting the continent together through large-scale construction projects.

EURO VISION

Strabag.indd 56Strabag.indd 56 30/07/2010 15:0030/07/2010 15:00

TRANSPORT FOCUS 57

ing gentleman on a bicycle adding stereotypical hazards

to their journey. Low-cost air carriers serve every corner

of the continent with impressive ease and regularity, and

the high-speed rail network is spreading across Europe at a

remarkably seamless pace.

One of the companies heavily involved in the con-

struction of much of Europe’s transport infrastructure

is STRABAG, where they are proving instrumental in

modernising and integrating the road network of Eastern

and Central Europe. Countries such as Poland, Hungary,

Romania and Bulgaria are benefi ting hugely from their

recent accession to the European Union, and public-pri-

vate partnerships (PPP) are proving the catalysts for these

countries’ transport networks, bringing them in line with

much of their western neighbours on the continent. “We

have a young and growing PPP segment to our business,”

says Raimund Desalla, Commercial Head of Directorate

for Central and Eastern Europe at STRABAG. “Th ere

are currently 29 projects under our jurisdiction, which

include the large A2 motorway section II in Poland and a

number of mini-projects totalling €7 million.”

Desalla is convinced that PPP projects are not only a

great business initiative for construction companies, but

that they are also invaluable in raising the infrastructural

standards of countries that have lagged behind the rest

of the continent for decades. “PPP will be increasingly

important as a public sector procurement method for

companies, but also in the assistance and creation of large

motorway projects, including those in Poland, Hungary

and Ireland, which we are currently involved in.”

Collaborative actionsStrong partnerships are essential in the construction

industry, so a jointly funded initiative that has the capital

backing of the government and the expertise, capital and

contacts of the top-bidding companies will ensure that

all projects are completed to the highest specifi cations.

“With PPP, the client and the contractor work together

as partners,” explains Desalla. “Th e introduction of joint

controlling and the early inclusion of the contractor in

the planning phase helps to minimise the risk for both

parties while also raising security in terms of quality,

costs and deadline.”

In Poland, modernisation of the country’s road and

rail network has been a priority for the Polish government

and the European Union for some time. As one of the

larger countries in Europe, and the gateway between Ger-

many and Russia, Poland’s importance as a transport hub

has grown dramatically in the past few years. Th e need

for growth and modernisation is, therefore, paramount

for a fully connected Europe. “Th e largest project in our

company’s history is currently taking place in Poland,”

says Desalla. “Section II of the A2 motorway is our chief

project right now, with an investment volume of €1.6 bil-

lion, which dwarfs the level of investment we are putting

into projects in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Ireland.”

Elsewhere in Eastern Europe, STRABAG has recently

opened the M6/M60 motorway in Hungary, adding an

extra-effi cient thoroughfare linking northern Europe

with the Balkan states and the Adriatic Sea.

Environmental concernsAs one of the largest construction companies in the

world, STRABAG has a distinct responsibility to give due

consideration to the environmental impact the company’s

projects have throughout Europe and beyond. “We are

working on a number of projects within and outside of

Europe,” explains Desalla. “We are building in Abu Dhabi

and elsewhere beyond the Central and Eastern European

region, including skyscrapers in Th e Netherlands and large

projects in Russia, so of course environmental and sustain-

ability matters are a cause for consideration in all we do.

“One of the things we have been looking at is the fos-

tering of the construction of buildings that operate in an

environmentally friendly manner and produce low levels of

emissions. Th e successful implementation of this strategy is

evident in the certifi cations that we have already received

for a number of the buildings we have constructed, includ-

ing the Z-two offi ce building in Stuttgart, which won the

silver certifi cation and is one of the fi rst buildings in Ger-

many to be certifi ed according to sustainability criteria.

“Another arm of our business – and something that is

important throughout the whole of Europe – is our com-

mitment to investing in environmentally friendly projects

such as off shore wind facilities, establishing business units

that promote these projects. We also conduct intense re-

search in the fi elds of sustainable materials.”

Europe-wide concerns over the environment are well

documented. Sustainability targets are regularly set by

the EU Commission, so the notion that all nations are

able to work together in order to reduce their carbon

emissions is an important one for the continued strength

of a united Europe.

Desalla is acutely aware that, no matter where their

next project, it is important for construction companies

to heed Europe-wide governances on environmental tar-

gets. “In terms of resources, we have a comparably dense

network of our own raw materials: we are self-suffi cient

by 80 percent in asphalt production, and approximately

40 percent in concrete.” Such self-suffi ciency ensures that

the company can bid for projects throughout the continent

safe in the knowledge that all environmental concerns re-

garding the sourcing of materials have already been taken

into consideration, which not only aids effi ciency but is

also a far more accurate indicator at the planning and bid-

ding stage.

Whether physical, political or ideological, a strong

and united Europe is getting ever closer. Better integra-

tion and harmonisation of the roads, rail and aviation is

key to ensuring that ideas, proposals and political agendas

– which include issues concerning sustainability and the

environment – can be delivered to the required standard.

Eastern Europe is playing catch up, but there is a discern-

able diligence across the continent that should ensure

a more balanced, even-footed Europe is closer to reality

with every passing day.

“PPP will be

increasingly

important as

a public sector

procurement

method for

companies,

but also in the

assistance and

creation of

large motorway

projects,

including those

in Poland,

Hungary and

Ireland”

Strabag.indd 57Strabag.indd 57 30/07/2010 15:0030/07/2010 15:00

POLAND FOCUS58

Poland’s road and rail infrastructure has a major task on its hands in order to be up to the job of ensuring the European Championships of 2012 are a logistical success, discovers EU Infrastructure.

While the rest of the world has been devour-ing the footballing feast served up by the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Poland – their team absent from the tournament

– has been quietly busying itself in preparation for the next festival of football, the European Championships of 2012, jointly hosted by Ukraine and Poland.

Sentiment towards the two former Soviet States has been universally benevolent and supportive, yet there have been signs in recent months that the traditional western worries of ineffi cient construction and unrealistic governmental goals will combine to delay and hinder the countries’ preparations. Poland has received plenty of fi -nancial investment since both its accession to the EU and it being awarded the tournament, yet there are still some nagging concerns that the country’s road, rail and aviation infrastructure is not of suffi cient standard to cope with the infl ux of fans that such a global spectacle inevitably attracts.

However, precedent tells us that nations get the job done by hook or by crook: Athens was bedevilled with the same accusations prior to the Olympics in 2004 but hosted the games splendidly; this year, there were very real con-

cerns that South Africa’s stadia and infrastructure would not be ready in time for the World Cup, yet everything went swimmingly. Besides, beyond the European Cham-pionships, Poland has a number of other reasons to mod-ernise, not least because a fully harmonised and integrated transport network with the rest of Europe will enable the country to fully realise its potential as an important hub and commerce link between east and west.

On the roadOne of the main infrastructural projects currently

under construction in Poland is the A2 motorway, which is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) enterprise between the Polish government and Austria’s STRABAG construction company that is being funded by the European Investment Bank (EIB). “Th e funding that Poland has received from the EIB, especially the €1 billion for the 105km of the western part of the A2 motorway, has been signifi cantly helpful,” says Senior Construction Analyst for PMR Consultants, Bartlomiej Sosna. “Without fi nancial assistance from the EIB, the concessionaire would have serious problems with project fi nancing. Other PPP projects have been delayed because of a lack of funding, including a 180km section

One of a few roads linking Poland to the Ukraine

Model and subsequent construction of the

National stadium in Warsaw

Polish Feature 58Polish Feature 58 30/07/2010 14:3630/07/2010 14:36

POLAND FOCUS 59

of the A1 motorway that will no longer be ready in time for Euro 2012. However, the A2 is, I’m happy to report, on schedule.”

Poland’s road infrastructure is undergoing a rapid overhaul as the country strives to hit its deadlines for Euro 2012 and improve its appalling road safety record, where road deaths are double the EU average. Bullish pledges by the government that they are going to construct 3,000km of highways in time for the championships do not help in managing expectations, but Sosna is confi dent that things are moving, smoothly, in the right direction. “At present there is approximately 770km of motorways and express-ways under construction tilted 55 percent in favour of expressways. Between 2006 and 2009 that fi gure was some-where between 400-500km, so there has been a defi nite uplift . In recent years the tendering process has fi nally been streamlined, the results of which will be seen come 2012 and the European Championships.”

Potential is slowly being realised, but there is still some way to go, warns Sosna. “Th ere is still approximately 3,000km of expressways to be built [only 650km currently exists], while the national PKP Polish Railway group has encountered a number of problems with project prepara-tion and co-fi nancing. Some sections of the country’s rail infrastructure are undergoing modernisation at the moment, but it is only a real small percentage compared to the initial plans that were drawn up immediately aft er Poland was awarded Euro 2012.”

Th e EU will have to ensure that there is a continued eff ort to aid construction and modernisation even aft er Euro 2012, because although there has been clear improve-ment already, a number of essential projects are unlikely to be completed in time, with completion dates for a number of the rail and road projects expected around 2015. It is im-portant that no impetus is lost in the immediate aft ermath of the competition.

Taking fl ightIn terms of aviation, however, Poland is most defi -

nitely on track. Ambitious plans for expansion and mod-ernisation throughout a number of the country’s airports have been well implemented in a realistic and considered manner. “Th e situation with Poland’s aviation infrastruc-ture is rather good,” says Sosna. “A predicted increase in the number of fl ights coming in to the country means that many terminals would, at current levels, run out of capac-ity capability very soon, but expansion projects have been prepared well in advance and the whole process has been advancing well, thanks in part to the added pressure Euro 2012 has brought.”

Th e severe winter of 2010 slowed the speed of construc-tion throughout Eastern Europe, with Poland particularly hard-hit. Resulting delays have slowed the sector’s growth to just 4-5 percent, but there is still optimism throughout the industry that Poland is robust enough, proud enough and ambitious enough to hit its targets, put on a good show in 2012 and continue to grow and modernise long aft er the fans and the football have gone home.

OUT OF AFRICA

After the Vuvuzelas were packed away, the triumphant Spanish waved off to Madrid with the World Cup safely stowed, and the thousands of fans, TV crews, street vendors and various dignitaries whisked back home, what did the World Cup leave South Africa with, aside from a few memories of that glorious four weeks of football-fuelled fun?

Stadia: The stadiums for the 2010 South Africa World Cup were completed €203 million over budget, with the host cities picking up the additional expense. Durban’s 56,000-seater World Cup Stadium was completed at the behest of FIFA just a few hundred metres from the existing Kings Park Stadium, which, despite holding 50,000, did not meet FIFA requirements. Throughout the country it is a similar story – gleaming new stadiums that looked great during the tournament now run the very real risk of becoming expensive white elephants if a use cannot be found for them.

Transport: President Zuma claims that 33 billion rand (€3.3 billion) was spent on transport infrastructure, telecommunications and stadia, although more than a third was spent on the latter. The main highways between the larger cities that hosted World Cup games have been improved, as have some sections of the rail network, but there is still much work to do throughout the rest of the country.

Construction: The World Cup created an extra 6,000 jobs in the construction sector, but the

future situation for many thousands of workers is not so positive: unions are predicting high

unemployment in the coming months. Optimists, however, point to the fact that thousands of

previously inexperienced workers can now add ‘Helped to build the World Cup stadia’ to their

barren CVs.

Reputation: What the World Cup of 2010 really achieved for South Africa was the sweeping away of previously held notions that the country is awash with gun crime and violence. A peaceful and happy tournament has changed that perception, so much so that Johannesburg’s Grant Thornton Strategic Solutions anticipates an extra 2.2 million tourists will visit the country over the next fi ve years, all on the back of the successful World Cup.

years, all d Cup

n the very real

Polish Feature 59Polish Feature 59 30/07/2010 14:3630/07/2010 14:36

ASK THE EXPERT60

Concluded on 21 November 2007, the

Concession Agreement includes the

fi nancing, construction, operation

and maintenance of the M6/M60 Mo-

torway within the framework of a Public Private

Partnership. A special feature of the 80km M6/

M60 Motorway is the tunnel chain, which is

unique in Hungary and consists of four tunnels

with viaducts between, totalling a length of more

than 5km.

Th e concession company (shareholders

Strabag AG, Colas SA, John Laing Infrastruc-

ture and Intertoll-Europe) successfully deliv-

ered this section of motorway in Hungary to a

very stringent programme by the end of March

2010. Th is achievement was made possible by

all stakeholders participating in the eff orts to

deliver their respective share, including the

public sector participation.

Th e implementation of the tunnel chain,

taking into account the total length of tunnels

and viaducts, site conditions and lack of local

staff with relevant experience, represented a

challenge from both a construction and an op-

erational point. Th e special purpose operations

company established for this project, Mecsek

Autópálya Üzemeltető (established by Intertoll,

Colas and Strabag), has a dual role: to deliver the

motorway and tunnel management systems, and

routine operations of the project road.

Th e operational activity on the open road is

similar to other Hungarian motorways and in-

cludes routine and ad hoc maintenance works

and winter operational tasks in which Intertoll

has decades of international experience. Th e

major challenge was the operations and main-

tenance of the tunnel chain.

Th e centre of the tunnel operations is the

control room in the Operations and Mainte-

nance Centre located in Bátaszék. Th is room,

with the state-of-the-art video wall and central

control units, is the nerve centre of the tunnel

operations. Th e operations controllers are on

duty in the control room on a 24/7 basis, 365

days of the year, monitoring the tunnel traffi c

and the technical status of equipment ready to

intervene to safeguard the road users and infra-

structure, if required. To ensure their support,

road patrols and a team of system technicians,

electricians and repairmen is also available.

Based on a pre-determined emergency plan;

in the event of an emergency automatic sequences

shall start the necessary control processes in the

SCADA system to aid the operators. Th e basic

concept for developing the motorway manage-

ment equipment system architecture was to form

a unifi ed integrated information system for sub-

system equipment on the open road and in the

tunnels. Th e objective was operational continuity

through redundancy combined with ease of op-

Tunnels ahead

Integrated motorway management equipment supports ensuring safety of the road users on Hungary’s fi rst tunnel chain”, says Zoltán Pap.

Zoltán Pap is Project Development Director of Intertoll Europe, an independent toll and motorway infrastructure developer and operator –a wholly owned subsidiary of Group Five, a major construction group in South Africa. Zoltan has been involved in developing motorway concession projects since the mid nineties. After working for Intertoll overseas he joined Intertoll Europe in 2001.

eration and maintenance with optimised spare

parts management.

Data from the roadside equipment is trans-

ferred to a data control unit located near the

installation point, from there via fi bre optic

backbone to the central data unit and then

to two geographically separated redundant

servers. A redundant optical ring network is

installed in the tunnel chain section to ensure

uninterrupted communication.

Th e emergency Call System includes SOS

call boxes every two kilometres along the mo-

torway, and every 150 metres in the tunnels.

Th ere are also emergency panic buttons every

50 metres. A meteorological subsystem provides

measured data from the road that supports the

winter maintenance.

CCTV cameras installed both on the open

road and in the tunnels provide continuous visual

cover and record video streams automatically in

case of an emergency. Traffi c Logging Equip-

ment installed at nine locations along the road

performs counting and classifi cation of vehicles

provides required traffi c data. In addition, two of

these sites are equipped with High Speed Weigh-

in-Motion sensors to provide statistical informa-

tion about overloading. TLE in tunnels monitors

for dangerous traffi c conditions.

Optical Height Gates are installed ahead of

the tunnel portals to detect vehicles that are above

the height limit of the tunnels and enable the op-

erator to prevent such vehicles from entering the

tunnels by the means of traffi c lights and variable

signage alerts. Additional features include venti-

lation system jet fans installed in tunnels longer

than 500 metres and controlled automatically,

taking into account wind velocity, visibility, CO2

levels and any potential fi re hazard. It must be

noted that the above systems are necessary for

ensuring the continual safety of the road users.”

Intertoll.indd 60Intertoll.indd 60 30/07/2010 14:4530/07/2010 14:45

INTTERTOLL AD.indd 4INTTERTOLL AD.indd 4 28/07/2010 10:5928/07/2010 10:59

COMMUNICATIONS62

EXTRA TPhil godfrey.indd 62Phil godfrey.indd 62 30/07/2010 14:4230/07/2010 14:42

COMMUNICATIONS 63

TERRESTRIAL

TETRA’s continued advancement and improvement is increasingly meeting the needs of traditional mobile radio user organisations. TETRA Association’s Chairman Phil

Godfrey tells EU Infrastructure how the standard bearer for the industry is looking to expand its services.

The TETRA World Congress 2010 took place in May in Singapore. What made you decide to hold the event there?Phil Godfrey. Well, traditionally we used to hold the event in various parts of Europe,

but TETRA has become a global standard so we felt that it was appropriate to not expect

everybody to want to come to Europe, and the Asia Pacifi c region is the fastest-growing

region and probably has the greatest potential still. So two years ago we decided to go to

Asia and we went to Hong Kong, which was a very successful event. Th en we were back in

Munich last year, and then decided it was appropriate to go back to Asia this year.

You are in Budapest next year. Is it something that you will look to alternate be-tween Europe and Asia?PG. Th at is what seems to have happened in the last few years. Th ere are various pressures

to go elsewhere, particularly South America or even Central America. We have also been

trying for some time to open up the North American continent. We have had various

meetings with both the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC in the US, and

also their equivalent, which is Industry Canada in Canada. And the FCC invited us to

demonstrate, but part of the problem is that because TETRA packs an awful lot of infor-

mation into a single 25 kHz channel, it actually exceeds their current analogue emission

mask by a very small margin.

Th at does not imply that it is more likely to cause interference, it is just that they still

use a mask that a transmitter has to fi t inside of, which was originally developed for the

old 25 kHz analogue radios. So in North America they recognise that the steeper sides

of TETRA make it a good neighbour to other technologies and invited us to apply for a

waiver. We actually had a meeting with the FCC in May to see what progress was being

made. It is taking longer than we had hoped but they still seem quite positive.

Phil godfrey.indd 63Phil godfrey.indd 63 30/07/2010 14:4330/07/2010 14:43

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COMMUNICATIONS 65

How has the TETRA technology – particularly TEDS (Tetra Enhanced Data Service) – matured and evolved?PG. A number of years ago we decided that we needed to

make sure that TETRA remains an up-to-date technology,

and so we had a working group to look at what enhance-

ments were needed to the standard to make sure that it

was good for the future. Th at working group came up with

a number of items that were fed into ETSI, and they did

the standardisation work to standardise those enhance-

ments. Range extension was considered an important item,

particularly for air to ground use, because transmissions

obviously go a lot further from airborne equipment, and so

range extension was one new codex or sound device. But

the most important was an enhanced data service.

If you go back to when TETRA was originally speci-

fi ed, which was back in the early 1990s, if you were lucky

your landline modem would give you a speed of 14.4kbs. It

sounds ridiculous in today’s age of super-fast broadband,

but that actually was the case. And so at 28.8kbs we classed

TETRA as high-speed data; but that of course has been

long since overtaken. We came up with a suite of standards

for producing a higher speed data rate depending on the

modulation scheme that you use and also the channel

bandwidth that you use. But TED specifi es anything up to

about 600kbs, while the most popular in a 50 kHz channel

will give you about 150kbs. With that you can actually do

quite a lot, including accessing online databases and even a

certain amount of video.

Tell us more about TETRA’s video capabilities.PG. It is obviously not catering for high-speed streaming,

but it depends on what you want to send. For example, if

you have a police control centre that has a reported little

girl lost and they want to send a photograph out to every-

body’s handset, then obviously, this can be done using

TETRA release 1, but you can do it a lot quicker with TED.

Th is standardisation work was completed two and a

half years ago. Just before the World Congress, EADS an-

nounced that they delivered TEDs products to the Finnish

police, and they were in the process of going through ac-

ceptance testing of those. Also during the World Congress

Motorola launched their TEDs products. So we were really

pleased – having talked about TEDs for quite a long time –

see actual products fi t in the market.

What makes TETRA so reliable and important for mis-sion-critical users like the police force?PG. TETRA is a technology that was designed specifi cally

for people in working groups who, therefore, need to com-

municate in groups. Th at sets it apart from any of the cel-

lular technologies: 1G, 2G, 3G, and even 4G, which are all

based around the principle of-person-to-person calling or

accessing data from a single point. TETRA is quite specifi -

cally designed for people who work in groups. Th e reason

that TETRA is quite a complex technology is because the

mobility management of tracking fl eets of people across

what can be a nationwide infrastructure is complicated:

if somebody makes a call to his home group and two or

three people have gone over to the other side of the country,

they can still be included in that group, but in an effi cient

manner. In other words, you don’t light up the entire coun-

try’s transmitters to make that call. Th is is actually quite a

complex process to do – to track the people, know where

they are, know whether they should or should not be in-

cluded in a particular call etc.

Is TETRA unique in this respect?PG. Th ere are very few technologies that are designed

specifi cally to do this. TETRA is one. Th ere was a French-

developed technology that became known as TETRAPOL

– which has nothing to do with TETRA – for the police;

they were obviously jumping in on the name. Th en there’s

Project 25 in the US; there are one or two other proprietary

technologies, but Project 25 was designed more towards

low-capacity systems operating over large areas. If you

consider the geography of the US you can understand why

they have optimised it in that way.

TETRA is designed more for high-capacity networks

with high functionality and has become the standard

worldwide.

How important is TETRA’s reliability in overload situa-tions?PG. Very. If you compare TETRA with cellular technolo-

gies, and if you take something like the London bombings,

the fi rst thing that happens is everybody jumps on to their

mobile phone to call home and say, “I’m all right.” Th e

networks cannot cope with that sort of demand; they are

not sized for it and they are not designed for it and so the

networks either collapse, or in some cases they are actually

switched off for security reasons, because some people trig-

ger bombs using mobile phones.

Phil Godfrey


LONGPHONE.indd 1LONGPHONE.indd 1 28/07/2010 10:5928/07/2010 10:59

COMMUNICATIONS 67

Th e TETRA networks for mission critical users are

specifi ed and designed to cope with peak loads of traffi c,

and they have priority mechanisms and graceful fallback

mechanisms that are designed specifi cally to cope with very

high peak demand.

How is Europe utilising TETRA in cross-border interoper-ability?PG. Th e TETRA release 1 included within its specifi cation

an interface called the intersystem interface, which was

really designed to enable cross-border working. In particu-

lar in the public safety circles in the very early days there was

a telecommunications group as part of the Schengen agree-

ment, who were given the task of making sure that when the

physical borders came down in Europe, policemen chasing

criminals could drive across borders and continue to work,

making sure that networks were capable of being connected

together to provide that level of cross-border working, and

that specifi cation was called the intersystem interface.

It has actually been rather slow in coming to market. In

the early days of TETRA the manufacturers were under a

lot of pressure to get the core technology out and to keep in-

troducing more and more of the functionality. So the inter-

system interface tended to get overlooked. However, a lot of

the national public safety agencies are now pressing for this.

As TETRA expands into new markets, how challenging is the issue of interoperability?PG. Th e new markets have been a bit more forward in de-

manding the technology. But this is made more diffi cult by

the fact that diff erent manufacturers have diff erent archi-

tectures for their networks. Th e two main manufacturers of

infrastructure are EADS and Motorola, so it is getting those

two to work together that has been probably the biggest chal-

lenge, because their networks are completely diff erent. Th ey

have been working together; they’ve been making some

progress, although admittedly it has been a bit slow.

EADS has the contract to supply infrastructure for

Germany and also for Sweden, so they have continued to

work on the intersystem interface and have managed to get

that working between their own networks. So they are two

completely independent national networks, but they’re both

EADS, which makes it slightly easier.

How do you ensure that neither security nor interoper-ability is compromised?PG. Security is an extremely important subject. Within

the TETRA Association we have a special group called the

Security and Fraud Prevention Group that is specifi cally

responsible for all aspects of security over TETRA networks.

Th ey handle all of the encryption issues and most police net-

works, and probably most public safety network that include

a certain amount of encryption.

Th ere are various types of encryption; you can encrypt

just the air interface so that nobody listening in with a scan-

ner would be able to understand anything, even if they have

a TETRA decoder. But many organisations feel that that does

not give them enough protection, because somebody in the

telephone exchange could tap into the landline feed and pick

off the conversations there. So for those that feel they need

additional levels of security, they will implement something

called end-to-end encryption, which means that the link

from one user to the other user is fully encrypted all the way,

regardless of how many switches it goes through. TETRA is

a digital technology, and therefore all of the voice that goes

from one user to another user is already digitised. So to add

encryption in itself is not that diffi cult; it does not slow down

the messages – all you do is scramble up the bits before you

transmit them and then unscramble them on the other end.

Th e most important thing is managing the encryption

keys. You need to change them regularly; you need to make

sure that only the right people are allowed to get access to

those keys. And there are strategies for doing that, and the

Security and Fraud Prevention Group covers this as part of

their role.

What steps are you taking to ensure that TETRA remains relevant in the future?PG. Th e next step is where what has colloquially become

known as TETRA release 3 comes in. We eff ectively asked

our users, “Okay, guys, what is it you’re going to need for

the future?” Th at was actually quite a diffi cult task, because

many of the public safety users in particular are still trying

to cope with the level of functionality that they’ve recently

been given.

If you think back over the years, most public safety

agencies have been working with open channel, “Can you

hear me, Charlie? Over” radios. And now that they have the

levels of functionality that TETRA gives them, they can have

the ability to create diff erent groups and dynamic groups, so

they are now asking us, “Right, now that we’re no longer lim-

ited in our procedures by the limitations of the communica-

tions network, let’s go back and see how we can make most

effi cient use of our personnel by modifying or confi guring

the network accordingly.”

But the clear response that has come back from users

is that everything is going data: the ability to have offi cers

fi lling in reports on the street, the ability for them to query

databases, access images and all that sort of thing is clearly

going to be an advantage to us, and therefore we need a

higher-speed data than we have currently. So the next chal-

lenge for our engineers is mobile broadband. We are looking

at some of the available technologies, such as WiMAX and

LTE, to see whether or not those technologies could form

the basis of a third generation of TETRA or whether they are

too far adrift and we would be better starting with a clean

sheet of paper.

Clearly we do not want to reinvent the wheel, but some-

times it is actually easier to do that than to make major

modifi cations to another technology.

Phil Godfrey is the Chairman of the TETRA Association. He has been in the mobile radio industry for over 30 years with Pye, Philips and fi nally Simoco where he became Market Development Director. Godfrey was one of the founding members of the TETRA Association back in 1994 and has been instrumental in developing the standard into a globally recognised technology. In addition to his role with the TETRA Association Godfrey also runs his own consulting business.

“TETRA

is a digital

technology, and

therefore all of

the voice that

goes from one

user to another

user is already

digitised. So to

add encryption

in itself is not

that diffi cult”


ASK THE EXPERT68

Public safety networks deliver information di-

rectly to professionals in order to help them

make eff ective decisions. TETRA is regarded as

the cornerstone of the majority of public safety

networks around the globe, while the deployment of Tetra

Enhanced Data Services (TEDS) is enhancing public

safety further through innovation and improvements in

both radios and other devices.

With public safety bodies facing increasing demands

as a result of growing populations and increasingly com-

plex social and technical infrastructures, networks need

to adapt in order to help public safety personnel work effi -

ciently and eff ectively. As a result, technology has evolved

in order to ensure the maintenance of the very highest

levels of performance in mission-critical situations.

The next generation of public networksTh e importance of TETRA must not be understated.

TETRA provides a cost-eff ective, resilient network ca-

pable of accessing data nationwide, enabling offi cers to

access information such as vehicle registration data or the

missing person’s register while out in the fi eld.

TEDS provides the same cost-effi cient coverage foot-

print as TETRA but with faster data speeds and it allows

many current systems to be upgraded. TEDS enables

enhanced information access and data input across wide

areas, allowing offi cers to search systems, report from the

fi eld, access images and even receive short CCTV clips

to assist in identifi cation. In addition, short audio clips

(for example witness interviews) can be recorded and

sent back to the offi ce from the fi eld. In the modern world

there is enormous pressure on network capacity due to

the number and density of users. Consequently, we expect

to see next-generation mobile networks and also wireless

technologies that deliver broadband-on-the-go being

used alongside TETRA networks to enable these data-

hungry applications.

In the future, devices will provide fl exible connectiv-

ity to enable collaboration between diff erent terminals.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth compatibility for data communica-

tions is also likely to be included in public safety radios.

Using Bluetooth, offi cers can send data from their radios

to devices such as computers at HQ or printers in the

fi eld. As mobile broadband networks become available,

Bluetooth will also support the transfer of data between,

for example, a TETRA handheld device and a vehicle ter-

minal equipped with wireless connectivity.

Motorola puts user-centric design at the heart of its

devices and focuses on developing specifi c devices to meet

specifi c user needs. While future devices are likely to be

capable of capture and transmission of video and more

powerful command and control functionality, there’s a

clear expectation from end users that equipment must

remain intuitive to use.

Flexible applicationsTh ere is clear benefi t in creating applications at a na-

tional level that can be used locally. However, in order for

this to happen, the devices and systems used by various

agencies mean that any application must be fl exible enough

to provide access to national services while seamlessly in-

tegrating local applications. Consequently, it is necessary

to adapt existing architectures for use over mission critical

wireless radio systems and Motorola already makes Appli-

cation Programming Interfaces (APIs) available so partners

can develop services on its TETRA networks and devices.

Furthermore, the application must ‘know’ over what

network information is being accessed and by which type

of device: for instance, whether an offi cer is working on a

radio with a small screen across TETRA, or is using an

in-car laptop in a city connected over a high-speed private

4G network. Based on these variables, the application will

be able to decide if it needs to restrict some features and how

information is presented to deliver the best user experience.

Delivering the futureTETRA will remain the cornerstone network for mis-

sion-critical public safety voice and data communications

with TEDS over private 4G networks, off ering the potential

to enhance data capacity to deliver multimedia services,

such as video, for access to information at the point where it

is needed the most.

Manuel Torres is Corporate Vice President & General Manager for Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions, EMEA. He has overall responsibility for Motorola’s channels and growth operations as well as the private direct radio business for large governmental projects including government, enterprise and mobility solutions across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Next generation public safety

With ever increasing demands placed on public safety networks, they must adapt, explains Manuel Torres, Corporate Vice President & General Manager, Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions EMEA.

Manuel Torres

“Th ere’s a clear

expectation from

end users that

equipment must

remain intuitive

to use”



COMMUNICATIONS70

Sensor webs for defenceSteven Ramage, Executive Director for Marketing and Communications at Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC), lifts the lid on how real-time sensor data can be used for defence applications.

This summarises the scenario for a live demonstra-tion (in 2007) that showed how users of existing soft ware products using existing standards could discover, access and fuse real-time data from a

wide variety of sensors, and how users could immediately use the sensor data with online map data and decision sup-port systems. Sponsoring organisations for the demon-stration included BAE Systems, Ordnance Survey Great Britain, NATO C3 Agency, Tele Atlas NV and various US federal agencies. Th e demonstration concluded OGC Web Services Phase 4 (OWS-4), an interoperability testbed managed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).

Soft ware standards, such as the ubiquitous ‘http’, un-derpin the world’s information infrastructure. Standards for geospatial soft ware – location services, navigation, earth imaging, geographic information systems (GIS), etc. – comprise an essential part of the information infrastruc-

Partner and GMEs contributing missions

Partner MissionASI/Alenia Spazio Cosmo-SkymedCNES Pleiades, SpotCSA/MDA Radarsat 2DLR TerrasatEumetsat Meteo MissionsEUSC UserESA ERS Envisat / Sentinels

ESA’s Heterogeneous Missions Accessibility (HMA) project brought national space agencies and others into a standardisation process to make Earth observation satellites available in a consistent manner to users in support of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) missions.

In OGC’s OWS-4 Testbed Demo, NASA EO-1 satellite data was fused with other data to predict the movement of a dangerous plume of radioactivity. Data acquisition and fusion involved web services that implemented open standards.

“At a dock in a major city, an explosion releases a cloud of radioactive cesium that drifts over the metropoli-tan area. The Port Author-ity Emergency Operations Centre quickly launches an emergency management oper-ation that relies heavily on access to information from a wide variety of sensors.”

Open geospatial 70Open geospatial 70 30/07/2010 14:3530/07/2010 14:35

COMMUNICATIONS 71

ture for emergency and disaster management and national defence. Indeed, geospatial information infrastructure plays a critical role in planning, building and managing all physical infrastructure, as well as in protecting it. And almost all sensor-produced records include location, so geospatial standards include standard ways of commu-nicating sensors’ locations and motions, as well as other information about the sensors.

Web-accessible sensors are becoming increasingly important in defence and other domains where lives and property are at risk. One reason for this is that technology-imposed delays can be horribly expensive in emergencies, disasters and security events, and people’s performance expectations have been raised by our daily experience of the web. We jump from one website to another to quickly narrow in on the information we seek.

Th at agility is possible because http and other web standards constitute a ‘common language’ of interfaces and encodings that enables all web clients and servers to communicate instructions and results. For sensor webs, http and other well-known web standards are necessary but not suffi cient. Systems for discovering web-resident sensors, assessing the sensors’ fi tness for use, perhaps scheduling their use, and then accessing them and their live or stored data require additional standard interfaces and encodings. Th e OGC’s Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) standards provide these, enabling agile sensor webs.

European space agencies’ multimission visionSensor Web Enablement standards are a cornerstone

of the European Space Agency’s strategy for addressing harmonised multimission satellite tasking for disaster, emergency response and security as well as for land, marine and other global services. Th is challenge is being addressed cooperatively by the European Space Agency’s Member States agencies that own Earth observation mis-sions (DLR-Germany, ASI-Italy, CNES-France, the Cana-dian Space Agency and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites EUMETSAT).

To meet users’ needs for interoperability, the European Space Agency has worked with the other agency partners within the Heterogeneous Missions Accessibility (HMA) Architecture Working Group to model a standard ap-proach to tasking satellite-mounted sensors. To implement this, they are using the OGC Sensor Planning Service standard.

Location-aware Sensors on the webAs sensors of all kinds begin to ‘speak the same lan-

guage,’ sensor webs become part of the web. At the same time, the web is expanding in a new direction with read-ily available ‘mass market’ geographic information and geospatial services such as road directions, aerial photos and location-specifi c advertising. On the web, geospatial information from governments, businesses and individu-als becomes increasingly available, usable and ‘mashable’ into applications, and sensor webs are part of this new infrastructure.

Open geospatial 71Open geospatial 71 30/07/2010 14:3530/07/2010 14:35

NEXT BIG THING72

Virtual globes from Google and Mi-

crosoft have created enormous public

interest in geographical information

while making the task of handling

large amounts of data seem easy. Th ese technolo-

gies have raised expectations by serving up only

data that has already been pre-processed, a costly

and time-consuming procedure that the end user

never sees. While the professional user is more

aware of the hidden complexities, virtual globes

have hinted at better things for them too.

Expectations are also growing of high data

volumes. In Europe the GMES programme, the

Sentinel satellites and numerous complemen-

tary multinational and national initiatives will

increase the supply of geospatial imagery to un-

precedented levels over the coming years. Many

professional users will have petabyte archives

and will face signifi cant challenges in fi nding

and making relevant data available for use in a

timely fashion.

Against the background of emerging ex-

pectations and challenges, Spacemetric provides

next-generation systems that enable fast and easy

access to imagery directly from the sensor with-

out the need for pre-processing. Th is technology

can be applied to archives both large and small

and off ers very rapid access to imagery using on-

the-fl y technologies.

Spacemetric was founded in 1999 with a

focus on desktop satellite image production sys-

tems but quickly saw the value of server-based

solutions and web services. Its Keystone Image

Management System can already meet tomor-

row’s challenges in an integrated enterprise-class

solution that catalogues all of your imagery,

whether from satellite or airborne sensors, and

provides rapid access to processed imagery via

online services.

Rigorous photogrammetric methods and

physical sensor models underpin all of Keystone’s

geometrical transformations. Integration with

other systems is through open standards, such as

WMS and CSW from the Open Geospatial Con-

sortium (OGC), and through the SOAP-based

Keystone API. An advanced client, the Keystone

New solutions for image management

Image management issues can be overcome with the utilisation of a range of new solutions, says

Ian Spence.

Console uses a plugin architecture based upon

Eclipse and NASA’s World Wind SDK to provide

a powerful platform for exploiting the Keystone

Server’s capabilities. Several of Spacemetric’s cus-

tomers are already adapting and extending the

Console to suit their own needs.

Th e Keystone system was fi rst delivered in

2005 to DMC International Imaging (DMCii) in

the UK, a leading provider of satellite image data

and services. Keystone provides an integrated

ground segment for a constellation of several im-

aging satellites coordinated by DMCii. It has also

been adopted by DMCii’s parent company and

leading smallsat supplier, Surrey Satellite Tech-

nology Limited (SSTL), for a number of imaging

satellites including the forthcoming Nigeriasat-2.

Th e Keystone system is the core of a solu-

tion used by the European Commission’s Joint

Research Centre, one of Europe’s largest users

of satellite imagery. It forms the back-end of the

Community Image Data Portal, where it is used

to catalogue and process commercial satellite

imagery for agricultural subsidy monitoring.

Th ree years ago, support was added to

Keystone to process imagery from the Z/I DMC

digital camera. Th e Swedish national mapping

agency (Lantmäteriet) operates two such camer-

as and a Spacemetric solution now handles pro-

duction of all their digital aerial orthoimagery.

Keystone is used for security applications

such as image intelligence gathering by the

Swedish Air Force. Th e Keystone system man-

ages and serves reconnaissance data directly

from the Gripen fi ghter to intelligence analysts.

In Th e Netherlands, the National Aerospace

Laboratory has adopted the Keystone system to

manage and process airborne video imagery for

its unmanned airborne vehicles (UAVs).

Th e latest developments within Keystone see

it closely integrated with other elements of the

European geospatial infrastructure. For the Eu-

ropean Space Agency, the Keystone system deliv-

ers advanced browse services within ESA User

Services. For DMCii and the Disaster Monitor-

ing Constellation, it integrates multiple satellite

missions within the GMES Space Component

through the HMA (Heterogeneous Missions Ac-

cessibility) interfaces.

Over the coming year Spacemetric plans a

signifi cant expansion of Keystone uptake and con-

tinued technological development. Drivers of the

growing demand for image management systems

are clear, and Spacemetric is well placed to off er

leading solutions that meet these challenges.

For more information, please visit www.spacemetric.com

Ian Spence has over 20 years experience in the space and earth observation sectors. He has worked in the UK, Sweden and Italy and over the past 10 years has fi lled senior management roles with an emphasis on business development.

Gripen with reconnaissance pod (Courtesy: Gripen International)

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SPACEMETRIC.indd 1SPACEMETRIC.indd 1 28/07/2010 11:0128/07/2010 11:01

NEXT BIG THING74

Keeping customers and staff informed – in real time!Information – important when things are running well, essential when things go wrong. Airlines, for example, have to deal with snowstorms and ash clouds. Phil Douglas explains how innovative solutions keep everyone informed.

Everyone wants instant information. Companies

want timely information about delivery delays;

bus drivers need to be notifi ed when roads are

blocked; fuel companies must be notifi ed when

an aircraft arrives. As critical situations develop, keep-

ing everyone informed becomes more and more diffi cult.

Th e ‘Valentine’s Day Blizzard’ of 2007 is a good example.

Heavy snowfalls and winter storms closed US airports as

bad weather rolled up the east coast. Th e situation escalated

when airlines were not able to keep all the fl ight crews, pas-

sengers and airport staff informed. Airports were not able

to handle the volume of passengers waiting at the airport,

and passengers were stuck on aircraft for up to 10 hours.

Th e backlog took several days to clear, and the negative

publicity even longer.

Customers at home, in the offi ce or on the road expect

to be informed. Mobile phones have revolutionised com-

munication on the road, but traditional communication

is still not excluded. Notifi cation updates according to the

customer preference and priority are important. If there is

suffi cient time before an event, we can email the informa-

tion, but if this is time critical we will notify the passenger

by SMS and optionally by telephone using IVR (Interactive

Voice Response).

Knowing who has received the information is also a

vital part of these applications. If a passenger acknowledges

their rescheduled fl ight, the fl ight can be rebooked and they

can proceed directly to check-in. Customer acknowledge-

ment or feedback via SMS, mobile portal, interactive voice

or the web site is fed back into a central system. Customers

who do not reply can be escalated though the communica-

tions channels – for example, for email 10 hours before an

event, to SMS within six hours, to voice within two hours

and fi nally, if required, landing up at the call centre.

Instead of waiting for an hour at the baggage carousel,

we can now inform passengers as soon as their fl ight lands

that their baggage did not make it, and even provide ref-

erence numbers and contact details. Saving the customer

time and frustration, and by demonstrating that every-

thing is under control, ultimately creating a positive situa-

tion out of a negative one.

Th ese solutions also need to be robust, reliable and ca-

pable of handling high traffi c volumes. Critical situations

may only happen a few times a year but it is during these

times that such applications become worth their weight

in gold. During the recent volcanic activity in Iceland,

spreading ash clouds far across Europe, 2e’s applications

were used extensively to notify ground staff , crews and

passengers. In the past a call centre would have handled

these notifi cations as best they could, but with the situation

changing every hour, automated notifi cations are the only

practical solutions.

Just to add to the complexity, privacy and data pro-

tection are also extremely important and topical issues.

In accordance with the law, airlines are allowed to notify

customers of operational issues as long as the information

is relevant to the customer. Anything more than that is

considered spamming – even if unintentional.

Every solution has diff erent requirements and 2e

is usually requested to fully customise our solutions to

match the business processes. ‘Enterprise Messaging’ is

a relatively new industry buzzword, and this is only just

beginning to be combined with the mobile and customer

notifi cation world.

Th e world is still in the fi rst generation of messaging

for business applications. Th ere are many more oppor-

tunities available. Having direct contact with customers

has opened up a whole new world. Th e big winners will be

those that prepare well, act swift ly and take advantage of

the vast range of business-enhancing ideas.

Phil Douglas is CEO of 2e Systems in Germany, a company specialising in mobile solutions and applications for the airline industry. They built their fi rst mobile applications in 2000, and developed the world’s fi rst mobile barcode applications for check-in at airports.

“As critical

situations

develop, keeping

everyone

informed

becomes more

and more

diffi cult”

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SYSTEMS2E.indd 1SYSTEMS2E.indd 1 28/07/2010 11:0228/07/2010 11:02

When the ‘Fasten Seatbelt’ light dings into action toward the tail end of your fl ight as you begin to make your descent to your chosen destination, what do you do? Most

normal folk will close their laptops, remove the earphones, wake their travelling partner or maybe make a daring last minute dash to the toilet. However, for Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab – a 23-year-old Nigerian student aboard a North-west Airlines transatlantic fl ight coming into land at De-troit on December 26 last year – this fi nal ding was his cue to embark upon his fi endish plan to bring down the plane.

Attempting to ignite a device comprised of small fi recracker-type explosives hidden in his underpants, Mu-tallab’s plan failed thanks to the diligence of crew members and passengers, and his own ineptitude. Frogmarched to the front of the plane, his trousers in tatters and his legs burnt and black with soot, Mutallab’s attempt at martyr-dom and an eternity spent immersed among virginal bliss instead ended in the unedifying sight of being bundled into a security van on Detroit airport runway and whisked off to await trial. If Mutallab’s actions are seen to have been in any way as serious as 2001’s Richard ‘shoe bomber’ Reid, then a life sentence awaits.

Th e airline industry has always had to be tough on ter-rorist threats, even before 9/11. Aeroplanes are obvious ter-rorist targets, and so the security measures and processes passengers have to adhere to in order to fl y are willingly accepted as overly heavy handed, time-consuming and thorough. Th e subconscious removal of jackets, belts, shoes and jewellery as we are herded through full body scanners has become second nature, as has the more recent proce-dure of gathering together miniature liquid bottles in clear plastic bags for our hand luggage – all thanks to 2006’s foiled Heathrow attempt to bring down six planes with the use of liquid explosives.

Earlier this year, the aviation industry faced yet another threat to its ability to safely, conveniently and ef-fi ciently transport travellers to their desired destination – the now-infamous Icelandic ash cloud. Th is time, however, the threat was all natural (we are, as yet, to hear Al Qaeda claim responsibility for billowing millions of tonnes of ash into the air from their base camp deep in the bowels of Eyjafj allajokull) and totally alien to European travellers. Aircraft all over the continent were grounded for weeks; timetable chaos ensued and exasperated passengers ranted, raved, pleaded and then, eventually, accepted their lot. Th e planes were going nowhere. Safety came fi rst. Punctuality came second. Passenger comfort trailed a distant third.

Th is brief period of plane-free skies was latched upon by environmental groups keen to highlight just how dam-aging the aviation industry is to the environment, decrying the imminent demise of airlines as we knew it. Far more injurious, though, was the fi nancial damage this downtime did to the industry. With recession still barely shaken off , the airline industries and travel operators could ill-aff ord to be grounded, particularly when eye-watering losses such as €2.5 billion were reported for European businesses during those trying few weeks in April. Airlines were hardest hit of

AVIATION SECURITY76

PLANESAFE

The airline industry has had a tough 12 months, characterised by ash clouds, terrorist attempts, environmental concerns and the recession. Gunther

Matschnigg, Senior Vice President of Safety, Operations and Infrastructure at IATA, spoke with Ian Clover about the industry’s security aims, regulations and operational future.

IATA 76IATA 76 30/07/2010 14:3230/07/2010 14:32

AVIATION SECURITY 77

course, losing an estimated €1.4 billion in revenue. Such a challenging start to the year proved wearisome

for fi gureheads throughout the industry, yet Gunther Matschnigg, Senior Vice President of Safety, Operations and Infrastructure at IATA – the International Air Trans-port Association – has watched the last 12 months unfold from his Montreal headquarters with a mixture of pride, frustration and excitement at what the future holds.

“Th ere have been numerous challenges for IATA over the past 12 months, particularly the economic environment and the volatility of the industry,” begins Matschnigg. “We are only now starting to see an upswing in the fortunes of the industry and may, by the end of the year, start to see parts of the industry making money aft er year on year losses.”

Th e past 12 months have, reveals Matschnigg, been wholly characterised and defi ned by terrorist threat, ash clouds and the ongoing drive for increased passenger secu-rity. “Th e terrorist attempt at the end of December last year and the volcanic ash cloud are the two issues that are still very fresh. Both of these unforeseen events shaved quite a bit of money off the industry – €1.4 billion is a lot to lose, especially when our profi t margins are slim to begin with, so an unforeseen eruption like the Icelandic ash cloud wiped away any buff er we had in place.

“Th en there was the event of December 26. In that in-stance we were lucky that the terrorist attempt didn’t bring

down an aircraft , but we have to be prudent and continue to work extremely hard together with the governments to ensure that these things won’t happen again. It is so chal-lenging, because on the one hand we have got to tighten security and implement measures to ensure that our pas-sengers are safe, yet we have also to try to enhance the travel experience for passengers, particularly in the current economic climate.”

9/11Th e unforgettable events of 9/11 changed the aviation

industry forever. Transatlantic business fl ights – previ-ously the realm of perhaps the most relaxed form of airline security – suddenly became an arduous journey of long queues, intense scrutiny and oft en-invasive procedures infl icted upon innocent passengers. Suspicion reigned and security was tightened to levels never before seen. “Th is was nine years ago now and I think it’s fair to say that fl ying is much more secure today than it was then,” says Matschnigg. “Th ere are a number of measures that have been introduced since then that have greatly improved security, including the data transmission that goes to the airports; the information that reaches the cockpit, and the information that is generally submitted to staff at every level of the fl ying procedure.

“But on the other hand what we haven’t yet done as an

Eyjafjallajokull volcanic eruption

On the one hand we have got to tighten security and implement measures to ensure that our passengers are safe, yet we have also to try to enhance the travel experience for passengers

IATA 77IATA 77 30/07/2010 14:3230/07/2010 14:32

industry is place more focus back on to passenger travel – some security regulatory bodies have lost sight that it is actual people going through their security processes. Although security is presently heightened, I think we can still make travel convenient and enjoyable, which is why we have decided, with the support of the Department of Homeland Security and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), to develop a checkpoint for the future, to really focus on making the passenger experience as enjoyable as possible.

“We have to utilise the same dedication we have shown with our security measures on passenger comfort and ask ourselves: ‘Is it really necessary that we implement this or that security measure?’ While I cannot fully reveal exactly what is in the pipeline at the moment because we are still at the development stage, I can safely say that we are working toward fewer queues, less waiting time, more technology and the eradication of this two, three hour waiting that still prevails in some airports across the world.”

Ash cloudEven the most exhausting and frustrating delays

are tolerated by the masses if there is a legitimate reason for the hold up. But April’s ash cloud deposited not just very fi ne particles on to the wings of planes, but also a collective volcanic funk throughout the moods of travel-lers at most airports in northern and western Europe. If this seemingly unprecedented occurrence was hard for

pending passengers to comprehend, then the airlines’ collective response was even more arcane for Matschnigg to grasp. “From an airline point of view we followed the instructions given by the service provider and regulatory bodies. On the fi rst day of the ash cloud they closed the airspace in Europe and nobody knew exactly what was going on, although it was only the fi rst day so we were willing to accept this.

“But as the second, third, fourth and fi ft h day came along and we [IATA] knew that there was no threat to air-lines, there was still nobody with the courage or authority to instruct airspace to be opened up fully. I can clearly say today that it was a wrong decision not to open the airspace quicker, and the whole debacle was all handled based upon incorrect information – many test fl ights were undertaken by airlines and governments that proved there was no risk to engines or aircraft in that part of the world. But still, the newsreels showed maps and charts with ash cloud cover. Th is was totally wrong. It was an overreaction; Europe was completely uncoordinated.”

While an individual with Matschnigg’s expertise might have been able to challenge the folly of the prevailing attitude toward the ash cloud as it was happening, the issue of safety hung heavy over the industry. Surely it was better to ground fl ights wholesale than run the potential risk of even one fatality or injury? “If that were the case, then why did France open up but Germany and Belgium did not? Th e ash cloud, rather peculiarly, stopped at the political border.

AVIATION SECURITY78

I can safely say that we are working toward fewer queues, less waiting time, more technology and the eradication of this two, three hour waiting that still prevails in some airports across the world

THE HISTORY OF AVIATION SECURITY

1972After decades of hijackings throughout the world, the USA’s Nixon administration hit upon the idea of installing metal detectors at airports throughout the country in an attempt to prevent guns and knives being brought on board. Early metal detectors were sometimes two metres long, and were known to spread a sense of mild panic among those fi rst

through. Consumer worries about radiation were soon alleviated when a study by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confi rmed that a typical

metal detector gave off less radiation than the luminous dial on a wristwatch.

IATA 78IATA 78 30/07/2010 14:3230/07/2010 14:32

Nobody can explain that. Th is was a very uncoordinated event for Europe. Our strong recommendation to the gov-ernments of Europe was to implement a crisis management team that could have dealt with this better.

“Volcanoes and volcanic ash occur right across the entire globe. Th ere are more than 500 active volcanoes and nearly every week there is an eruption somewhere, so this ash cloud was nothing new for the international fl ight community. Europe handled it totally diff erently, closing airspace that would have remained open elsewhere in the world, all to the detriment of passengers, the airlines and the economy. A lack of knowledge, a lack of experience and a reluctance to look at other parts of the world for guidance made the problem worse. But Europe’s aviation industry has learnt a lot from this experience.”

Safe and secureAviation in general has much to learn as the industry

continues to mature. Consumer demand is at its highest ever levels, while environmental and safety pressures con-tinue to be the catalyst for better technologies and more streamlined collaboration between the various entities that ensure passengers get through check-in, on to the plane, on to the runway, into the air, then safely on to their des-tination. Th is patchwork of professionals has proved to be something of a logistical nightmare in the past, which is why Matschnigg devised the internationally-recognised IATA Operational Safety Audit, which aims to make the

1989The Lockerbie bomb disaster of late 1988 forced the FAA to re-visit their screening policy, more carefully checking portable computers, bags and radios with the use of X-ray machines that were able to verify the contents of all carry-ons. A new ruling was introduced in early 1989 that meant only bags which were accompanied by a passenger could board the cabin.

2001The attacks of 9/11 dramatically altered the atmosphere of airport security. Where previously passengers were afforded the benefi t of the doubt, the actions of the hijackers on that fateful day were unprecedented. Not only was security tightened worldwide at the screening stage (such as a restriction on the types of items passengers could bring on board), but cabin crew were retrained in order to deal more effectively and forcefully with hijack attempts.

entire regulatory process of aviation smoother, more ac-curate and, by default, safer for the passenger.

“Th is audit came about when I was working for Austri-an Airlines and we would be audited 13 times a year,” says Matschnigg. “I was thinking ‘what the heck? Why do we have to go through theses audits?’ I didn’t see where they added any value. Other airlines thought the same – they saw it as a redundant process that wasted a lot of time and

IATA 79IATA 79 30/07/2010 14:3230/07/2010 14:32

We always need people who have the right mindset to work in aviation and this is one issue where personally I am a little concerned

money because there was no unifi ed standard. So when I came to IATA I brought this up with the operations group and they fully endorsed a concept for a global safety audit. Th en between 2000-02 we developed the standards to cover the industry and the regulators, and launched the audit programme in 2003.

“Since then we have completed 860 audits on 330 air-lines on the register, where before there would have been thousands of disconnected audits on the go, because under the previous system the IOSA (IATA Operational Safety Audit) recognised some but not others. So one goal – to reduce the number of redundant audits – was achieved. Th e second goal was to enhance overall safety, and I think the fact that ground operation units and airlines use this same audit process has led to a standard that is known by everybody. It is a very thorough and methodical audit of safety procedures, fl ight operations, engineering depart-ments and every aspect of the airline process. If a company passes the audit then I think it’s fair to say that they have an extremely robust set of practices in place.”

Tallying audit procedures with overall operational safety is a very quantifi able goal, and one that – while ongo-ing – is progressing satisfactorily. Less tangible, but equally important for the industry, is the measure of human error. Complete eradication of manmade mistakes is universally recognised as impossible, but Matschnigg is confi dent that improved staff screening, staff training and technology can help minimise the impact humans play when things go

wrong. “We always need people who have the right mindset to work in aviation and this is one issue where personally I am a little concerned,” reveals Matschnigg. “Th is is why IATA and ICAO launched a programme three years ago called the ITQI – the IATA Training Qualifi cation Initia-tive – to fi nd the right people because this business cannot survive without professional human beings. We know this. However, our needs can be supported by the right technol-ogy, and this is where we need to work hand-in-hand with airlines’ development departments.”

Striking the right balance between well-trained staff and optimum technology is something that Matschnigg is continuously working toward. “Th e optimum varies in each discipline. Flight operation is diff erent to engineer mainte-nance for instance; the need for training for each technol-ogy diff ers drastically. For example, fl ying an Airbus 380 today compared to fl ying a 727 30 years ago – the diff erence is day and night. Th e technology has advanced immeasur-ably, so we have to make best use of the technology that we have at our disposal but, of course, human error will always be a factor. To address it, several programmes are on the way for the cockpit, for the engineer, on the dispatch side of things and also for air traffi c control.”

A better passenger experienceFlying anywhere these days is cheaper and more fi lled

with choice than ever before. Th e proliferation of budget airlines has opened up a whole new world of weekend-

AVIATION SECURITY80

2006In the immediate aftermath of the foiled Heathrow liquid bomb attempts, all airports in the USA, the European Union and Australia restricted passengers from taking any liquids on board as hand luggage. This ruling was relaxed after a few weeks, but passengers are still not permitted to take on board any liquids over 100 ml (although liquid purchased in the airside safe area are pre-screened and safe to take on board), and all liquids under 100 ml must be placed in a transparent, re-sealable plastic bag that is not more than one litre in capacity.

2002Richard Reid’s failed December 2001 attempt to bomb a transatlantic fl ight with a device concealed in his shoe prompted the authorities to again make changes. From the beginning of 2002, all

passengers boarding a fl ight to or from the USA now had to remove their shoes and

socks when passing through the scanner.

IATA 80IATA 80 30/07/2010 14:3230/07/2010 14:32

tripping opportunities, business ventures and stag and hen party destinations. We are all much more frequent fl yers than we were 10 years ago, yet for every two-hour fl ight to the sun, there’s that immeasurable period of misery awaiting us at airports, in baggage claim and even online, where hidden taxes and extortionate baggage costs are making the experience of fl ying more stressful by the day. Profi teering, driving down overheads and the old ‘sell ‘em cheap, stack ‘em high’ mentality pervades throughout, all because the entire aviation network is comprised of a number of disparate entities competing for your business.

Th is is a situation that Matschnigg is looking to change. “I’m not satisfi ed with the cooperation between airlines, ground operations and travel companies. I think we need to do better with the regulatory bodies; there are situations that can be improved if only the industry had the chance to comment. Th is is only my opinion but I can speak from both sides, having been a regulator in the past. Aviation is built on trust and working together. It is the responsibility of the regulators, of the manufacturers, of the service providers. It is the responsibility of the airlines and the airports and the pilots and the ground staff to work together. Sometimes this coordination and cooperation is lacking because people are all pulling in diff erent direc-tions based on their constituency, and this is something we should do better on.

“As an industry we need to improve how we oper-ate. Th e long waiting lines, this being treated like you’re

a criminal – these are things that can be avoided so long as we do things more intelligently. Th ere is still lots to im-prove upon, but air travel can become the pleasant luxury it used to be.”

Matschnigg stops short of saying that lower costs are in any way correlated to poorer security, but his passion for his fi nal point hints that that may indeed be the case. “Why are governments not picking up security costs in aviation? Why is the government picking up security costs when it comes to soccer games, when it comes to travelling with the rail companies, when it comes to making sure people are safe when they visit theatres and festivals? Why not aviation? Th is is still an unanswered question. Why does the aviation community – the airports and the airlines, but also the passengers – pick up all of the cost of security? Th is is still not clear. Th is is something we have got to empha-sise – responsibility. Th e government has a responsibility to create a safe and secure political environment, so why not in aviation?”

Governments and aviation authorities have worked hard in the past to foil and thwart would-be bombers and terrorists. Th eir collaboration has averted disaster numer-ous times when armed with tip-off s, intelligence and a sense of urgency. Th is desire to protect the public should not begin and end with each tangible terrorist threat. In-creased government collaboration in aviation can help to make the entire fl ying experience safer, cheaper and more comfortable for all.

AVIATION SECURITY 81

The futureAviation bodies around the world are constantly seeking new methods to further improve airport and airline security, including biometric scanning, retina scanning, advanced X-ray machines, combined shoe and iris scanners, RFID tracking and even more subtle passenger screening techniques, such as interviewing passengers, tracking their movements through the concourse and analysing body language.

For every hour in the air,

a commercial jet receives 12 hours of

maintenance

Commercialpilots go through more extensive

training than doctors

IATA 81IATA 81 30/07/2010 14:3230/07/2010 14:32


One of the main concerns for airports in Europe is to increase operational and passenger effi ciency. What solutions do you propose to reach this goal?Thirza Rojer. Th ere are lots of ways to increase passenger

effi ciency. Th e passenger fl ows must become more effi -

cient. One of the problems confronting passengers with

children and reduced mobility is moving from check in

to the gate. According to the new EU regulations, air-

ports are obliged to off er assistance to passengers with

reduced mobility. Th is will cost airports in the future

dearly in special equipment and manpower. Th e expecta-

tion is also that in the future more people with reduced

mobility will be travelling and insisting on this service.

Th e GR01 airside trolley can assist in this matter by in-

creasing the processing speed of passengers at the various

security checkpoints, because strollers no longer need to

be checked at these checkpoints. Also by using the GR01

a family member can take an elderly or family member

with reduced mobility to the required area in the airport.

What benefi ts can be seen in incorporating RFID tech-nology into baggage cart systems?

TR. Th ere is quite some eff ort needed to fi nd and collect these carts. Th is amount of

manpower can be reduced by using RFID technology to locate the carts and trace how

many are scattered over the airport and not in use. Th is is also a means to check if the

responsible persons are doing their jobs. Next to the operational improvement it can

improve the Pax logistics and stimulate non-aeronautical revenues. For instance, the

passengers can easily be managed to particular areas of the airport by the use of the RFID

information screens technology. Th ey can receive the latest information on screens on

products being sold in the various shops, which can lead to increased non-aeronautical

revenues. In the future, by scanning the boarding cards passengers can even be directed

to their particular gates.

Airports are currently focusing on ways to increase revenue by using innovative technologies and equipment. In what ways can your solution contribute towards this?TR. Statistically it’s proven that shopping carts stimulate the Pax to shop in airport ter-

minals more oft en then in the past. Now people with reduced mobility and children can

be transported by their families and enjoy the airport and shopping facilities by using

these trolleys. No more waiting for assistance and being transported from one location

to another and waiting there again. Th e GR01 will increase overall passenger comfort

because this device can be used to carry approved hand luggage and still provide enough

space to sit and rest on, no matter your age or weight. We not only stimulate Pax travel-

ling alone to shop, but we also stimulate the Pax travelling with children and the PRMs to

shop. Th is way a broader percentage of the travellers are contributing to the total revenue

of the airport.

With increased security checks constantly being implemented within Europe’s air-ports, it is becoming diffi cult to ensure optimum passenger fl ow. How does your equipment contribute to maintaining a suffi cient fl ow?TR. By obliging the passengers to check in the children strollers at the desk, the intensity

of checking diff erent strollers and mobile devices that comes out of non-clean areas to

clean is reduced. All unnecessary delays at security check points are avoided, thus in-

creasing the overall passenger fl ow, as they can use this multifunctional airside baggage

cart until boarding. GR01 is property of the airport, which means that the system is

under the surveillance of the airport that should be classifi ed as sterile or clean.

Passenger terminal managers are looking at ways to improve comfort in order to ensure that customers are happy and will continue using facilities. How important do you feel passenger comfort is to the whole airport experience? TR. We think passenger experience is of the utmost importance. One important aspect

at various airports is the lack of sitting space when reaching the gate or on the way to the

gate. By using GR01 the passengers can sit and rest at designated areas thus increasing

overall passenger comfort.

Thirza Rojer has been involved in B2B Marketing and Sales activities for the last decade. As the Director of Global Sales Operations, she is responsible for the global introduction of the Multifunctional Solutions Inc. products range.

Thirza Rojer discusses how modern tracking technology can help improve passenger effi ciency, safety and enjoyment at the airport gate.

The missing link in simplifying the business

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UP AND AWAYThere are various companies, systems and components working like clockwork behind closed doors at airports across the world, ensuring every passenger gets from check-in to cabin with the minimum of fuss.

There’s a lot to remember when boarding a fl ight. Do you have your ticket and passport? Are you on time? Have you found the correct gate? Did you switch the gas off at home? Is the

cat’s litter tray emptied in readiness for your neighbour’s check-up visit? But with practice, it becomes almost like second nature.

Behind closed doors, however, there is a far more complicated chain of events taking place. Th e – largely – smooth and eff ortless public facade of the airport you see gives little insight into the net-work of activity and connectivity that goes on with every fl ight.

Software safety > The airlines have to know not only who has checked in and when, but also which bags will be

accompanying each passenger: unassisted bags are now

banned, so an integrated software system scans and tracks each bag to

ensure the cabin and ground crew of each fl ight are informed if a bag makes it on board, but a passenger doesn’t.

The runway > At this stage, the travel companies, airlines and the airport have done their job, so now it’s down to the airside operations safety units to ensure you board safely. Their job is a juggling act between marshalling arriving aircraft to the correct gates,

allocating stands, monitoring noise levels, checking the perimeter area, auditing

and checking all ground handlers, ramp operators and refuellers, inspecting runways and ferrying you to your waiting plane…at which point air traffi c control takes over and you can relax once more.

Airside safe area > Once you’re through the scanning and screening parts, you enter the airside safe area. To you this is a welcome chance to relax, grab a coffee and a bite to eat and keep on eye on the departure screens. For airports, this zone is a constant challenge – every dining utensil, water bottle, buyable gift and staff member must be carefully screened and monitored to ensure that, at this point, the stringent security measures you have just gone through are not undermined by any item or action.

Ground support > The ground support team must ensure that every plane that lands is taxied to the correct pits where they are refuelled, cleaned, waste water is emptied and fresh water and pre-conditioned air is added to the plane’s systems. This procedure must be undertaken within a very narrow timeframe – so while you’re browsing the duty free, your plane is being given a complete scrub down.

AIRPORT TECHNOLOGY84

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86 HEALTH AND SAFETY

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87HEALTH AND SAFETY

What has the European Safety Federation done to help establish common European standards for the use of PPE? Rinus Brinks. Before 1994 there were national standards all

over Europe and so almost every country had its own stan-

dards. Th ose countries were then already working together

under the umbrella of the CEN, the European Committee

for Standardisation. With the publication of the EU Direc-

tive on PPE in 1989 (and fully applicable fi ve years later),

the PPE market in the EU was opened and harmonised.

Whereas previously manufacturers would refer to a na-

tional (British or German or Italian etc, standard, the need

for European standards was created with the Directive.

Th e CE marking on the PPE products was also in-

troduced with this Directive. Th is marking means that

the product is in conformity with the EU legislation and

guarantees the free movement of PPE in the European eco-

nomic area. For the development and the revision of the

European standards, many of the ESF members are active

in the working groups preparing the document. Th e ESF

secretariat is involved in the CEN PPE sector forum where

horizontal issues are discussed for the benefi t of all PPE

standards.

How did CE markings benefi t PPE markets? RB. It created a situation where we just had to deal with one

set of European legislation and standards for one particu-

lar product. It makes it a whole lot easier in the world of

safety. When companies are active in several countries, for

instance having the main offi ce in one country and sending

out personnel to another country, it makes the communi-

cation about safety a lot easier. For suppliers of PPE the in-

troduction of the EU legislation opens the whole European

market for the same product, with one certifi cation valid

throughout the EU. You do need the user instructions for

the product in the language of the country where you are

selling the product, which leads sometimes to booklets in

20+ languages delivered with each PPE.

Is there enough awareness in Europe of the importance of PPE?

The European Safety Federation is representing the manufacturers of PPE at the European institutions concerning all issues regarding the manufacturing and use of PPE. EU Infrastructure asks ESF President Rinus Brinks how legislation and standardisation infl uences the industry.

Playing it safe

RB. Regarding awareness on PPE, I want to highlight a few

things that are really important. Even if PPE are the last

in line to protect people, aft er prevention and collective

protection, the vast majority of employees use PPE. What

always needs to be improved is the correct selection and

use of safety products as well as their correct maintenance.

Th at is an issue that the European Safety Federation really

wants to highlight and we will never stop highlighting

this issue. It is in the interest of any company or end-user

who is using these products. Th is is particularly an issue

for companies that are small to medium-sized. Th ey oft en

have less specialised safety knowledge in-house, in these

cases, health and safety are mostly part of the responsibili-

ties of the company owner, who clearly has other priorities.

Th erefore it is important that those companies are aware

that they should seek help from specialists rather than

buying PPE from a supplier that does not have the expertise

to advise them on the right product for the job.

Ideally companies should only buy PPE from well-

trained specialists who understand their risks and can advise

them on the best products, help them with the training of

the users and assist in the maintenance of the PPE. Th is way

the customer will get the best safety for the best price. As an

organisation, we are partners with the European Agency for

Safety and Health at work for their campaigns, also to raise

the awareness of the importance of PPE. Th e current cam-

paign is about safe maintenance, a fi eld where PPE play an

important role in the safety and health of the maintenance

workers, who are suff ering a signifi cantly higher number of

accidents than the average in Europe.

Can you describe the ESF’s membership? RB. Th e ESF members are national manufacturers and sup-

plier associations. Th e members of those national associa-

tions are manufacturers or distributors or service suppliers,

but the common denominator is PPE. Th e companies that

are members in the national associations are dedicated to

supply PPE that is in compliance with the applicable legis-

lation. It is important to cooperate with both levels. On the

European, level decisions are taken about EU legislation,

European standards and so on. But also on a national level,


88 HEALTH AND SAFETY

there are still a lot of decisions taken, for instance on limit

values for certain chemicals that can have an infl uence on

the selection of PPE, and of course the national authorities

have a big infl uence on the European level.

Another advantage of working with national associa-

tions is that ESF can also represent smaller companies that

would not be interested in being a member of a European

organisation, but do have an interest in being a member

in their own country. Th rough our structure they still

have the benefi t of the information and lobby work on the

European level. We are considered as the representative

organisation of PPE manufacturers on the European level

and our members are recognised as such in their own

countries. Th is way we strengthen each other and have a

voice on all levels.

What are the key issues that you are tackling currently? RB. At the moment we have some things that are really

changing in the market. All the PPE currently falls under a

European PPE directive. We have now started to work on a

revision of this directive, which of course deserves our full

attention. It is not the purpose of the revision to change ev-

erything, only to improve the legislation. Th e EU commis-

sion has started an impact assessment study so that every

stakeholder can give input on how they judge the impact of

the revision of the directive for themselves. For instance,

for manufacturers it is important that the costs to produce

PPE are not increasing without added (safety) value for the

user of the product.

Th e revisions will relate directly to some specifi c items

in the directive; for instance, in the current directive you

will fi nd safety products in three diff erent categories. Cat-

egory three is the highest category. Th is covers products

where the associated risks are irreversible or mortal. Th at

doesn’t necessarily mean that category one or two does not

cover meaningful products. You have a situation for in-

stance where hearing protection is in category two, which

is a bit strange because the complete defi nition of category

three products will fi t hearing protection products. So

there is a proposal to switch hearing protection from cat-

egory two to category three. Th at’s just an example of what

we’re looking at.

Another important issue for ESF is the harmonisation

of the PPE market in Europe. Even if there is an EU Di-

rective that supports the open market, there are still some

diff erences in interpretation and application of this legisla-

tion. For the members of ESF this is unacceptable as this

creates diff erences in the market between countries and

thus possibly diff erences in protection off ered to users in

diff erent markets.

You have spoken in the past about the importance of RFID technology to the PPE industry. Can you explain how it can be applied in this context? RB. If an RFID tag is attached to for instance a protective

garment, then it could contain information on who is the

wearer of this garment, when it was given to that person,

when it needs washing, how and where should it be ser-

About the European Safety Federation (ESF) The ESF was formed in 1991 when nine organisa-tions, each representing the manufacturers of PPE in their home countries, decided to form a body that could defend their interests at EU level. The ESF’s main objective is to create a common policy based on the mutual interests of its members, concerning the manufacturing and use of PPE in Europe. Today it represents 600 companies with over 50,000 employees.

viced and how many times it is serviced; in other words, a

full history of the equipment. For garments this technology

is already used as a replacement for the more traditional

barcodes. Th at technology could (and most likely will) be

expanded to all types of PPE, so that for each product a

database of information will be available, not only on each

individual product, but also on types of products. Th is can

contain important information for future selection of PPE,

but also in case of accidents or incidents it can be useful to

have the history of the products involved.

In case all PPE are equipped with RFID, a safety func-

tion can also be added: if a person enters a zone with specifi c

risks, he or she needs to pass an RFID reader and only if he

or she has the qualifi cation to work in these specifi c condi-

tions and if fully equipped with the appropriate protective

equipment, entry will be granted. Th is can be very impor-

tant on sites where many diff erent contractors are working.

What are the main aims of ESF today? RB. First priority is to make sure that all PPE on the EU

market are safe and in full compliance with the legislation.

Th e revision of the PPE directive is one part of this, the

harmonisation of interpretations and applications of the

legislation are another part. Raising the awareness on PPE

and the need for correct selection, use and maintenance of

them is another means to reach this goal. As an organisa-

tion, it is our goal to have every member state from the Eu-

ropean Union represented by a national association of the

ESF. Th at is not the case at the moment but we are halfway

there. We are going to increase our eff orts into encouraging

the establishment of such associations in those countries

where there is no such organisation at present.

What is the biggest challenge the ESF faces going for-wards? RB. In Europe we are working towards European stan-

dards. Th at is a process that has been established, based on

EU legislation. Th e next challenge is to work towards global

standards. For some PPE there are already ISO standards,

and several other are in preparation. However, as the legis-

lation in the EU is unique in the world, it is not always easy

to bring the ISO standards to the level that is acceptable in

the EU. Th ere have been several incidents in recent years

that have highlighted the need for global standards – like

SARS or swine fl u.

If the WHO is making a recommendation with the

Centers for Disease Control, it is normally a recommen-

dation with respect to American products. So they do

their best and give recommendations for people needing

to protect themselves using respiratory protective equip-

ment. In other parts of the world these products are not

available as there are diff erent standards applicable. Th at is

the beauty of global standards. It means that in emergency

circumstances the message is clear and there won’t be any

question marks because in those emergencies there is al-

ready enough stress. And of course the education about the

correct PPE for each risk is a continuous challenge for ESF

and its members.


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RAIL INFRASTRUCTURE90

WELL TRAINEDDeutsche Bahn’s Spokesperson for Track Infrastructure, Hans-Georg Zimmerman, took time out from his busy schedule to reveal to EU Infrastructure the company’s strategy for sustainability, growth and improved effi ciency.

Deutsche Bahn’s (DB) sleek HQ in the heart of Berlin is a fi ttingly gleaming edifi ce. Sparkling against the backdrop of the Sony Center in the city’s Potsdamer Platz area, the company’s

blood-red ‘DB’ logo is beamed for miles across Berlin’s fl at expanses, leaving Berliners and the millions of tourists who visit the city each year in no doubt as to who is in charge of transport here. While the BVG-run U-Bahn (underground metro service) might be older and more extensive, it is DB’s overland S-Bahn train network that proves the backbone of the city’s ultra-effi cient transport network.

With Berlin as the hub, Deutsche Bahn’s reach and

infl uence spreads throughout the four corners of Germany, linking east with west, north with south, Scandinavia with the Mediterranean and providing every corner of Europe with a fast, effi cient and extremely safe mode of transport. Indeed, some two billion passengers thank DB for arriving on time each and every year. Th e company shoulders massive responsibility, but does so with the professionalism, techni-cal expertise and clockwork-effi ciency that we have come to expect from one of Germany’s foremost fi eld leaders.

Th is is not to say that DB is able to operate unhindered by economic and environmental pressures; the past few

Deutsche Bahn 90Deutsche Bahn 90 30/07/2010 14:3130/07/2010 14:31

RAIL INFRASTRUCTURE 91

years have been just as challenging for DB as they have been for any other large organisation, and a number of strategies have been devised in order to stave off cutbacks, cope with a diff erent type of customer demand and prove their sustainability credentials. “Our forecasts predict that rail traffi c will increase continuously until 2025, and so to cope with this increase, bottlenecks – which are already extensively used – will have to be extended,” said Hans-Georg Zimmerman, Spokesperson for Track Infrastruc-ture at Deutsche Bahn. “In order to close several gaps of capacity, DB has, as a strategic approach, set up a manage-ment capacity arm called ‘Kapazitatsmanagement’, which has enabled us to defi ne routes where extension is essential, which will prove to be extremely benefi cial for both pas-senger and freight traffi c.”

With such exponential growth predicted, DB has al-ready begun taking steps to ensure the fl ow of rail traffi c throughout Germany can continue unhindered. “Th ere are currently 37 defi ned single measures along the north-south axis which should be fully realised by 2017, which will ef-fi ciently absorb future rail traffi c volumes in Germany.

“Besides the realisation of these single measures, DB has also developed new concepts for upgrading the main routes, alternative routes, and junctions in order to create greater possibilities for new rail capacity with the given capital expenditure at our disposal.”

Expansion investmentDB is organised as a business group and has over 500

subsidiaries, of which one – DB Netz AG – is responsible for the rail infrastructure. As the DB organisation continues to grow, DB Netz AG is tasked with ensuring that the in-creased volumes of passenger and freight traffi c is delivered and transported satisfactorily and punctually throughout the country, not least at the ports and borders. “DB Netz has implemented a special program for developing the in-frastructure in the seaport’s back country,” says Zimmer-mann. “Th e ‘Sofortprogramm Seehafenhinterlandverkehr’ [crash program for seaport back country traffi c] is part of the master plan for freight traffi c and logistics of the federal ministry for traffi c, building structure and urban develop-ment. Th is program contains various measures which can be realised with small investments and show results in the direct catchment area of seaports and the back country to increase route capacity.”

Zimmermann reveals that the implementation of this program has seen route capacity accomplished within the past two years. “In 2008 the fi rst measures were realised in Duisburg seaport and one year later single measures in the bottleneck of Hamburg and further parts of the proj-ect ‘Konzeption Westliche Ruhr I’.” Th is program has at-tracted in excess of €90 million in recent investment, while the total volume cost of the project came in at more than €300 million.

“In addition to the extension of railway lines,” con-tinues Zimmermann, “DB is increasing the capacity of the rail network by developing new methods and tools in the area of distribution (guidance of transport streams),

technologies (free fl oat), railway schedules (system routes) and operations (disposition procedures).” Free fl oat is a new project that was implemented by DB Netz AG in 2009 and has been especially designed for long freight trains in excess of 835 metres operating on the line between Padborg and Maschen.

DB Netz AG is also developing and testing a proto-type for the realisation of partly automated recognition, and seeking a solution for the confl icts and regulation of train destination.

Sustainable BahnDB is involved in a number of green initiatives too,

working diligently to ensure that its rail network is as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible. No mean feat, but a challenge that DB’s energy supply com-pany – DB energie GmbH – is meeting head on. “Th e DB Energie GmbH intends to increase the percentage of the renewable traction energy from its current level of 18.5 percent to 30 percent by 2020,” says Zimmermann.

Another green initiative that DB Energie is concerned with is renewable energy. “Currently,” reveals Zimmer-mann, “DB Energie obtains most of its green power from hydro energy. However, since here in Germany hydro energy is almost exhausted, one alternative we have high-lighted is wind power. On March 1st this year, DB Energie generated 59,000 MWh from the Markisch-Linden wind farm in Brandeburg. Th is amount of energy equates to the annual power requirements of six ICE-trains and is gener-ated as rotary current, transformed by converter mills to 16.7-hz and then passed into the traction electricity supply lines. Th e current supplied by the wind farms partly re-places the energy previously gained at the 50-hz market.”

Despite such impressive fi gures, DB is still cautious about adopting what it calls the ‘unstable wind feed’ deliv-ered by the Markisch-Linden wind farm as a main source of energy. “Alongside an immediate C02 reduction, DB will determine, via practical experience, whether it is economi-cally viable to add this unstable wind feed to our power portfolio,” admits Zimmermann. “Based on this stock data DB will then make a decision on the future extension of adopting wind power for the company.

“Our investments in modern converter techniques and the conclusion of long-term power supply contracts for new generating plants are set to have a positive impact on our C02 balance. We have commissioned the use of a modern coal power station – Datteln 4 – that is 20 percent more effi cient than previously used power stations and will save the environment 790,000 tons of C02 per year.”

On the track, DB is equally progressive in its eff orts to reduce its carbon footprint without impacting upon the high levels of service it has become renowned for. “DB En-ergie has also worked hard at substituting older converters for those that transform a 50-hz current obtained from the public power grid to traction current,” says Zimmermann. “Because these converters work electronically and are static, they are able to operate at a signifi cantly higher-level of energy effi ciency, saving 69,000 tons of C02 per year.”

Our forecasts predict that rail traffi c will increase continuously until 2025, and so to cope with this increase, bottlenecks – which are already extensively used – will have to be extended

Deutsche Bahn 91Deutsche Bahn 91 30/07/2010 14:3130/07/2010 14:31

ASK THE EXPERT9292

Problems that arise when testing ultra high-speed

DC breakers are currently of great concern to

those involved in the construction of rail net-

works. Th ey are particularly concerned about the

diff erence between having at their disposal complete test

equipment giving satisfactory results on site, compared to

the testing bench of manufacturers.

SolutionsSTEVO Electric provides a mobile high-current gen-

erator – which has been on the market since 2004 – for ad-

equately testing high-speed DC breakers in the transport

sector, i.e. trains, subways, trams and trolleys, concerning

not just infrastructure but traction substations and rolling

stock too. Since 2004, STEVO Electric has been market-

ing the BALTO 6.000A system – up to 13.000A of capacity

in a master/slave version – worldwide in several traction

domains (traction substations and rolling stock) to which

high-speed DC breakers are applied. Moreover, STEVO

Electric maintains long-term contacts with manufacturers

of high-speed DC breakers, which are essential for homolo-

gations used for testing the equipment in question.

Nowadays the railway networks – whether a tram or

a train network – are in a period of full growth. Th e net-

works have deployed a number of innovative techniques

that deliver more powerful performance increases that

take into account the crucial character of the fast circuit

breakers, giving the ultimate protection. Th is ultimate pro-

Testing times

Stefaan Volkaert of STEVO Electric on the latest technology for testing high-speed DC breakers in rail networks.

tection must be provided alongside routine maintenance

and test runs – among which are tests of release (threshold

IDS). Oft en the owners have to modify the IDS threshold

or to replace the system of release with another range of

adjustment. In order to carry out these modifi cations and

consequently ensure a durable exploitation of the equip-

ment, the need for testing equipment is essential.

What the future holdsRelative to the current design of the BALTO system, the

market requires more performances in the fi elds of transport,

effi ciency and usefulness. To match those requirements,

identifi ed during multiple demonstrations and in discussions

not only with the manufacturers but in particular with the

managers and owners of rail networks, STEVO Electric took

the decision to develop an innovative new system – BALTO

30.000A – based on a list of demands. It is hoped that the new

system will be available in the second part of 2010.

Stefaan Volkaert is the general manager and founder of STEVO Electric, which was set up in 1999 to distribute high and low voltage equipment for the energy sector in the Benelux region. Its contacts in the transport industry expressed a need for mobile test equipment for testing high-speed DC breakers used in infrastructure – including in substations and in rolling stock applications and it developed test equipment for high-speed DC breakers. Its aim is to now develop test equipment for all kinds of electromagnetic circuit breakers as well as test equipment for AC Vacuum Circuit Breaker 50Hz and 16Hz2/3 for traction vehicles.

To fi nd out more visit www.STEVOELECTRIC.BE or contact [email protected]

“In order to

carry out these

modifi cations

and consequently

ensure a durable

exploitation of

the equipment,

the need

for testing

equipment is

essential”

STEVO Electric.indd 92STEVO Electric.indd 92 30/07/2010 14:4630/07/2010 14:46

STEVOELECTRIC.indd 1STEVOELECTRIC.indd 1 28/07/2010 11:0128/07/2010 11:01

WIND FOCUS94

A BREATH OF FRESH AIRThe wind of change is blowing through the world’s energy markets – and Europe is set to be the key benefi ciary, as well as leading the way.

Driven by European utilities’ desire to deliver an

increasing amount of clean power, the off shore

wind industry is poised for substantial scaling

over the next decade, with the global installed

base expected to grow to nearly 45GW by 2020, according

to a new market study from IHS Emerging Energy Re-

search. And with large northern European utilities taking

responsibility for leading the industry forward over the

short-term, the stage is being set for North America and

Asia to signifi cantly ramp-up the development of their

off shore capabilities as well.

“Th e global off shore wind energy industry’s entry

into the next decade will be marked by concrete progress

built on the past 10 years of moving along the learning

curve,” says Senior Wind Analyst Eduard Sala de Vedruna,

author of the report. “While the global off shore market

has been slow to take off due to cost and logistical chal-

lenges – climbing from 70MW installed to 1.5GW over the

past eight years – the industry is now scaling thanks to an

increased focus on off shore by Europe utilities.”

In Europe, tapped-out onshore markets and higher

capacity factors off shore are driving governments to in-

centivise the technology, providing key support to the

wide-scale industrial build-out that is required. “Off shore

is still very much a European industry led by the UK and

followed by Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium

and Denmark. Th ese markets will fuel Europe’s off shore

wind eminence as the annual megawatts added scale glob-

ally,” says Sala de Vedruna.

Utilities own around 90 percent of the 20GW of off -

shore projects in the pipeline in Europe, many of which are

now moving to procure turbines and defi ne engineering,

procurement and construction strategies for project execu-

tion. Northern European players – and German utilities

in particular – have the most aggressive expansion plans

in terms of megawatts and geographic diversity of their

pipelines, says Sala de Vedruna. “European utilities such

as RWE, E.ON, DONG, Vattenfall, Scottish and Southern

Energy, Statkraft , and Iberdrola are well-positioned to

rely on their strong balance sheets and industry expertise

to overcome the increased costs and risks associated with

off shore wind projects,” he explains.

Heading offshoreEurope’s off shore wind industry has rapidly evolved

into a consolidated market mainly in the North Sea, with

onshore competition moving off shore as utility players

expand their portfolios. “What began as a market in which

Th e global off shore wind energy industry’s entry into the next decade will be marked by concrete progress built on the past 10 years of moving along the learning curve

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WIND FOCUS 95

smaller developers competed to lock up permitted sites for

sale to utilities has shift ed to utilities working in tandem

with other utilities and developers to assemble the techni-

cal skills, fi nancing, and power experience needed for proj-

ect execution. Th is shift has been crucial to the market’s

reaching maturity to handle the sets of technical, construc-

tion and interface risks inherent with EPC on this scale,”

says Sala de Vedruna.

As a result, Asia and North America are currently

looking to Europe for technology and cost benchmarking.

Between 2010 and 2020, these two regions will contrib-

ute nearly 25 percent of the total new off shore capacity

installed worldwide, according to the study. EER expects

Asia to tap its off shore markets in 2014, led by China and

Korea. In North America, test projects in the US (Deepwa-

ter Wind) and Canada (NaiKun) may come to fruition by

2012, with over 6GW projected by 2020.

And Sala de Vedruna believes the movement of Euro-

pean players along the value chain is setting the tone for

longer-term global competition, with each project provid-

ing essential expertise for the industry to improve stan-

dardisation across projects for off shore installations, which

are larger and more costly than onshore wind projects.

“Off shore projects still present major challenges

throughout the process, from permitting to construction

and available technology, requiring more skilled players to

manage the projects and contingencies,” says Sala de Ve-

druna. In addition to utilities, independent power produc-

ers, pure play developers, EPC contractors, and specialised

service and equipment providers are increasingly getting

active in off shore, he adds.

To reduce installation costs and maximise power

output, utilities are seeking bankable, larger turbines to

maximise economies of scale. Europe’s trend toward 5MW

turbines for 200MW and larger projects moving further

off shore will provide key references for near-term projects

in Canada, the US, China and Korea. Th e recent launch

of larger turbines, the increasing size of projects and the

industry’s ability to scale the supply chain with vessel, ca-

bling and foundation installation capacity are fundamen-

tal to project execution, says Sala de Vedruna.

The renewable energy economyAnd he is not the only one to see the potential in the

sector. At the recent European Wind Energy Conference

and Exhibition held at Warsaw in April, top wind energy

professionals told the assembled delegates that wind

energy would help meet 50 percent of the EU’s electricity

demand in 2050.

“2050 might seem like a long way off , but the decisions

we take today will have a big impact on our energy sup-

plies in 40 years’ time,” says Arthouros Zervos, President

of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). And

with the G8 and EU already committed to an 80 percent

greenhouse gas reduction by 2050, Zervos is adamant that

strong leadership was required to ensure the huge oppor-

tunities aff orded by wind are realised over the coming

decades. “We can’t allow the politicians to make grand

statements and leave the serious decisions to the next

generation,” he says. “Given the long life of power plants,

our vision for 2050 has to be refl ected in the construction

of new power plants from at least 2020 onwards. A fully

renewable power sector is the only solution to reaching

80-95 percent CO2 reductions by 2050. Th e remaining

carbon emissions will be needed for other sectors, such

as agriculture.”

Indeed, Zervos believes we should be talking about a

“renewable energy economy” rather than just a low carbon

one. “Renewable energies can provide 100 percent of Eu-

rope’s power supplies by 2050 without any further contri-

bution from so-called low-carbon technologies,” he asserts.

Wind energy is already a mainstream power source in

Europe, and annual market growth has been impressive

over the past 10 years, averaging 23 percent year-on-year.

“Realistically, wind can provide 50 percent of power sup-

plies by 2050 if the necessary changes to infrastructure

and markets are made,” agrees Christian Kjaer, EWEA’s

Chief Executive. “Th e potential is there and the industry

is ready. All we have to do is maintain current growth

rates, both on and off shore. I am also confi dent that other

renewables can easily meet the other half of Europe’s elec-

tricity needs.”

Cost effi cient?Kjaer also believes that wind power is fundamental

to reducing electricity prices as well as CO2 emissions.

wind energy will help meet 50

percent of the EU’s electricity

demand in 2050

Europe’s wind energy market has

grown by 23% year-on-year


96

EWEA recently completed a comprehensive assessment

of studies conducted into the impact of wind energy on

electricity prices, including fi ndings from case studies in

Germany, Denmark and Belgium. Th e report fi nds that

electricity prices were reduced by between €3-23/MWh

depending on the amount of wind power, and concludes

that the studies “essentially draw similar conclusions”

that “an increased penetration of wind power reduces

wholesale spot prices”.

Kjaer believes that this is a signifi cant fi nding. “It has

already been well-established that wind reduces CO2 emis-

sions,” he says. “But now we have stronger evidence than

ever before that wind power also reduces electricity prices

for consumers. Th e message is clear – if you want aff ordable

CO2-free electricity, increase the amount of wind power in

your electricity mix.”

Th e report found that wind power is oft en used as an

alternative to CO2-intensive production technologies, with

wind replacing hard coal power plants – the technology

that usually sets the price on the wholesale market – during

hours of low demand, and gas-fi red power plants during

hours of high demand in all the countries under review.

EWEA believes this is because wind’s low marginal costs

push more expensive technologies, such as gas and thermal

plants, out of the market.

However, there are still a number of hurdles to be

overcome in order for wind to become a widespread and

fully functional part of Europe’s energy mix – not least

the adoption of a Pan-European power market. Europe

needs to interconnect its electricity networks as a neces-

sary step towards a truly integrated European electricity

market. “A pan-European grid is the fi rst priority, but a

clear vision of, and a strong political commitment to, the

long-term energy mix is also essential,” says Kjaer, adding

that an integrated power market is essential for the smart

management of renewable energies, and in order to lower

the costs for consumers. “Energy is an international

challenge,” he says. “It is astounding that 24 years aft er

establishing free movement of goods, services, capital and

labour, the EU has not yet established a fi ft h freedom: free

movement of electricity.”

Th ere are promising signs that this could be about

to change, however, with the new EU Commissioner for

Energy, Günther Oettinger, recently announcing his sup-

port for a European supergrid. “We will never be able to

deliver our ambitious energy effi ciency or greenhouse gas

emission targets without fully utilising the opportuni-

ties that large and integrated markets off er,” Oettinger

said during a spirited speech delivered at the Eurelectric

Conference in Brussels, before adding that transmission

system operators will bear the critical task of building

the infrastructure needed to integrate large scale wind

energy with both the networks and the markets. “We

require a European mechanism that allows us to produce

our energy in the most effi cient way, so we can be sure

that valuable wind power is not stuck at a border, or worse

never produced, because we do not have the right cables

to carry it.”

GENERATOR The generator’s

electrical output goes to a transformer that

converts it to the right voltage

for the larger electricity grid

GEARBOX The gears in this box connect the low-speed shaft to the high-speed shaft. They boost the rotation speed of the high-speed shaft to 1000-18000 rotations per minute

LOW-SPEED SHAFT The turning blades spin this shaft 30-60 times per minute

HIGH-SPEED SHAFT This rapidly spinning shaft drives the generator to produce electric power


POWERCLIMBER.indd 1POWERCLIMBER.indd 1 28/07/2010 11:0028/07/2010 11:00

RENEWABLE ENERGY98

For a long time, RW Energy’s (RWE)

growth in the renewables market

was limited entirely to the UK – the

business model was matured and

honed over several years, but it

wasn’t until certain changes were

introduced within the company’s executive

board in Germany that trends were shift ed. Pre-

dominantly the company had been what Kevin

McCullough explains as “a very carbon-heavy

player within the energy sector,” but in order to

stay on top, the company quickly recognised the

changing times and the need to move away from

its traditional carbon-based technologies.

“Th e decision was taken with the introduc-

tion of our new group Chief Executive, Juergen

Grossman, to up the game in renewables,” says

McCullough. “We had a very solid base on

Mixit up

Springboarding from the Radlinger Group, RW Energy has upped the renewables game. COO Kevin McCullough explains the industry’s need for a mixed energy portfolio to actualise carbon-emitting targets.

which to build that from RWE npower renew-

ables in the UK and the role has been to try to

extrapolate that throughout Europe, and to

build it slightly diff erent from jurisdiction to

jurisdiction. Th e business we have in Spain is a

diff erent business model to the one we have in

Italy, Poland and the UK, but it was important to

take that experience and knowhow and grow it.”

Th e company wasted no time in moving

quickly. RWE and Westphalia-Lippe Agricul-

tural Association signed a cooperation agree-

ment for biogas, and a deal was struck with

REpower Systems of a framework agreement

on the supply of 250 off shore wind energy units

for the Nordsee 1 project. McCullough notes

that fast innovation is the key to success in such

implementations. “If you are going to stick to

what you’ve always done, you’ll stay doing what

you’ve always done. Th at market will decrease

because others will eat away; because we were

a little later than most of our competitors in

getting into large volume renewables, we had to

make some fairly bold moves quickly,” he says.

“A typical example was the formation of a

strong partnership agreement with one of the

major wind turbine manufacturers globally –

we secured a contract with REpower Systems

for up to 250 fi ve- or six-megawatt turbines that

we could deploy in a range of off shore projects

around Europe. Once all of the 250 turbines are

procured and paid for, the value of that project

is in excess of US$2 billion.

“We commit to that contract with terms

and conditions that we can live with so that

we can be fl exible when projects come to frui-

tion. It’s one thing to say that you’re going to

Wind article 2pages.indd 98Wind article 2pages.indd 98 30/07/2010 15:0230/07/2010 15:02

RENEWABLE ENERGY 99

develop large scale, off shore wind in particular,

but a gigawatt of off shore is likely to cost in

excess of €2.5 to €3 billion, so it’s not for the

fainthearted. You have to show that you are

really committed and have the means to back

that commitment up. Th ose framework agree-

ments and getting them ready in place quickly

is fundamentally important,” he says.

Offshore projectsMcCullough adds that there have only been

minimalist lifestyle changes towards energy, and

current policies of low carbon and low price are

highly ambitious: renewables involve typically

expensive technologies and skimming on the

cost involved will see the continuation of energy

sourced from fossil fuels. He notes how onshore

wind is now beginning to fi nd party with gas

and coal turbine plants, whereas off shore wind

still remains in a diff erent league.

“It’s at least 50 percent more expensive than

onshore wind in pure capital of cost because of

the amount of infrastructure that sits beneath

the waves, but then when you look at the life of

an asset 50 to 150 kilometres from shore, it’s a

square area the geographical size of the city of

London. To maintain that over a 20 year lifes-

pan is signifi cantly diff erent from simply driv-

ing to a turbine in a fi eld or in a valley that you

can gain access to, so we’re beginning to learn

the full lifecycle cost. If we want a low carbon

economy we all must ultimately fi nd a means

for society to pay for this low carbon economy.”

RWE is participating in the British Off shore

Wind Accelerator Initiative, launched by the

Carbon Trust, and is one of the original utilities

to begin building commercially viable, off shore

wind farms. In 2003 the company built North

Hoyle, which has continued to operate since

then and is regarded as the best performing off -

shore wind farm in British waters. McCullough

advises that the company’s technical availability

is at around 90 percent, making it signifi cantly

more advanced than that of RWE’s competition

and proving its expertise to the Carbon Trust

and Off shore Wind Accelerator Program in

order to develop innovative new products.

Combining innovative products with cost

reductions is highly important. Th e company

is currently developing ways into lowering

production prices and making the supply chain

in the manufacturing process more effi cient,

for both its onshore and off shore activities.

Working alongside the Carbon Trust, RWE is

developing how electricity is to be taken from

those wind farms and deployed into the na-

tional grid, simultaneously learning how these

operations can be made cheaper.

Th e company has not been secretive of its

fi ndings. “We have to be a little sensitive on

some of the information regarding the com-

merciality of any particular project, but it’s in

our interest to share information about how we

maintain our assets, how we benchmark our

assets – how do we know that we’re actually the

best of something that we do without sharing

that information? We’re very active about shar-

ing the basic concepts of good practice, such as

health and safety initiatives and maintenance

philosophy,” explains McCullough.

“If we and all our competitors did that in

complete isolation then UK, PLC and EU play-

ers would take a lot longer to see the benefi ts

due to the parochial nature that that would

support. We don’t believe in that, we want to

open our doors. Th e North Hoyle project is a

classic example of this: most of the round one

off shore wind projects have had full public

visibility, partly because they were initially

funded by a capital grant. For the fi rst early

years of their life we had to be very transpar-

ent with that learning experience, and that’s a

philosophy that we should try to extend where

we can.”

Energy mixConsumer interest is fast catching on to the

global emphasis of green energy, and under-

standing how to provide a mix of energy types

and getting that mix right for its consumers is

an issue facing nearly all utilities worldwide.

McCullough discusses how the company is

administering these choices and points to the

example of the large combustion plant direc-

tive in the UK, which is placing pressure on the

energy gap – the capacity of generation ability

and the level of demand at any one time.

“We have the Magnox fl eets shutting down

now,” he explains. “Th e AGR’s will follow, and

at any point in time today we have investment

decisions to make to replace some of those

assets that will be aff ected by schemes like that.

We have to do it in a way with the best knowl-

edge that we have available at any given time,

but we try to spread the risk so that we’re not

putting all eggs in one basket.

“We see real strength in playing as an

energy generator portfolio as opposed to a

single party player. With the technology that’s

available today I don’t believe in a world that

is 100 percent renewable-backed, nor do I be-

lieve in a world that’s 100 percent nuclear, coal

or anything else. When you look at things like

carbon capture and storage with sequestration

they have the potential to be very viable proj-

ects, but only on a project-by-project basis.

“Not only does that take very high ef-

fi ciency coal plants close to 50 thermal effi -

ciency, but by adopting the technology to strip

out the carbon dioxide, it reduces our thermal

effi ciency closer to 30 again. Th en you also

have the sustainability issue of taking that CO2

and transporting it vast distances, with all of

the steel pipe work, infrastructure and com-

pression plants, and storing it for somewhere

between 30 and 100 years. However, with

the climate change dilemma you have to ask

whether a wholesale basis for every coal plant

is sustainable, so the answer is not completely

CCS; it’s not completely nuclear. It has to be a

selection of these technologies so that we can

make the best of everything we have available

and stop trying to fi nd this silver bullet that

frankly, in my experience of 25 years in the

energy sector, doesn’t exist,” he says.

Whether Europe’s transmission and dis-

tribution network is strong enough to cope

with the rise of micro generators and the

transmission of renewable energy from point

of generation to point of use remains to be

seen. McCullough believes the network to be

suffi cient to cope with a large penetration of

renewable energy, and to successfully distrib-

ute energy too. Smaller scale energy is made in

a more distributed nature via combined heat,

power plants and generation, be it micro, do-

mestic or small business scale. He notes the ex-

ample of Germany, which has historically been

a centre of large points of generations, similar

to that in the UK.

“It means that we have to actually adapt to

how we think about a new form of rules as to how

we regulate and manage the grid,” he explains.

“When you look at 23,000 megawatts installed

in Germany and look at the very signifi cant per-

centage of penetration that is in the market, then

look at markets like the UK that are down in

the single digit percents and very low numbers

at that, there’s a vast amount of room to go at

before we really run into problems. Will we run

into problems? We might, but let’s actually make

the progress towards that hurdle rather than not

starting and stopping now before we get there.

We can’t continue doing nothing.”

“If we want a low carbon

economy we all must

ultimately fi nd a means for

society to pay for this low

carbon economy”

Wind article 2pages.indd 99Wind article 2pages.indd 99 30/07/2010 15:0230/07/2010 15:02

Low carb diet

The CRC is a recent scheme that is highly incentivised, so could you tell us how businesses are responding to it so far?Dave Lewis. Well I have to say it is diffi cult to assess at this early stage, although we do know that only quite a low proportion of companies have registered so far. Registration opened on April 1 and will run up until the end of September, but the registration level is currently running at between fi ve to 10 percent, which is approximately 5000 companies that are impacted by the scheme, a fi gure that is surprisingly low. I must admit, some of the more high-profi le names I thought would have pushed for a fast registration have failed to do so, so it does seem that there is still quite a bit of work left to do for a lot of companies.

It also suggests that there is maybe still some concern about what is required of these companies, such as how to gather and manage all the information that is required because it is a very bureaucratic process. In summary then, I think that companies are struggling a little bit with the new legislation – we have had conversations with companies that initially thought they had it all under control, only to then turn to us to do it for them because they realised that it was far more complicated than they maybe appreciated. It is a challenging scheme; the data management alone cannot be underestimated because unless a company has an ongoing process for managing its carbon footprint they are having to start from scratch in order to fully understand their carbon emissions from all of their fuel sources on all of their sites.

On April 1 2010, the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Effi cient Scheme (CRC) went live in the UK amid not a little confusion as to how the scheme

works, who can benefi t, and how. EU Infrastructure asked Npower’s

Head of Business Energy Services, Dave Lewis, to

explain more.

CARBON MANAGEMENT100

NPower 100NPower 100 30/07/2010 14:3430/07/2010 14:34

ing on how much smart metering you have in your portfolio. Also, being accredited to the Carbon Trust Standard shows that your company has an energy man-agement scheme in place, which can also earn more credit.

Th ere are many equivalents to the Carbon Trust Standard too, so we can work toward getting companies accredited under those standards as well. Our aim is to ensure companies understand how to run their energy management programmes and reduce their energy consumption because, ultimately, CRC was started as simply the Carbon Reduction Commitment, and I think companies have become confused, asking ‘is it carbon trading?’ or ‘is it the EU Emissions Trading System?’ It is neither. Th is is about energy reduction, using less energy.

The scheme does support, however, a Carbon Allow-ance Purchasing Scheme. How does this work and how have companies responded to it so far?DL. In the early part of the scheme, which is called the in-troductory phase and is three years long, a company can buy allowances for whatever is required; it is at a fi xed price, so a company has to calculate its carbon allow-ances and its carbon footprint, purchasing allowances for what it thinks its footprint will be in the following year. So a company covers its future year’s allowances. For example, in April a company can buy allowances to cover its future year consumption and, at the end of the year, it can surrender them. Th e idea is to buy enough to cover allowances, which means a company has to under-stand exactly what its footprint is and also anticipate any changes to its footprint throughout the year. So it might be that a company is expanding and acquiring sites and so has to buy more carbon, or a company might need less carbon allowance because, fundamentally, it is becom-ing more effi cient.

Th erefore, a complete understanding of a company’s carbon footprint is important because allowances are purchased for a full footprint, irrespective of what gets recycled back to the company. Th is is quite a large cash fl ow requirement, particularly if a company purchases every ton of CO2 in its portfolio – carbon is priced at £12 per ton (€16) which, if you are dealing in electricity only, will add £6 (€8) a megawatt hour to a company’s electricity bill.

Despite the cost, is it easier for companies to simply buy more carbon allowances rather than follow the course of long-term investments in energy-effi cient techniques to ultimately lower their carbon foot-print?DL. Well this is why the scheme is structured in the way that it is because, ultimately, a company gets a recycle payment, and in the fi rst year they get a minimum of 90 percent of that cost back because the penalty band is plus or minus 10 percent. However, in order to purchase a full allowance, there is quite a big cost involved, which is what will discourage companies from signifi cantly overburdening just to be safe because too much carbon allowance purchases becomes quite a burden in itself. Companies could play it safe, sure, but then they would have to manage the cost impact of that on their business.

If a company, through their half-hourly electricity meters, consumed more than 6GW hours of electricity in 2008, then they are a full participant of the scheme and therefore have to register and manage their carbon under the CRC process

If a lot of companies have to start from scratch, are they daunted by the prospect of adapting to the scheme, or are the low registration rates down to a lack of inclination to adapt?DL. I think the main issue is understanding where to start. Npower has been aff ected by this just as much as any other business: the task of just writing down the list of properties that fall under this jurisdiction was far from straightforward in itself. We had to conduct several iterations just to understand all the sites that were im-pacted. Once the scope had been grasped, the next stage was the data management, which means going back two years because the scheme requires you to capture your carbon footprint from 2008.

If a company has not registered in time for the Sep-tember cut off point, are they then penalised?DL. Absolutely. Th e environment agency has a very clear view of whom they expect to be impacted by this, so they have a good idea of all the sites that should be registered, which is any company that has a half-hourly electricity meter. At best guess this is about 20,000 organisations. Th e benchmark is as follows: if a company, through their half-hourly electricity meters, consumed more than 6GW hours of electricity in 2008, then they are a full participant of the scheme and therefore have to register and manage their carbon under the CRC process.

How are these 20,000 companies being contacted to ensure they are aware of their obligations?DL. Th ey have been contacted by us. Npower has been asked by the environment agency to mail out to all of the sites that have these half-hourly electricity meters to inform them that they are impacted. But, with all the best will in the world, this has proved a sizeable task. Our information is sent to billing addresses, so the guidelines are oft en reaching no farther than the accounts team, not energy managers or fi nance directors – the guys who are really impacted by all this. Our requirement from the government has been to get these declarations signed off by a board member of a suffi cient level that the environment agency is satisfi ed with. Th ere are thousands of companies out there that are in the sights of the environment agency, and they need to know it.

In response to the introduction of the scheme, you set up a CRC Assist programme. How can this scheme help businesses to get on board and better manage their carbon output and energy use? DL. CRC Assist is a very specifi c product. We are agents under CRC, so we can represent organisations as part of the CRC scheme, and we are also reg-istered agents with the environment agency, so we can eff ectively manage the whole process for an organisation. In this instance, we will tell them what to do, we will source the data for them; we will run the data manage-ment process for them. So, everything that they need to do to comply can be done via our CRC Assist scheme, which covers the basic steps.

Th ere are other things that we can assist with in order to make a com-pany’s registration process successful. In the early days of the scheme, having smart metering installed in your portfolio earns you extra credit as an early action, which then builds to extra, subsequent credit depend-

CARBON MANAGEMENT 101

NPower 101NPower 101 30/07/2010 14:3430/07/2010 14:34

CARBON MANAGEMENT102

What is the CRC?

The CRC Energy Effi ciency Scheme is a mandatory climate change and energy saving scheme for the UK, aimed at cutting emissions and improving energy effi ciency in large

private and public sector organisations. There is a fi nancial incentive for these

organisations to reduce energy – carbon emissions are priced, with the organisations purchasing Carbon Allowances that are equal to their annual emissions. There is an emissions ‘cap’ for total allowances available to the CRC participants, who are encouraged to determine the most cost-effective way to lower their emissions, either by purchasing more Carbon Allowances or investing in ways to reduce their emissions and thus restrict the number of allowances they have to buy.

An organisation is eligible for CRC if they possess at least one half-hourly meter (HHM) that is settled on the half-hourly market and consumed more than 6000-megawatt hours of electricity per year of HHM during 2008.

NPower 102NPower 102 30/07/2010 14:3430/07/2010 14:34

CARBON MANAGEMENT 103

So the government’s aim is to instigate a change from the bottom up – do companies grasp this?DL. Th ey do, yes. In addition to the Carbon Allowance Purchasing Scheme, the environment agency is also publishing a lead table. At the end of every year of the scheme, each of the registered organisations will be ranked ac-cording to their performance under CRC. How it gets measured will change a little bit throughout the scheme, and that bit is quite complicated, which is why we have products to help organisations perform better in terms of their energy management and so rank higher up on the lead table. Th is has two impacts: reputation and fi nancial – the better you do, the more industry respect and money back you receive.

The money that the scheme raises is recycled fully back into it, but how do the companies benefi t from this?DL. Th ere are no stipulations attached to the money that gets recycled back: a company pays it in and, six months later it all comes back out again to the participant. Ultimately, though, the ones that really benefi t are those at the top of the lead table – leaders are rewarded with a bonus, while those at the bottom get a penalty. Over time, this risk band increases. In the fi rst year it is plus or minus 10 percent, rising to 20 percent next year and so on, up to 50 percent aft er fi ve years.

Will the CRC scheme be adopted elsewhere in Europe or do other European nations have their own methods for restricting carbon consumption?DL. I have not come across anything quite like it in Europe yet so I think it is quite unique. Germany is obvious-ly very strong on renewables, target-ing their carbon emissions through renewables and incentivising com-panies to take part. I think CRC is a little bit of the UK playing catch-up. Th e government has already tack-led the energy-intensive part of the market, and the CRC is aimed at non energy-intensive organisations, such as retailers, multi-site organisations, landlords, property owners and those other companies that traditionally have not been managing their energy and carbon quite so closely as the energy-intensive sector because, until now, there has been little cost incentive to do so.

In the economic downturn, com-panies will obviously focus on cutting costs rather than carbon, so what would you say to the deci-sion makers of companies who are reluctant to cut carbon right now?DL. I think you do both. Energy is no longer a cheap commodity. It varies in price, quite signifi cantly, and the market has moved a lot in the last couple of years. By banking carbon

savings you are banking the value of that carbon, and so you are banking good energy savings. Th is potentially incentivises a company to do more rather than less because it makes the paybacks more attractive. Hence, I would suggest that those issues that were borderline before are now more attractive because there is that po-tential of fi nancial gain, coupled with mitigating risk under the lead table and moving up it.

How far are we from seeing wholesale changes in attitudes and be-haviours throughout Europe, and will the CRC be a catalyst for change?DL. I can see it already. It is happening in every organisation I have spoken to; they all recognise that they have to do something about their carbon footprint, so there has been a defi nite change in the consciousness of most organisations. Th ere is an understanding that success as a company de-pends on good energy management not just as part of the CRC but on all levels, such as supply chain, where all companies need to be demonstrating good performance and good corporate social responsibility.

Th ought-processes are really beginning to change and the whole industry is becoming much more strategic; energy and environmental concerns are reaching the decision makers in pretty much every business, which can only be seen as a good thing.

FAST FACT:The CRC aims to cut carbon emmissions by 80% by 2050 compared to 1990’s baseline

NPower 103NPower 103 30/07/2010 14:3430/07/2010 14:34


Renewable energy is becoming a very signifi cant part of the European energy mix. How does this fact infl u-ence the exploitation of generating assets? Ricardo Moro. With European objectives of 20 percent

of the energy coming from renewables, it becomes a

strategic objective to ensure that plants are operated in

the best possible way to ensure high electricity yields and

minimum downtime or effi ciency loss. And of course

asset owners demand the same high standards in order to

maximise the return on their investment.

How should independent service providers (ISPs) of operations & maintenance services prepare for de-mands of better service?RM. ISPs like Global Energy Services (GES) must respond

to those demands. Customers request from ISPs to show

their commitment by signing service contracts based

upon plant availability and energy output objectives,

including rewards and penalties derived from achieving

them or not.

This commitment must be supported by better ser-vice levels provided by the ISP. What are the types of improvements that an O&M company needs to un-dertake to really fulfi l customer expectations?RM. Service crews must be familiar with the specifi c

technology to be serviced. Sometimes this is achieved

by hiring experienced technicians. In other, rarer cases,

there is a cooperation between turbine manufacturer and

ISP to provide O&M services. Another step is to increase

the qualifi cation of the team so that the technicians, es-

pecially the team leader, can organize and execute in an

optimal way both the planned maintenance activities and

the reaction to any unexpected event. In parallel, talent

retention schemes are advisable. For example, rewards

can be off ered to the service crew when the required plant

availability and energy output are achieved.

It is crucial to have a skilful and motivated team,

but at the same time the whole operating model has to

be improved at several levels. At the execution level,

standard operating procedures have to be put in place so

that activities are carried out in a homogenous and re-

petitive way, regardless of skill or habit of the individual

technician. Other measures are the use of standard kits,

O&M challenges at renewable energy plants

Renewable energy plays an increasingly important role in the European energy mix. In terms of operation & maintenance, how can independent service providers contribute to the maturity and reliability of the sector? Ricardo Moro shares his ideas.

5S deployment, etc. At the planning level, capacity plan-

ning systems must be developed to ensure availability

of people/tools/materials where and when required. At

the management level, key process indicators need to be

identifi ed, measured and monitored in order to trigger

corrective actions when necessary.

Has your company engaged in such improvements as those just mentioned? If so, please describe. RM. GES, the leading ISP worldwide, is ready to share

commitment, risks and rewards with plant owners. For

that purpose we are undergoing a transformation proj-

ect which contemplates actions such as those described

above with the goal of increasing uptime and perfor-

mance in the wind farms that we are servicing. Such a

project has been completed in our GES USA organization

and we are now extending the results to other regions

where we operate.

Th roughout the project we have used many principles

coming from the lean operations culture. It has been a

very exciting challenge to study concepts originated in

manufacturing production environments and adapt them

to a service environment. We have found this mental ex-

ercise enormously stimulating and creative.

Finally, please summarise the practical results of the transformation project for your company. RM. GES is now in a better position to provide O&M

services to our customers, many of whom are global

and demand from us common operational standards

anywhere in the world. And this is an ongoing process:

further cooperation between asset owners, turbine

manufacturers and ISP companies will make renewable

energy a more mature and reliable contributor to the

energy system.

“It is crucial to have a skilful and

motivated team, but at the same time

the whole operating model has to be

improved at several levels”

Ricardo Moro is Chief Executive Offi cer at Global Energy Services, the leading independent service provider in the wind sector with almost 11,000 MW maintained worldwide. He is an industrial engineer and has over 20 years’ experience in the renewable energy sector, both in manufacturing and in service activities.

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106

Next year London will welcome its newest addition to the East End skyline. Cur-

rently in design stages, Th e Pinnacle will rise majestically from the heart of the

city’s banking district, adding to the collection of structures that are redefi ning

the horizon of 21st century London. Th e 66-storey offi ce and retail building,

nicknamed the ‘Helter Skelter’ for its spiralling architectural design, curling like a

coiled snake upwards to tower over the British capital, is set to integrate solar power

technologies that will generate the largest single amount on a building in London. In addition, it will

include a wealth of energy effi cient features, such as biomass heating and ground water heat exchange.

Its pronounced aesthetics will almost certainly earn Th e Pinnacle a place among the great edifi ces

of London but, more signifi cantly, its low carbon energy and water effi ciency features mark a trend that

has become paramount for architects and developers the world over. At Hilson Moran, the engineer

consultancy fi rm behind the EC2 tower, the project portfolio is teeming with similar developments

that all exhibit the latest advancements in sustainability technology.

Hilson Moran’s infl uence on the built world is far-reaching; its projects can be seen across Europe

and into the Middle East, ranging from luxurious residential to innovative offi ce space and effi cient

transport infrastructure. But while projects such as Th e Pinnacle are undoubtedly both arresting and

socially responsible, implementing such sustainability features is no longer headline-making news,

and nor should it be. “Sustainability is simply good design,” explains Matt Kitson, Director of Sustain-

ability at Hilson Moran. “People should be doing it anyway. It is not a bolt-on solution, it’s just good

quality design.” Th is seems to be common opinion among industry professionals. Whether because

demonstrating social responsibility is a good marketing tool, or because developers are acting for

genuine moral reason, sustainable infrastructures are popping up across the world. “Th e sustainability

agenda has fl ourished out of the recession,” says Kitson, highlighting that this trend marks the future

of construction and development. “Designers that design using the principles of sustainability – social,

economic and environmental – will be around for longer. Consultants also need to off er post occu-

pancy evaluations of buildings as part of the dialogue with the end user, to check that these principles

are working in practice.”

Kitson explains that the greatest challenge involved in developing a sustainable built environment

is people. “Th e predicted population rise in Europe is the greatest issue facing the construction and

engineering sector,” he says. “Th e majority of cities will experience a population increase over the next

10 years. Our challenge is how to fulfi l the needs of this increasing population, while ensuring that

cities remain vibrant and prosperous.”

According to a report into the state of European cities commissioned by the European Union back

in 2007, almost every country in the EU had seen a signifi cant migration of its existing population to

large urban zones. Extended residential development in these areas is all well and good, but as Kitson

points out, the inevitable demands placed on a city’s utilities infrastructure that is already exhausted

will pose a considerable problem. “We only have to look at some US cities to identify the potential

pitfalls,” he explains. “US cities went through huge population booms. However, within a couple of

generations, people began leaving the city centres for the suburbs, leading to social segregation and

racial tension within the inner cities, as well as obesity and diabetes issues due to the lack of transport

infrastructure, overreliance on cars and sedentary lifestyle.”

Despite impressive amounts of funding for research and development into energy and environ-

ment from the Union, there remains a distinct diff erence in the standards of sustainable infrastructure

across the European region. Kitson outlines the diffi culties that have hindered such developments in

some of Europe’s more economically robust countries, citing the UK as an example. “[Th e UK’s] infra-

structure is on the cusp, with the introduction of district heating and cooling systems only just starting

to be introduced by forward thinking developers. Th is is perhaps because the installation of central-

ised district heating systems requires developers to make a major investment in energy effi cient in-

British engineers Hilson Moran have developed a strong portfolio of sustainable projects in recent years, but for the fi rm’s Director of Sustainability, Matt Kitson, that is not enough. He speaks to EU Infrastructure about his revolutionary framework for sustainable master planning and his vision for designing Europe’s communities of the future.

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SUSTAINABILITY FOCUS

Hilson moran.indd 106Hilson moran.indd 106 30/07/2010 14:5530/07/2010 14:55

SUSTAINABILITY FOCUS 107


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frastructure, long before they will see any capital

return from the buildings on the development.

Although this will deliver huge benefi ts in the

long term, the challenge for consultants is to fi nd

solutions that are palatable for developers, bal-

ancing initial outlay against long-term rewards,

so that the environmental, social and economic

indicators of sustainability are aligned.”

Kitson’s concerns are symptomatic of his

fi rm’s focus on the wider community of the

built environment, an ideal that has been key in

the development of Hilson Moran’s innovative

Sustainable Built Environment Tool (SuBET).

“Th e rationale behind it was ‘how do you create

communities where people want to live?’” ex-

plains Kitson. “SuBET off ers a framework for

masterplanning that focuses on place making for

our future cities, while at the same time making

sure that aspects such as energy, waste, social and

cultural impacts are not overlooked.”

The new wayTh e next generation in sustainability de-

veloping, the SuBET incorporates all consider-

ations beyond simply the physical impacts of a

development, and marks an evolution in the role

of industry professionals. Kitson believes such

a system compares favourably to the sustain-

ability standards in place today, such as LEED

or BREEAM. While these regulations provide a

helpful standard that developers can endeavour

to meet in order to improve effi ciency features of

a building, Kitson believes there is the potential

for the grauitous addition of features in order to

meet the standards. “Poorly implemented solu-

tions can become even less helpful than doing

nothing,” he says, “as they damage the credibilty

of renewable solutions. Sustainable master-

planning requires a 360-degree assessment of a

proposed scheme; not simply bolting on techno-

logical solutions, but designing in sustainability

from the outset.”

Th e SuBET is the brainchild of Kitson him-

self, in conjunction with Dr Huam Al Waer,

Director of the Sustainability Research Group at

the University of Dundee and Emeritus Profes-

sor Dereck Clements-Croome. While it sets out

to provide a framework of standards for a de-

velopment’s sustainability, it goes much further

than other certifi cation frameworks used in the

industry, allowing for a more subjective analysis

of a project. “It’s not about certifi cation,” Kitson

explains, “it’s the thought process that’s impor-

tant. LEED and BREEAM both pre-set what is

deemed to be a good thing. However, SuBET

allows the stakeholders to decide what is most

important and facilitates the development of a

sustainable masterplanning design.”

Taking three years to fully develop, the

SuBet framework marked a signifi cant invest-

ment of time and innovative skill, but one that

looks set to pay off . Kitson highlights that the

repsonse from Hilson Moran’s clients and proj-

ect partners has been positive, with many critics

of the tool describing it as the ‘next generation

way of thinking’ when it comes to developing

the built world. Kitson goes on to explain that

the framework takes into account all aspects of

a project, from its environmental eff ects to its

social and economic impacts, and incorporates

the specifi c considerations of each development,

such as regional planning issues or national

impact of the project.

Th is attention to the socio-cultural is a

concept that seems to resonate with Kitson and

he is keen to point out that the municipal infra-

structures that fi rms such as his are responsible

for must meet the specifi c demands of the city’s

population. “A lot of city populations have a very

young demographic; families and young profes-

sionals in particular,” he says. “We need to ensure

we off er the amenities and ecology that suits this

young population: parks and open spaces, as well

as schools and hospitals.”


SUSTAINABILITY FOCUS110

He emphasises the benefi ts of implementing

a master-planning framework to look at the whole

picture of the development rather than using a set

of effi ciency certifi cation standards. “Sustainable

master planning means moving beyond a narrow

building-centric view of design and energy ef-

fi ciency ratings to considering the huge number

of socio-economic and cultural factors that also

have an impact on the long-term sustainability of

communities and the environments in which we

live, work and play.”

Kitson points out that when it comes to

project planning, environmental considerations

such as land use, water conservation or energy

effi ciency have well-established parameters for

sustainability, whereas considerations less readily

quantifi able, such as social diversity and cultural

identity, have largely remained unaccounted for

in such standardisation frameworks. “[Long term

sustainability] could incorporate a whole spec-

trum of measures,” he explains. “From encourag-

ing a greater diversity of commercial and retail

centres and creating employment opportunities

near transport facilities, to a more innovative use

of space and consideration of land use between

adjacent plots, together with concentrated areas

for specifi c facilities such as schools and shops.”

One of SuBET’s unique benefi ts, both for

the industry professionals implementing it and

the prospective residents of the communities, is

its subjectivity. “It does not provide a standard

solution,” explains Kitson. “Th ere needn’t be a

uniformed or harmonised approach to master-

planning, because every country’s priorities will

diff er according to the climate, culture and popu-

lation.” Taking into account all of the characteris-

tics that aff ect a built environment, he highlights

how the tool’s fl exible framework approach can

be adapted to incorporate diff erent countries’ re-

quirements in terms of land, culture and climate.

“Th e approach can be tailored to the needs of the

country,” he explains. “SuBET enables us to anal-

yse the many diff erent indicators of sustainability

at the very inception of a project and to assess a

proposed master-plan using bespoke weightings

for environmental stewardship, economic growth

and socio-cultural impact, according to the par-

ticular development’s and country’s priorities.”

Community spirit“Th e social and economic impacts of a devel-

opment are closely intertwined,” Kitson explains,

and points out one of the primary challenges

that the industry professionals will face in order

to successfully utilise such frameworks. “[Th ey

will] require a more lateral level of thinking than

just a straight-forward environmental assessment

SuBET uses 70 different environmental and social indicators to assess the complete impact a development will have on its surroundings



Urban nightmare

Not every city has benefi ted from the careful and considered approach to urban planning that Matt Kitson is advocating…

New YorkWell, Manhattan to be precise. Although the city’s urban planners weren’t to know back in 1811 that Manhattan Island would go on to become the fi nancial, media and fashion capital of the world, they still should have foresaw the folly of their grid structure. At 20 kilometres in length, Manhattan has just 16 streets running north-south, but a total of 155 streets covering the fi ve kilometres west-to-east. With the majority of traffi c fl owing north to south and back again, this iconic part of New York fi nds itself in almost terminal gridlock.

Birmingham, EnglandIt was hardly Birmingham’s fault that much of the city’s centre was fl attened by the German Luftwaffe during WWII, but what came after was all of the city’s own making: dour, grey and chunky brutalist buildings sprung up throughout the centre, most infamously at the Bullring, which was a heaving behemoth of concrete, dodgy underpasses, urine-soaked stairwells and an infuriating one-way system. For 50 years this eyesore stood until, in 2000, the city planners did the honourable thing and tore the whole lot down, replacing it with something altogether more futuristic and appealing.

DubaiDubai looks great in the brochures. Its sparkling horizon of towers and skyscrapers is a testament to the creativity, vision and bloody-mindedness of the human spirit – ‘yes we WILL build a futuristic city in the middle of the desert, and yes we WILL create man-made islands in the shape of palm trees’. All very impressive, but just you try traversing the place at ground level. The Sheikh Zayed road is the main thoroughfare between one end of the city and the other, and so is at the mercy of the Lexus- and SUV-driving army of vehicles that crawls and slithers its way along the only conduit in town. You could get out and walk of course, but the 50-degree heat and vast distances between anywhere of interest makes that a fool’s errand.

of the development could ever achieve,” he says.

“Good quality, high density developments can in

fact help create more viable neighbourhoods ca-

pable of supporting local services. While smaller,

denser developments may be an acceptable

trade-off where other amenity advantages are

improved, housing densities need to be graded

appropriately to maximise local accessibility and

prevent overcrowding.”

In addition to encouraging this new way of

thinking, Kitson hopes that his master-planning

framework will result in greater fl exibility among

professionals in the industry. Th is fl exibility, he

explains, is necessary to the development of a

wholly sustainable master-plan as it will allow

professionals to fully realise the various factors

that combine to create such a plan. “For architects,

engineers, planners and developers,” he explains,

“sustainable master-planning means moving

beyond the familiar territories of own disciplines

and towards a more multi-disciplinary approach

to consultation and engagement within the entire

project team and with wider stakeholders at the

earliest possible stages of planning.”

Kitson’s socio-economic master planning

undoubtedly represents a revolution in metro-

politan design, incorporating factors commonly

overlooked in the development of larger residen-

tial areas. He outlines some of the factors that

he feels should be taken into consideration. “In

terms of social diversity,” he explains, “we need

to ensure that master-planning includes detailed

consideration of the adjacency of work, leisure

and living spaces.” Indeed, as he revealed earlier,

he is keen to avoid the divided and tense societies

that emerged as a result of the poorly conceived

city developments in the US. “Promoting physi-

cal connectivity through eff ective street networks

between the new development areas and the ex-

isting urban fabric increases social networking

and the usability of the local environment.”

Th is marks just one step in Kitson’s plans to

create a unifi ed community. “Community cohe-

sion means fi nding a way to develop a collective

pride and participation in community life,” he

explains, and goes on to highlight that while these

sociological issues may not seem to fall under the

jurisdiction of those in the construction industry,

architects and planners can help signifi cantly

toward creating a unifi ed community. “[Commu-

nity cohesion] may involve enhancing the visual

characteristics of a development to evoke greater

cultural and spiritual responses, while contribut-

ing to the quality of local life,” he explains. “Th is

may mean considering the height, setback, sizes

and materials used in developments to provide

continuity while injecting personality and char-

acter, or encouraging greater community inter-

action through an increased focus on recreation

and leisure activities.”

Th ese plans seem so simple in theory;

creating wholesome and united communities

by ensuring straight and well-lit connecting

roads or a common infrastructure aesthetic

appear so obvious that it seems ludicrous that

they had not been made standard planning

requirements across the board. But Kitson’s

master-planning framework does not stop

here. In an attempt to simultaneously reduce

carbon emissions in his sustainable communi-

ties and improve the health of its residents, he

highlights the need to implement a comprehen-

sive transport infrastructure. “Proximity and

access to frequent public transport helps reduce

the reliance on car transport,” he says, warn-

ing that such networks need to be carefully

planned to refl ect future growth expectations.

“Promoting systems to reduce congestion can

also assist in lowering vehicle pollution linked

to poor public health. Even simple measures

can encourage people to get moving, such as

limiting off -street car parking, providing cycle

paths and safe street lighting.”

Ultimately, Kitson explains, the success of

sustainable master-planning frameworks such

as this will depend upon a complete change of

mindset from both national governments and

the industry professionals who build the cities.

“Long-term sustainability demands the creation

of safer, more vibrant and inclusive communities

that off er a wide range of opportunities for jobs,

leisure, culture and activity. Such areas are more

adaptable to change in the long term and off er

better prospects overall for economic growth.”


GREEN LIVING112

HAMBURG EUROPEAN GREEN CAPITAL FOR 2011

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GREEN LIVING 113

Hamburg will be the European Green

Capital (EGCA) for 2011, following in

the footsteps of Stockholm, the inaugu-

ral and incumbent holder of the title for

2010. Th is relatively new award has been

devised by the European Commission

to promote greater environmental awareness among cities

throughout Europe by encouraging the exchange of green

ideas and city-on-city competition. But how has Hamburg

– home of Europe’s second largest port and a bustling,

industrialised metropolis that is the second largest city in

Germany – earned such an accolade?

Th e city’s First Mayor, Ole von Beust, is acutely aware

that busy, mechanised Hamburg might just surprise some

people. “As one of the largest ports in the world, Hamburg

is no unspoilt paradise,” he stated in an offi cial address. “But

we always want to show that economic development and

environmental protection go together well. We accept the

environmental challenges of the 21st century and respond to

them with dedicated action.”

Such dedicated action from Hamburg saw off the chal-

lenge of seven other nominated cities (including Bristol,

Oslo, Amsterdam and Copenhagen), and has enabled the

city to truly showcase exactly why it was chosen as Europe’s

capital of green for 2011.

“Hamburg was awarded the 2011 title for a number of

reasons,” says Th ea Pieridou, the European Green Capital

Award’s Project Manager. “One of which was Th e Ham-

burg Climate Protection Act, which contains a special

cost-effi ciency benchmark for energy-saving measures in

public buildings, saving energy and €3.4 million per year.

Additionally, over 600 boiler systems have been replaced

with modern condensing boilers in recent years, an invest-

ment of €18 million. Th ese are just a few examples of the

steps Hamburg has taken that made it the frontrunner for

2011’s EGCA.”

Th e EGCA, despite being a relatively new accolade,

has rapidly garnered EU-wide prestige thanks to the

wealth of directives in which a city has to impress during

the application process. Hamburg, reveals Pieridou,

simply covered more bases more eff ectively than its com-

petitors. “Th e experts evaluating Hamburg’s performance

commended the excellent integrated waste management

system, which features high levels of source separation

of individual materials and energy recovery,” she says.

“Very good performance in water consumption, meter-

ing and leakage was also noted by the panel. Concerning

water consumption in particular, high investments in in-

frastructure and incentive pricing have been introduced,

awareness campaigns have been launched and innovative

practices on separated urinal collection in public toilets

have been implemented. Future plans include more eff orts

on separated rain water management.”

The European Green Capital Award (EGCA) will go to Hamburg for 2011, an award the city richly deserves, EGCA Project Manager Thea Pieridou tells EU Infrastructure.

German cities in general are excellent role models for

the rest of Europe, delivering high living standards com-

bined with low carbon footprints. Th eir inhabitants are

encouraged to think green at all times, and a collective civic

duty appears to envelope each and every citizen, backed by

a local government that provides the funding, direction

and management required to achieve widespread sustain-

ability nationwide. Hamburg’s time as 2011’s European

Green Capital will hopefully see it become a role model for

other European cities, and other European citizens. “With

a population of 1.8 million people, Hamburg faces a great

number of metropolitan challenges,” admits Pieridou, “but

it also brings together many comprehensive approaches, a

strong green vision with policy commitment and the neces-

sary funding required to resolve them.

“Hamburg has developed a meticulous, well-structured

communication strategy and a very attractive programme of

events in 2011 for well-chosen target groups involving all of

the city’s stakeholders. Th is strong networking and enthusi-

asm will provide a unique platform for EU dialogue and the

city will act as an excellent role model for other cities.”

So in which sectors has Hamburg been particularly

impressive, progressive and environmentally aware?

Renewable energyHamburg’s renewable energy sector is one of the city’s

booming industries. Vestas, the world’s largest wind tur-

bine company, has recently relocated its Central Europe

division to Hamburg and will be joined by Th e Nordex

Group, which is one of the world’s leading wind power plant

suppliers. A number of other wind and solar companies are

increasing their presence in the city over the next few years,

and Greenpeace is expected to locate its new headquarters

at Hafencity, a new quarter of Hamburg’s port that is due to

open in 2011.

Renewable energy is Hamburg’s fastest-growing

economic sector. “Th e establishment of companies is a

medium-and long-term process, and companies invari-

ably choose to settle in locations that promise the best for

their business – locations that off er accessibility of markets,

availability of qualifi ed personnel and a critical mass of

competitors, suppliers and scientifi c institutions,” says

Pieridou. “Which is why Hamburg attracts so many renew-

able energy companies. Th e title ‘European Green Capital’

is a unique opportunity to foster a positive environment for

the renewable energy sector in Hamburg, which is commu-

nicated on a global scale.”

CO2 emissionsIn a city of 1.8 million people (and a greater metro-

politan population of 4.3 million), energy consumption

in Hamburg is a serious issue. Th ankfully, the city’s gov-

ernors have proactively sought partnerships and arrange-


GREEN LIVING114

Promoting green thinking

During 2011, in an effort to communicate Hamburg’s ideas throughout Europe, the city will become a Green Capital on wheels, in a very literal sense. “The city of Hamburg will be launching a ‘train of ideas’ promoting green ideas, achievements and future plans. The train will travel around Europe in 2011 sharing experiences and best practices in a unique and innovative way,” says Pieridou. The tour will travel to a total of 15 cities including Vienna, Zurich, Antwerp and Malmo.

Green expectationsHamburg beat six other cities to the 2011 award. Here, EU Infrastructure takes a sideways look at what those defeated cities may need to improve upon if they are to be in with a chance of winning the EGCA in the future.

Amsterdam The Dutch capital has long attracted tourists in their millions, drawn by the city’s liberal and relaxed laws towards a certain ‘greener’ herb that has fostered the city’s laid-back atmosphere over the past few decades. Amsterdam is uniformly fl at and, as such, is a biker’s paradise, with three quarters of the locals owning a bicycle and the municipal authorities encouraging pedal power via the provision of plentiful cycle lanes and parking facilities for bikes, thus helping to un-‘clog’ the roads. However, despite all these green credentials, red is the colour that springs to mind when one thinks of Amsterdam: if the authorities can somehow develop more sustainable practices in the city’s famous red-light district, then the title could be theirs.

BristolThe city of Concorde, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the SS Great Britain, Banksy and a dialect so obdurate that various hefty tomes and garish t-shirts have been produced in an attempt to decipher it might not seem an obvious candidate for the EGCA. But Bristol, despite its extremely hilly landscape, has become Britain’s biking capital, and boasts more than 450 parks and green spaces – which is proportionally more than any other city in the UK. If the authorities can tackle the joint issues of better waste management and educate its inhabitants on the need to put their kebab wrappers and burger cartons in the bin rather than scattered in fountains, perched on statues or fl apping greasily in the wind each Friday night, then the EGCA could be coming a-calling very soon.

ments with a number of green companies in an eff ort to

make the city emission-free.

And the signs are that it’s working. “Th e city combines

integrated and participative planning with policy commit-

ments, and has set ambitious climate protection goals, such

as reducing its C02 emissions by 40 percent by 2020, and by

80 percent by 2050, Says Pieridou. “Concretely speaking, C02

emissions per person have been reduced by approximately

15 percent compared to 1990, with annual energy savings of

some 46,000 MWh.” Th is is an extremely impressive feat for

a city of Hamburg’s size and make-up.

Public transportHamburg boasts a world-class transportation system,

with every resident aff orded access to a public transport

link within 300 metres of their home. Such an impressive

infrastructure (based largely on its network of buses, sub-

ways and trains) has helped to keep traffi c levels low for de-

cades, while innovative new technologies are making even

the buses greener. “At present,” says Pieridou, “the city has

achieved high environmental standards and good perfor-

mance in terms of cycling and public transport indicators.

Th e experts were impressed, for example, that every single

one of Hamburg’s citizens has public transport within 300

metres of their door. Th ere is also a systematic structure of

green spaces which are easily accessible to citizens.”

Fuel cell buses are low-emission vehicles that have been

in widespread use throughout Hamburg since 2003, and the

city is also dotted with a number of hydrogen fi lling stations

for the buses, which draw their utility product from renew-

able energy sources, particularly wind power.

Sustainable growthEven the most well intentioned cities have to consider

the economic impacts of going green, and Hamburg is no

diff erent. What Hamburg is, though, is perennially inven-

tive and forward thinking. So while the city’s port and

lifeblood of its economy has to ensure it grows in order to

stay competitive, it’s growth does not have to impact upon

the environment.

Physical expansion plans have been shelved in favour

of more effi cient land use, which includes fi lling in harbour

basins in order to match capacity needs for the future. Th e

city’s cavernous port has been able to work in harmony

with the sustainable aims and achievements of Hamburg

in order to lessen its overall environmental impact. “As one

of the largest ports in the world, Hamburg has proved that

economic growth and environmental protection are not

confl icting issues,” says Pieridou.

“Indeed, the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) has cre-

ated the organisational structure needed to fi nd adequate re-

sponses to the present environmental challenges. During the

past two years, the HPA has worked diligently to coordinate

environmental strategy and environmental activity, with the

overarching goal of supporting company policy while, at the

same time, maintaining sustainable development. Th e port

has been growing inwardly for several years. First, moderni-

sation to secure a greater level of productivity on the quays,

Continued on Page 116


GREEN LIVING 115

Copenhagen Bike-obsessed and painfully aware of their civic duties to the city, Copenhageners do all they can to make their home as green and sustainable as possible. The city’s wastewater management is excellent, as is its provision of bike paths and community-focused architecture. Where the city needs to improve is its allocation of parkland; more green space is needed, and the famous Tivoli Gardens could do with a bit of a makeover in order to make them attractive to a wider range of locals.

Freiburg The beauty of Freiburg makes it a beguiling sight for visitors and a continuous source of pride for the locals. Think fairytale twisting streets, medieval architecture and a lush and verdant backdrop and you have the setting for a serene and peaceful city that also enjoys Germany’s best climate. Yet these facets are the very thing that keeps the city from achieving its green potential – renewable energy sources are accountable for just four percent of the city’s power supply, and hydro power covers a mere 0.2 percent of its power consumption. If the authorities can invent a gorgeous, 16th century-looking renewable power station complete with cuckoo clock and intricately carved doorways that augments the overall look of the landscape, then Freiburg could be on to a winner.

Munster Munsteraners – the city’s inhabitants – make a total 374,528 bicycle journeys every day, which is rather impressive for a city of just 280,000. Easily traversable by bike, the city has green credentials seeping out of every pore, from its biological waste programme to its commitment to reduce its CO2 output by 40 percent by 2020. However, the city is also home to 50,000 students who – while perhaps vociferous on the plight of the latest Che Guevara-lite fi gure making the headlines in any given week – are not always so hot on recycling, carbon-friendly living and resisting the urge to micturate in fountains and rivers after an evening enjoying the locally sourced beer.

OsloOslo’s toll ring was fi rst implemented 20 years ago, setting the Norwegian capital apart as a forerunner for urban transport management. Today, the toll ring continues to reduce traffi c volumes in the city centre by as much as fi ve percent, with the excellent public transport system receiving 45 percent of its funding from cash generated by the toll ring. All well and good, but for a city that endures fi ve months per year where daylight barely pushes past four hours a day, the lights are on for an awfully long time, dully illuminating the citizens against the persistent winter gloom that so captivated/annoyed (delete as applicable) Edvard Munch.


GREEN LIVING116

and on the other hand, major development activities such

as the westward expansion within the port limits. It is also

important to note that the planning of the Central Terminal

Steinwerder (CTS) is currently underway. Further ideas,”

continues Pieridou, “are being explored for the Port of the

Future, where effi cient land use and key environmental

issues continue to be a priority.”

Green areasHamburg’s parkland and green areas are vast and sys-

tematically interlinked, making the city a haven for cyclists,

families and nature-lovers. Th e many parks of the city are

the most tangible and visible sign of Hamburg’s ‘green’ cre-

dentials, delivering a verdant landscape for its inhabitants to

enjoy. Th e main parks are the Stadtpark – classed as Ham-

burg’s ‘Central Park’ and boasting a carefully manicured

central lawn and imposing water tower that is home to one of

the largest planetariums in Europe – the Ohlsdorf Cemetery

and the Planten un Blomen, a 46-hectare park that hosts an

array of open air concerts and shows in the summer months.

The EGCAOne major aim of the EGCA is to promote innovation

and competition between cities, engendering an atmosphere

of healthy contest but also encouraging collaboration,

education and harmony. Both Stockholm and Hamburg are

worthy recipients of the accolade, and fellow European cities

are being urged to set similar sustainability targets them-

selves – not solely in pursuit of the award, but in pursuit of

a greener future. “Th e EGCA helps convince local govern-

ments and authorities that sustainable urban development

is the key to a successful future,” says Pieridou. “Progress is

its own reward, but I believe the satisfaction and pride in-

volved in winning a prestigious European award spurs cities

to invest in further implementation of EU environment

policy at the local level, boosts eco-innovation, streamlines

environmental actions and projects and promotes friendly

competition amongst the cities.

“Cities across Europe diff er enormously and sharing

concrete examples of what a European Green Capital can

look like is essential to promoting further progress.”

Th e recent fi nancial crisis should not be used as an

excuse for cities to be dragging their heels on the issue of

sustainability. Investment in renewable energy sources,

better public transport, intelligent waste management and a

commitment to reduce C02 emissions costs little more than

the current, antiquated practices employed by many cities in

Europe. Indeed, a healthier and happier population, living

in a greener environment and enveloped by a sense of worth

and armed with the capacity to eff ect change, is more likely

to drive a functioning and potent economy.

“As the EU 2020 strategy shows, green growth is a must if

we want to promote a sustainable and competitive economy,”

says Pieridou. “Th e fi nancial crisis and the economic down-

turn have shown us that economic growth coupled with

urban, green revitalisation are now more important than

ever. If cities want to prosper, they must learn to safeguard

the natural resources that underpin their economies and the

quality of life of their growing urban populations. Cities are

the places where environment policy is put into practice, and

the ones that do it most successfully deserve to be rewarded.

“I believe that Europeans who want to live in urban areas

want towns and cities that are healthy,” concludes Pieridou.

“Cities should, therefore, strive not only to improve their

economies but also to improve the quality of life of their

citizens and reduce their impact on the global environment.

Th e advantages of improving the urban environment – such

as cleaner air, land and water, better public transport and ex-

pansion of green spaces – are clear for all to see and enjoy.”

“Cities across

Europe diff er

enormously and

sharing concrete

examples of

what a European

Green Capital

can look like

is essential

to promoting

further progress”

EGCA 2012 and 2013

Cities in the running for the European Green Capital Award for 2012 and 2013 are Barcelona, Malmo, Nantes, Nuremburg, Reykjavik and Vitoria-Gasteiz.

The winners for both 2012 and 2013 will be announced on 20-22 October 2010 at an award ceremony in Stockholm.


OPENTEXT AD by ed.indd 1OPENTEXT AD by ed.indd 1 24/5/10 10:59:5024/5/10 10:59:50

HEADING118

appear. Th e emergence of mega-projects that

run across multiple markets and in multiple lan-

guages – such as Masdar, the zero carbon city in

Abu Dhabi – will compound project complexity,

leading to a growth in demand for multicultural

and multi-lingual capabilities.

Moreover, we will also see three overarching

factors – environmental sustainability, technol-

ogy and social responsibility – play increasingly

integrated roles in the planning, execution,

delivery and legacies of programme and project

management work.

Firstly, environmental sustainability is no

longer the idealistic vision of an environmen-

tally sensitive CEO. Th e current environment

is forcing a change in business values. Vision-

ary organisations are recognising they cannot

depend solely on their fi nancial returns for

ongoing success. Th ey know a smart customer

will make ‘buying’ decisions based on the or-

ganisation’s environmental and social footprint

as well. Th is requires innovative project man-

agement capabilities that establish sustainable,

socially responsible and fi scally prudent pro-

grammes that will become essential in looking

to add quantifi able value to their organisations.

Sustainability considerations vary consider-

It was 40 years ago that the Project Man-

agement Institute (PMI) came to life

through the vision and dedication of a

small group of working project managers.

Four decades on we fi nd ourselves in the

21st century, with a wholly diff erent landscape

for the project management profession to the

one that existed 20-30 years ago – and also to the

one that will exist in 20-30 years time.

If we look back to the 1980s for example,

the main trends in project management were

limited to publications on human resources,

team building and leadership. In 1984 PMI

launched its fi rst certifi cation programme and

in 1996 project management started to develop

increasingly organised ideas and processes – as

evidenced by the publication of the fi rst edition

of the Guide to the Project Management Body of

Knowledge, currently in its fourth edition. Fast

forward to today and we can see that there has

been a signifi cant move towards more project-

based work as organisations begin to realise the

value in using project management to imple-

ment their goals and strategies.

So what can we expect from project man-

agement in the future? Certainly there will be an

increase in the breadth of project types that will

The shifting sands of the project management landscape

Gregory Balestrero offers his thoughts on how the project management industry is changing – and what it could look like in the future.

ably by sector, but nearly all industry sectors have

reported at least some of these impacts in recent

years. Th e recent spike in global energy prices

brought sustainability to the forefront of nearly

all projects, and the complexity of bio-additives

such as ethanol create a tension between energy

needs and food supply. As society reacts to ad-

dress climate change, project managers are likely

to be faced with ever increasing mega-projects to

meet energy demands as well as new population

centres and new transportation systems.

Secondly, from a technology perspective, it

is clear that IT has already become and will con-

tinue to be more tightly integrated with innova-

tive project activities through the use of tools

such as virtual networking, surface technology

and the mobile internet. Projects will be even

more distributed and involve virtual teamwork.

Th e information conveyed is the same, but the

way in which it is conveyed has evolved and will

continue to evolve as technological advances

alter the way we share and communicate infor-

mation.

New tools will be developed that will allow

the project team to simulate virtually every proj-

ect management decision, built using advances

in technology used for the current generation of

118 PROJECT MANAGEMENT

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT 119

video games, adapted and enhanced to apply to

all situations that might arise in the typical proj-

ect. Th e soft ware development genius behind

games such as Grand Th eft Auto and Nintendo’s

Wii Fit will be unleashed on project manage-

ment’s simulation development to produce

platforms to train and enable project managers

to fully understand decision ramifi cations.

Finally, social responsibility will dramati-

cally impact human resources in global supply

chains. Global suppliers are focusing on the

workforces of suppliers, and evaluating them ac-

cording to rigid and strict guidelines. As project

professionals, the leader will have to be rigorous

and vigilant with the supply chain and be ready

to make decisions accordingly. It is clear that

responsibility for the entire supply chain and its

social and environmental impact will fall square-

ly on the shoulders of the project leader.

It is also important to acknowledge that

the understanding of what constitutes project

success is changing. In future, judgments on

project success will include an even broader set

of criteria than they do today and will span the

Construction companies are showing little interest in project management despite the need for cost control during the downturn and the urgent requirement for on-site safety. “There is a big misunderstanding, especially in the Middle East region, about the importance of project management and education in general. I know many people who will agree with this,” says Mounir Ajam, CEO of project management consultancy and training fi rm Sukad. “Some people view it as a bureaucracy and they don’t see that proper project management will help them improve effi ciency, reduce costs and increase value for their project over the long-term.”

Quality and safety is expected to suffer for the next couple of years and construction companies are unlikely to invest in project management, continues Ajam. “Obviously, in a fast-track environment, people want to produce buildings very quickly and usually the fi rst thing they sacrifi ce is safety and quality. If people want to cut costs they usually do so by cutting corners.”

Ten to 15 years ago, there wasn’t a single university that offered project management, which has lead to limited skills in the fi eld. However, the situation is getting better: “Usually the people who practice project management are technical people, for example business analysts,. These people are technically trained and then all of a sudden they are asked to manage a project with no prior experience. This situation is improving and universities are starting to offer training in project management.”Source: www.constructionweekonline.com Written by Sarah Blackman on December 8, 2009

Interest in project management remains low

119

entire business lifecycle, rather than just the

project lifecycle. Th is wider approach leads us

to look at how business strategy will become

an increasingly dominant aspect in this fi eld –

the awareness that project management can be

linked directly to strategy, environmental and

social responsibility, and innovation is evolving

and will continue to do so. Project management

is rapidly moving from a professional capability

to an enterprise competency.

As a profession, project management will

continue to be an experiential discipline, best

learnt by practice, credentialing, mentoring and

job shadowing. Training, consulting and men-

toring will play a large role in developing the

skills of future project managers, but there will

be a greater focus on a keener understanding

of the relationship of their projects to business

value, more sophisticated governance abilities

and better communications skills. Much of the

training will be simulation-based and will be

embraced by the generation of project managers

that grew up with computer games, iPods and

mobile phones.

Th e project management community is

poised for a period of extraordinary productiv-

ity, effi ciency and integration due to techno-

logical advances, and even greater changes will

come as a result of globalisation, collaboration

and innovation in the industry as it takes its

place fi rmly in the 21st century.

Gregory Balestrero is President and CEO of the Project Management Institute.

e

cle,

sk

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TRANSPORT FOCUS120

By implementing intelligent transport solutions, cities around the world are beginning to see improved mobility and a more cost-effective network. IBM CEO Sam Palmisano reveals how solutions are set to get even smarter to meet the transportation needs of the 21st century.

It’s fair to say that the fi rst decade of the 21st century has been remarkably eventful. In the last few years, our eyes have been opened to global climate change, the risk of a pandemic and the environmental and geopolitical issues surrounding energy. We entered the new century with a shock to our sense of security on 9/11 and have become

aware of the vulnerabilities of global supply chains for food and medicine. And today, of course, we are working our way out of a global fi nancial crisis.

It’s interesting how many of those crises are linked to transportation. Indeed, more recently, transportation had its own major crisis – the disruption of global air traffi c caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

So what links this decade-long series of crises? Th ese are the manifestations and con-sequences of being globally integrated, reminding us that we are all now economically, technically and socially connected. But we see now that being connected is not enough. Have you noticed how oft en in the past decade we have used or read the term ‘systemic breakdown’? While connecting economies, business fl ows, supply chains – and transporta-tion networks – is important and has yielded tremendous benefi ts, connectivity by itself does not make for reliable, resilient, well-functioning systems.

Fortunately, something else is happening at the same time. In a word, our planet is becoming smarter. And this isn’t just a metaphor. Intelligence is being infused into the way the world literally works: the systems and processes that enable services to be deliv-ered; physical goods to be developed, manufactured and sold; everything from people and freight to oil, water and electrons to move and billions of people to work and live.

First, our world is becoming instrumented. Today, there are nearly a billion transis-tors per human, each one costing one ten-millionth of a cent; there are four billion mobile phone subscribers; and 30 billion radio frequency identifi cation (RFID) tags are produced globally. Because of their increasing sophistication and low cost, these sensors and devices give us, for the fi rst time ever, real-time instrumentation of a wide range of the natural and manmade systems all over the world.

Second, our world is becoming interconnected. Very soon there will be two billion people on the internet. But that’s just the beginning; systems and objects can now ‘speak’ to one another; too – think about the prospect of a trillion connected and instrumented objects: cars, cameras, roadways, pipelines, even livestock and pharmaceuticals. And then think about the amount of information produced by the movement and interaction of all those things: it will be unprecedented.

Th ird, all things are becoming intelligent. Th anks to advanced analytics and ever more powerful supercomputers, we can turn mountains of data into insight. And that in-telligence can be translated into making our systems, processes and infrastructures more effi cient, more productive and responsive.

Th e key to smarter systems lies not in the chip, or the sensor, or the mobile device. It’s not the smart meter, or the smart power line or even the soft ware, per se. It’s the data. From a smart bay in Ireland, to smart power in Malta, to smart telecommunications in India, to smart food tracking in Norway, companies and institutions are applying technology in new ways. All around the world, economic stimulus is being injected by governments, much of it aimed at smart grids and healthcare data integration, and crucially, smart trans-portation to improve the systems that make our world work.

Now as we look ahead to the needs and challenges of the 21st century, it is clear that we must do more. We know what any transportation system is, on the most basic level. From ancient times to the present, any such system has been made up of three elements: vehicles (cars, ships and planes, which move goods from one place to another); pathways (roads, rail lines, shipping lanes); and terminals (stations, car parks, airports, seaports). Th ese are

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TRANSPORT FOCUS 121


TRANSPORT FOCUS122

the endpoints where journeys begin and end, where passengers transfer from one mode of transportation to another and where goods are tracked, organized and assembled. Th at’s the system.

We also know that population growth, unprecedented urbanisation and continued globalisation are placing great strains on all elements of that system, pushing them beyond the capacity of their serviceable life. And we know that the United States is not investing in its infrastructure at the same levels as other countries. Th e US spends at most 2.6 percent of GDP on infrastructure, coming 27th among 36 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Develop-ment (OECD) nations. Compare that to China, which invests at a rate of nine percent to 12 percent of its GDP. Th is underinvestment creates strains on America transportation system that puts citizens and businesses at risk of deteriorating safety conditions, competitive-ness and quality of life, not to mention the waste of pre-cious resources and productivity.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Over the past two centuries, advances in transportation, from canals, to rail, to au-tomobiles, to aircraft , have created the modern world, determining which cities would thrive, and ushering in a new age for business, for society and for how we lead our lives. Now the time has come to return to transporta-tion and what it has given us: new opportunity. We must reinvent transpor-tation to meet the needs of the 21st century.

We have the tools and know-how to address the challenges. Intelligent technologies are emerging to enable transportation networks and users to communicate with each other, improving system performance, safety and convenience, making IT just as important to 21st century transportation as airplanes, asphalt and petroleum were in the last century. And under the guidance of organisations like the ITSA and the US Department of Transportation, with the leadership of Secretary Ray LaHood, progress is within our grasp.

Over the past year and a half, IBM has been working with cities and na-tions around the world to improve many kinds of systems and make them smarter, with particular success in transportation. In doing so, we have learned that our transportation system isn’t, in fact, a system, it’s a col-lection of related industries, operating in close proximity to one another. And, at IBM, we know something about systems. Over nearly a century of work with businesses and governments, we have designed, built and man-aged systems from Social Security, to modern electronic banking, to retail.

In doing so, we have learned what is required for a system to be reliable and resilient. First, there must be clarity on the system’s purpose or goal, a vision of its end-state. Second, its elements must actually be connected, which is another way of saying, interfaces matter. Th ird, we must be able to know, continually and with confi dence, the status of the system and its critical components. And fi nally, the system must be able to adapt as condi-tions change, oft en in real-time.

Viewed against these four characteristics, every well-functioning system looks strikingly similar. Now let’s look at American transporta-tion today. Th ere is a broad consensus, forged, in many respects, by the example of the ITSA and DOT, that American transportation must become traveller-centric, whether that traveler is a person or a package.

Th e idea is simple: the traveller’s time, safety and experience should be the initial design point. A system’s design point matters and what you optimise it for will determine the value it ultimately delivers. Th e problem is that the system has to be actually connected to truly deliver on its goal. In many areas of life, this kind of connectivity is so basic that we simply take it for granted. Consider banking: we take it for granted that we can

transfer funds and make payments among institutions. Consider retail: we take it for granted that we can use the same payment and billing systems, regardless of store, website or industry. All these systems have standards and interfaces that permit information to fl ow.

A true transportation system would need to connect the vehicles, pathways and terminals as well as the government agencies and regula-

tors, the freight and logistics carriers, the vehicle and infrastructure manufacturers, and the travel-service providers. It would

also need to connect the travellers themselves, providing a steady stream of data on their journeys, condition and

location. It would do this across all modes of transpor-tation. Clearly, transportation in America today fails this key test of a well-functioning system.

Th ird, many of the components and subsystems of transportation are not instrumented, or are diff erently

instrumented from state to state, so that it is impossible to know with confi dence what their current status is. Th is

isn’t just a colossal waste of time and money, it also introduc-es inconsistencies in quality and multiple opportunities for error.

Look at the potential impact of an emergency like the Iceland volcano. What if that happened in the US? What if, say, Mt. St. Helens erupted again? Or what if there were another 9/11? What would the economic, societal and innovation impact be of this lack of system knowingness?

And when it comes to the fourth characteristic of a well-functioning system – adaptability – ask yourself: is our transportation system in America today, spanning roads, parking, railroads, airports, seaports, bridges, tunnels and communications, ready for what’s coming? Demand is only going to grow, especially as population growth and urbanisation continue to expand. Th e instrumentation of things and cities as well as the empowerment of individuals with mobile devices, will continue to increase exponentially and we will need far more physical and digital capacity from our transportation networks.

Th anks to an instrumented and interconnected planet, we’re captur-ing data in unprecedented volumes. In just three years, IP traffi c is ex-pected to total more than half a zettabyte. We’re receiving these enormous streams in real-time, and they are coming in multiple forms, from text to rich media, sensors to cell-phone cameras, and we’re capturing it from just about every kind of system or event imaginable: supply chains, rail vibra-tion, weather patterns and billions of individuals using social media.

But the most important point about this is not how much data there is. Th e important point is what it could tell us. To capture that, you need to dive deeper, to move from ‘big data’ to smarter data. Th at’s why analytics are key – the sophisticated mathematical algorithms that can detect the patterns, spot the correlations and see the context of the data – because a data point by itself is just about useless. Where once we inferred, now we can know and where once we interpolated and extrapolated, now we can determine, that’s the promise of a smarter planet.

And it’s coming to life in smarter transportation all over the world. All in all, smarter transportation means advanced traffi c management for air, land and sea. It is optimised around the traveler, is connected across all elements of the system, and communicates its status in real-time. It fl uidly interacts with the other systems of our planet, from healthcare, to public safety, to commerce and more, because we are increasingly coming to un-derstand that our communities, cities and our entire nation are complex systems that span both nature and human society.

In the future, smarter transportation will even apply advanced model-ling to something as previously unpredictable as, say, the fl ow of volcanic ash across the Atlantic Ocean. All of this and more is possible today, or

Th e US spends 2.6% of GDP on infrastructure.

By contrast, China spends

9-12%

TRANSPORT FOCUS122


Making transportation smarter is in everyone’s interest. For a whole spate of reasons, the boldest action and the most

pragmatic action are now one

TRANSPORT FOCUS 123


soon will be. Th e progress of technology is only accelerating. To get there, I believe those of us across the transportation ecosystem must take a lead-ership role. Th e initiatives undertaken by Secretary LaHood and his col-leagues at DOT are promising, but the truth is that the rest of us do not have to wait for the government or anyone else; indeed, we must not.

Looking forward we need help in four key areas. First, standards. We must establish agreed-upon data standards for transportation. Th is is long overdue, but I am hopeful that it will soon be accomplished. As we do this however, it is essential that those standards be open; that’s the only way to interconnect processes and data sets across the whole system.

Second, smart systems by design. In anything as complex, interde-pendent and fl uid as the transportation ecosystem, the qualities we seek cannot be ‘bolted on’ aft er; we need to build in the key criteria of intercon-nectivity, system knowingness, analytics and security from the beginning.

Th ird, moving to a true transportation system will enable, and require, far more collaboration: not just regarding the familiar idea of ‘private sec-tor-public sector cooperation’. A diverse, multi-stakeholder world requires all the parties actually working together, shoulder-to-shoulder on a daily basis. We all have particular responsibilities – to customers, to partners, to regulators, to citizens – but in today’s world, fulfi lling those responsibili-ties requires that we also fulfi ll our responsibilities to the system as a whole. Th at will be transformative and will also require change.

From new models of technology, to the changing form of the corpora-tion, to the changing role of the individual in modern life, to new expecta-tions for sustainable living, we are entering a very diff erent world. We must come together around clear guidelines on how to operate and manage our organisations and industry, from an ethical and societal point of view. It is exciting to embrace technology to improve speed, safety, effi ciency and

passenger experience, but the idea of pervasive sensors and cameras shar-ing data with transportation providers and governments is not going to sit comfortably with everyone.

In conclusion, smarter transportation is not some grand, futuristic ideal. For one thing, the examples are real, and more are being deployed right now around the world. For another, smarter transportation is prac-tical because it is non-ideological. While debates will continue to rage on many contentious issues that impact transportation – from energy, to security, to climate change, to the economy – no matter which view-points ultimately prevail, the system that results will have to be smarter, more transparent, more effi cient, more accessible, more resilient, more innovative.

And that’s one fi nal reason for hope: making transportation smarter is in everyone’s interest. For a whole spate of reasons, the boldest action and the most pragmatic action are now one.

We fi nd ourselves today at a unique moment. Th e key precondition for real change now exists: people want it and they are hungry for leader-ship. Such a moment doesn’t come around oft en, and it will not last forever, so ask yourself this: in hindsight, when the circumstances that cry out for change are gone, when things have returned to ‘normal’, don’t we always wish we had been bolder? More ambitious? Gone faster, gone farther? Did anybody ever wish they had done less?

Despite the litany of challenges we face, I am confi dent that the US will do what leaders do: lead. I’m convinced we can build a smarter and safer transportation system in America and that in doing so, we will achieve both societal progress and economic growth for our cities, states and nation.

This text is based on a speech given at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, 2010 Annual Meeting & Conference, on May 5 2010.

US President Barack Obama presents the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Sam Palmisano at the White House in Washington on October 7, 2009.

TRANSPORT FOCUS124


INTELLIGENT OPTIONSSmarter transportation is helping cities all over the world predict demand and optimising available capacity and dramatically enhance the end-to-end traveller experience and improving operational effi ciency while reducing environmental impact. Smarter transportation can also help with a nation’s economic recovery. A recent study from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation found that for every US$1.25 billion invested in transportation infrastructure in the United States, 35,000 jobs are created and supported.

A smart card system has enabled Singapore Land Transport Authority to develop optimal routes and schedules, reducing congestion, increasing the appeal of public transit, and cutting fare leakage by 80 percent and the cost of fare processing by two percent.1

23 France’s SNCF manages passenger and

freight railways, as well as city buses and trams. It operates 14,000 trains per day, including the high-speed TGV and segments of the Paris and regional transit systems. A predictive maintenance system using intelligent sensors is helping SNCF prevent accidents, reduce delays and cut maintenance costs by an estimated 30 percent.

Air Canada developed applications for smart phones that allow travellers

to download electronic boarding passes, check in, get fl ight status

and book rental cars. There was a 60 percent increase in mobile check-ins, and 93 percent of Air Canada

passengers say self-service improves their travel experience. The app also

saves 80 percent of the check-in cost.

DHL’s RFID-based system monitors the temperature of pharmaceutical shipments at various points from departure to arrival

– helping its customers keep products fresh and generating a new source of

revenue growth.

F ’ SNCF

TRANSPORT FOCUS 125


INDUSTRY INSIGHT126

If you have ever been on a big cruise ship and have

been unable to fi nd someone important like your wife

or child, you can relate to the following situation; she

was here just a minute ago, and now she is nowhere

to be found! You would like to call her, but of course your

mobile phone does not work in the middle of the sea. If you

are lucky, she turns up at the cabin or is somewhere you

intuited she would be – the gift shop, play room, pool, etc.

But there are times when fi nding your loved one can be

really challenging, especially if you are on board on a very

large ship – like Finland’s new Oasis of the Seas.

In the unfortunate situation where a child goes miss-

ing on board, the situation typically starts out quietly, but

soon escalates into frustration and quickly turns into a

full-blown panic. At the end, it is not only the parents of

the missing child who are running around; it is also the

management and the crew members of the ship. Aft er 30

minutes looking for someone, you really start to feel over-

whelmed and anxious.

On your future cruise, however, a helpful technology

sends you traveling worry free. In the case of Oasis of the

Antti Korhonen reveals how new tracking, location and communication technologies could be just the solution your company has been looking for.

Real-time location and communication solution

Seas during 2010, they have been testing a system based on

Ekahau RTLS (Real Time Location System), which includes

Wi-Fi based RFID tags as badges or wristbands, and an

Apple iPhone, which shows each tag’s location on its screen

displaying a map of the ship. Th e location information is

transmitted to the iPhone via the ship’s existing Wi-Fi net-

work access points. Th e system also enables the iPhone user

to send messages and alerts to those wearing the wristband.

Location made easy – Where GPS does not work

In general, where GPS takes you to a correct street

address, the Ekahau RTLS tells you, in 3D, on which of

the 50 fl oors and in which room inside that building the

person or asset is, all in real time.

Another example. In the USA, an average hospital

uses approximately 10-15 medical equipments for each

patient. Th e total hospital inventory therefore easily

reaches 3,000-5,000 mobile equipments that need to be

found for clinical care, and also need to be maintained

periodically to keep them qualifi ed for patient care. But

right now, in which building, fl oor or room are they?

Traditional solution to this problem has been, and

still is in many hospitals, to purchase more equipment.

Th is creates another problem of excess inventory of medi-

cal equipment, and hundreds of thousands of additional

capital or leasing costs annually.

Similar to the cruise line example, Ekahau RTLS

solution, based on the existing Wi-Fi network and Wi-Fi

asset tags, pinpoints in real-time the exact location of

medical equipment, patients or personnel. Th e Ekahau

solution also provides utilisation rate reports over time,

answering: ‘how many assets do we have, and how they

are being used?’

With Ekahau’s Wi-Fi based RTLS solution, the loca-

tion of assets and people within the network’s coverage

area is automatically updated and can be synchronised

with other systems and personnel that call for the infor-

mation. Overall, the system optimises the management of

processes by making them visible. Moreover, the system

enables new processes, such as routing security personnel

automatically to the location where a tag alarm button

was pressed or a tamper switch was activated.

Antti Korhonen has over 20 years of experience in high tech and IT industries in international sales and marketing leadership and product management. Prior to Ekahau, Korhonen worked at Vaisala Inc., Boston, MA, USA, as a General Manager of Vaisala’s Industrial Business Division for North-America. He has worked in several management and leadership positions in companies such as Government Research Institute VTT, Computer 2000, and Western Digital Corporation.

For more information, please visit www.ekahau.com

“With Ekahau’s Wi-Fi based RTLS

solution, the location of assets and

people within the network’s coverage

area is automatically updated”

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MEGACITIES128

Urban LEGENDSWhy the tale of the 21st century will be defi ned by the rise of the megacity.

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MEGACITIES 129

I f space travel had been possible 100 years ago, those early astronauts would have seen the light from 16 concentrations of a million or more people. Today, the crew of the space shuttle can see 450 such shin-ing cities on the globe – the economic, govern-

mental, cultural and technological power plants of an increasingly urban age.

Th e pace of such development is staggering. At the turn of the last century, only 13 percent of the world’s population lived in cities; two years ago, for the fi rst time ever, more than half of us were urban metropolitans, and by 2050 that number will rise to 70 percent. We are adding the equivalent of seven New Yorks to the planet every year – putting a huge strain on the planet’s resources and infra-structures in the process. And it’s not just the number of cities that is on the rise; their size is increasing, too. Wel-come to the age of the megacity.

Megacities are defi ned as urban population centers of more than 10 million inhabitants, and they are on the rise: 60 years ago there were only two, New York/Newark and Tokyo, but today there are 22 such megacities – the major-ity in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America – and by 2025 there will most likely be 30 or more. As these megacities evolve, many groan under the weight of a sudden, massive and unprecedented demand for ser-vices. Th e basic necessities of clean water, of sanitation sys-tems to remove megatons of garbage and human waste, of transportation systems to shuttle millions of workers – not to mention the need for electrical networks, healthcare fa-cilities, and policing and security – are creating one of the greatest logistical challenges ever seen in human history.

And the challenge is only going to intensify, with experts predicting the expansion and merging of already highly urbanized zones to form a number of ‘megalopo-lises’ – vast swathes of development such as the one made up of the Greater Boston-New York City-Philadelphia-Bal-timore-Washington areas (the so-called Northeast mega-lopolis) with an urban population of 55 million. Indeed, the phenomenon of endless urban sprawl could be one of the most signifi cant developments – and problems – in the way people live and economies grow in the next 50 years, according to UN-Habitat, the agency for human settle-ments, in its bi-annual State of World Cities report.

On the one hand, the development of such mega-regions is generally regarded as positive, asserts the report’s co-author Eduardo Lopez Moreno. “Th ey [mega-regions], rather than countries, are now driving wealth,” he says. “Research shows that the world’s largest 40 mega-regions cover only a tiny fraction of the habitable surface of our planet and are home to fewer than 18 percent of the world’s population, but account for 66 percent of all economic activity and about 85 percent of technological and scientifi c innovation. Th e top 25 cities in the world account for more than half of the world’s wealth, and the fi ve largest cities in India and China now account for 50 percent of those countries’ wealth.”

Yet the growth of mega-regions and cities is also lead-ing to unprecedented urban sprawl, new slums, unbalanced


12.31. New York-Newark

8.43. London

4. Paris

6.5

19.55. Mexico City

21.74. São Paulo, Brazil

12.3

3. São Paulo, Brazil

TOP 5 MEGACITIES OVER TIME130

development and income inequalities as more and more people move to satellite or dormitory cities. “Cities like Los Angeles grew 45 percent in numbers between 1975-1990, but tripled their surface area in the same time,” says Moreno, who believes that urban sprawl is the symptom of a divided, dysfunctional city. “It is not only wasteful, it adds to transport costs, increases energy consumption, requires more resources, and causes the loss of prime farm-land,” he explains. “Th e more unequal that cities become, the higher the risk that economic disparities will result in social and political tension. Th e likelihood of urban unrest in unequal cities is high.”

What is most shocking about the report, however,

is that the US emerges as one of the most unequal of all the world’s societies, with cities such as New York, Chi-cago and Washington showing higher levels of inequality between the haves and have-nots than places like Braz-zaville in Congo-Brazzaville, Managua in Nicaragua and Davao City in the Philippines. “Th e marginalization and segregation of specifi c groups creates a city within a city,” says Moreno. “Th e richest one percent of households now earns more than 72 times the average income of the poorest 20 percent of the population. In the ‘other Amer-ica’, poor black families are clustered in ghettoes lacking access to quality education, secure tenure, lucrative work and political power.”

MEGA-GROWTHIn 1950, there were 83 cities with populations exceeding one million; by 2007, this number had risen to 468. In 1950, New York City was the only urban area with a population of over 10 million. Geographers had identifi ed 25 such areas as of October 2005, as compared with 19 megacities in 2004 and only nine in 1985. The UN forecast tells that in 2015, over 600 million people are expected to have their home in a megacity.

In 1800, only

3%of the world’s

population lived in cities


11.32. Tokyo

5.4

5. Moscow

12.3

1. Tokyo

22.2

2. Delhi

20.04. Mumbai

37.11. Tokyo

28.62. Delhi

25.83. Mumbai

20.9

5. Dhaka

TOP 5 MEGACITIES OVER TIME 131

Infrastructure concernsInfrastructure has a key role to play in reducing these

disparities, as a recent Siemens study into the challenges facing megacities as population growth continues to ex-plode shows; 81 percent of stakeholders involved in city management cite the importance of the economy and em-ployment in infrastructure decision-making.

In the Siemens study, transportation emerges as the top megacity infrastructure challenge by a large margin – not least because it is seen as the one infrastructure area that stakeholders believe has the biggest impact on city competitiveness. Th ey are also highly aware of its environ-mental impact (for example, air pollution) and are keen to

move to greener mass transit solutions. It is not surpris-ing therefore to fi nd that transport also emerges as the top priority for investment. Stakeholders acknowledge that the four other infrastructure sectors covered by the study – water, electricity, healthcare, and safety and security – are also in need of investment, but interestingly they are less likely to see a strong link between spending in these areas and improved competitiveness, despite the fact that each has an important impact on the overall attractiveness of the city for investment.

Water infrastructure is also being pegged as a major concern for city administrations in the coming years. Megacities around the world must fi nd ways to control

1950

2010

2025

KEY

Numbers are in millions

Belgium is Europe’s most

urbanised country:

97% live in cities

or towns


MEGACITIES132

Masdar City, Abu DhabiTouted as the world’s fi rst zero-carbon city, Masdar will be car-free, powered by renewable energy with services digitally managed and providing real-time information. With a maximum distance of 200 metres to the nearest transport link and amenities, the compact network of streets will encourage walking and is complemented by a personalized rapid transport system. Shaded walkways and narrow streets will create a pedestrian friendly environment, while surrounding land will contain wind, photovoltaic farms, research fi elds and plantations, enabling the city to be entirely self-sustaining.

Dongtan, ShanghaiDevelopment plans for this ‘city within a city’ – currently being built on an island off the coast of Shanghai – call for it to be modest in size (500,000 residents) and scaled for the people who will live there, rather than for automobiles or architectural monoliths. It is also designed to be completely self-suffi cient, providing its own food and energy. Chinese offi cials hope Dongtan will offer practical lessons about pollution control and sustainability that can be applied to Shanghai proper, as well as to other rapidly growing urban areas.

Songdo, South KoreaSongdo is located on the waterfront of the South Korean city of Incheon and will feature numerous eco-credentials – beautiful open space and parks, green roofs, solar passive design, co-generation plants, a waste management system, mass transit and over 120 buildings built to LEED standards. It is expected to cost over $30 billion, house 75,000 residents and handle 300,000 commuters. The fi rst phase of the city has already been completed and Central Park, the 100-acre green space modeled after New York City’s landmark park, is now fi nished.

And in the US…

Treasure Island, San FranciscoA masterplan developed for the proposed $1.4-billion island by architectural and engineering services company Skidmore, Owings and Merrill details up to 8000 new homes (30 percent of which would be affordable to those on lower incomes), several solar-powered skyscrapers, an organic farm, three hotels, several shops and restaurants, a wastewater treatment plant, large-scale wind turbines for energy generation and 300 acres of recreational land. The goal is to create a sustainable, compact, mixed-use residential community that is not car-dependent.

With cities consuming 75 percent of our natural resources, is a blank-canvas approach to development the key to our urban future? These new city projects are being built from the ground up, and could provide a blueprint for future urban projects.

Building from the ground up


runoff while providing clean water for millions of inhabit-ants. With the World Health Organization suggesting 1.1 billion people – or 18 percent of the world’s population – now lack access to safe drinking water, governments in-creasingly need the money and know-how to build massive public works.

In São Paulo, Brazil, for instance, planners are strug-gling to cope with a drainage system that was built when the city was a fraction of its current size. Poor maintenance has left much of it clogged, while forest and parkland have given way to haphazard housing in many areas of the world’s third-largest city. Now there are fewer green areas to soak up incessant rains. Meanwhile, Mexico City is suck-ing up water from natural aquifers at twice the rate they are being replenished. Th e result: Mexico City is sinking, in some areas up to 16 inches a year, threatening its entire infrastructure – including the city’s deteriorating drainage system, whose capacity has diminished by 30 percent since 1975 while the area’s population has doubled. In addition, the city, which sits at an altitude of over 7300 feet, must pump water up 3000 feet to reach residents. Last year it had to ration water aft er one of the worst droughts in six de-cades. Th e drainage program includes plans for treatment plants to turn runoff into clean water for use by farmers.

New solutions for old problemsTh e infrastructure and engineering challenges

presented by the emergence of these densely populated

urban centers are signifi cant, not least because such rapid growth is being played out in the largest and most com-plicated urban habitats human beings have ever lived in. Managing such complex systems in the future is going to take a much smarter approach than the ones we are cur-rently using.

Faced by huge pressures on public services, cities tend to emphasize direct and immediate supply-side solutions. However, this does not always mean adding more capac-ity: in many cases – particularly in the highly developed megacities of the US – increasing the effi ciency of exist-ing infrastructure over building new roads, railways and hospitals can be just as eff ective. By contrast, although it is mentioned by a minority of the survey respondents, demand management never emerges as a priority. Demand management approaches have been advocated in a variety of areas, but even the specialists in specifi c infrastructure sectors do not see managing demand as the primary solu-tion to their challenges. Yet with consumption consistently outstripping supply in many cities and infrastructure areas, there is a strong case for the wider adoption of demand management strategies on a global basis.

Many believe the answer lies in embedding more (and better) technology into the networks and systems that un-derpin our cities, and the eff ects of such an outlook are al-ready being felt around the globe. Transportation offi cials in Singapore, Brisbane and Stockholm are using state-of-the-art systems to reduce both congestion and pollution. Public safety administrators in major cities like New York and Chicago are able not only to solve crimes and respond to emergencies, but to help prevent them. A large hospi-tal organization in Paris is implementing an integrated patient-care management solution to facilitate seamless communication across its business applications – enabling them to track every stage of a patient’s stay in the hospital. While smart water management in the Paraguay-Paraná River Basin of Brazil is helping to improve water quality for São Paulo’s 17 million residents.

And of course, when urban planners can no longer fi nd the surface space to install vital infrastructure com-ponents, they go underground. And while few, if any, cities can rival New York in the density and complexity of its subterranean networks, 21st century cities are looking to take the concept to a new level. For instance, offi cials in Oslo, Norway, may be the next underground pioneers. In their capital, developers have created a whole sub-urban community. Troubled by the city’s hilly terrain, engineers have built all sorts of structures – such as power plants, an air-traffi c-control tower, and a dairy processing operation – under the surface. As a result, some of the world’s most sophisticated air-circulation systems can be found in Oslo, as well as underground lighting that’s tweaked to mimic the movement of the sun throughout the day.

Th oreau called the city “millions of people being lonesome together”, but it needn’t be; that is where infra-structure – the underlying network of nodes and intercon-nections that underpin every urban center – has a vital role to play.

Employment and educational opportunities are the main attraction of urban centers. But hopes for a better life are often dashed as overpopulation puts a huge strain on cities’ infrastructures and their ability to provide basic necessities – like clean water and a decent place to live. Consider:

• Overall almost 180,000 people move into cities every day• Of the billion people designated very poor, over 750 million live in urban areas• 1 billion people, one-sixth of the world’s population, now live in shanty towns• The number of slum-dwellers is estimated to grow by nearly 500 million by 2020

PEOPLE MAGNETS

MEGACITIES 133

Mexico City is sinking, in some areas up to 16 inches a year, threatening its entire infrastructure – including the city’s deteriorating drainage system


iStrategy EU ad MAG SIZE.indd 1iStrategy EU ad MAG SIZE.indd 1 02/08/2010 08:3702/08/2010 08:37

TRAVEL & GADGETS & BOOKS & LEISURE & MONEY & TRAVEL & GADGETS & BOOKS & LEISURE & MONEY 135

Details.

Project focusSix Dutch projects currently under constructionp138

Smart citiesThe world’s cleverest conurbationsp136

BudapestHungary’s wonderful capital cityp141

BooksThe latest releases on building, energy and infrastructurep142

138

142

136

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TOP 10136

Th is list of the world’s smartest cities has

been compiled by Forbes based not only

on infrastructure and liveability, but also

economic fundamentals.

1. Singapore: The 21st-century successor to 15th-century Venice, this once-impoverished island nation now boasts an income level comparable to the wealthi-est Western countries, with a per-capita GDP ahead of most of Europe and Latin America. Singapore Airport is Asia’s fi fth largest, and the city’s port ranks as the largest container entrepot in the world. Over 6000 multinational corporations, including 3600 regional headquarters, are located there, and it was recently ranked number one for ease of doing business.

2. Hong Kong: As the center of the world economy continues to shift from West to East, Hong Kong is cer-tainly reaping the benefi ts. Hong Kong Shanghai Bank’s chief executive recently relocated there from London. Its per-capita GDP is ranked 15th in the world, the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal have ranked Hong Kong the freest economy in the world.

3. Curitiba, Brazil: This well-run metropolis in southern Brazil is famous for its rapid bus-based transit, used by 70 percent of its residents, and its bal-anced, diverse economic development strategy. The city’s programme of building ‘lighthouses’ – essentially electronic libraries – for poorer residents has become a model for developing cities worldwide. Environmental website Grist recently ranked Curitiba the third green-est city in the world.

4. Monterrey, Mexico: Over the past few decades Monterrey has emerged from relative obscurity into a major industrial and engineering center. The city of 3.5 million has 57 industrial parks, specialising in everything from chemicals and cement to telecommu-nications and industrial machinery. Monterrey and its surrounding state, Nuevo Leon, boast a per-capita GDP roughly twice that of the rest of Mexico.

5. Amsterdam: This longstanding fi nancial and trading capital is home to seven of the world’s top 500 companies, including Philips and ING. Relatively low

Th e world’s smartest cities

01

03 04

02


TOP 10 137

corporate taxes and income taxes on foreign work-ers attract companies and individuals. Amsterdam’s advantages include a well-educated, multilingual population and a lack of political corruption, as well as its location – in the heart of Europe, close to a major in-ternational airport and a short train trip to Rotterdam, the continent’s dominant port.

6.Seattle, United States: Seattle’s location close to the Pacifi c Ocean has nurtured trade with Asia, and its proximity to Washington state’s vast hydro-power generation station assures access to affordable, stable clean electricity. The area also serves as the conduit for many of the exportable agricultural and industrial prod-ucts produced both in the Pacifi c Northwest and in the vast, resource-rich northern Great Plains, closely linked to the region by highways and freight trains.

7. Houston, United States: Houston’s close ties to the Caribbean, as well as its dominant global energy industry, thriving industrial base, huge Texas Medical Center complex and fi rst-rate airport, all work to its long-term advantage. Arguably the big city in the US with the healthiest economy, Houston is also investing in a green future; last year it was the nation’s largest municipal purchaser of wind energy.

8. Charleston, United States: Charleston has expanded its port and manufacturing base while preserving its lovely historic core. Once an industrial backwater, Charleston now seems poised to emerge as a major aerospace center, with the location of a new Boeing 787 assembly plant there, which will bring upward of 12,000 well-paying jobs to the region.

9. Huntsville, United States: This southern US city has long had a ‘smart’ core to its economy, a legacy of its critical role in the NASA ballistic missile program. Today the area’s traditional emphasis on aerospace has been joined by bold moves into such fi elds as biotech-nology. Kiplinger recently ranked the area’s economy number one in the nation.

10. Calgary, Canada: With the expected rise in com-modity prices over the next decade, Canada seems likely to produce several successful cities. Over the past two decades, Calgary’s share of corporate headquarters has doubled to 15 percent, the largest percentage of main offi ces per capita in Canada. Although the plunge in oil prices hit hard, rising demand for commodities in Asia should help revive the Albertan economy by next year.

Source: www.forbes.com

06

07 08

10

05

09


PROJECT FOCUS138

Ijburg, AmsterdamThe combined pressures of population growth and rising sea levels have been met with innovation in Amsterdam, where Dutch construction company Dura Vermeer has created the fl oating suburb of Ijburg. The premise is very simple – these novel homes, offi ces, shops and greenhouse gardens are docked to fl oating walkways and rise or fall with the sea level. Quality of life is good; water, sanitation and electricity are all fully sustainable and a real sense of community has already been forged. When complete, the suburb will be home to 45,000 dwellers living in the 18,000 properties attached to seven artifi cial islands created by dredged sand.

Cost: ¤1.5 billionStatus: Three of the four islands have been fully completedCompletion: 2015

MS Nieuw Amsterdam, RotterdamThe MS Nieuw Amsterdam is a signature class cruise ship that made her maiden voyage on July 4th this year. More than 280 metres long and weighing in at a gross of 86,700 tons, this beautiful behemoth is the latest jewel in Holland America Line’s 81-strong fl eet. The liner boasts a number of unique features, including outside view glass elevators, a cyber coffee house; a state-of-the-art spa with thermae suites, hydro pool and the largest fl oating gym in the world; a number of restaurants, clubs and shops and even a dedicated, teen-only section called ‘Loft’. The Nieuw Amsterdam has a total of 11 guest decks, is powered by six diesel generators and propelled by Azipod propulsion technology.

Cost: ¤364 millionStatus: Set sail on maiden voyage on July 4th, 2010Completion: May 2010

Th e Netherlands: Project focus

Maasvlakte 2, Rotterdam Breaking world records almost every week, the Maas-vlakte 2 land reclamation project is set to enlarge the port of Rotterdam by a total of 2000 hectares in time for its completion date in 2013. In June, 11 Boskalis and Van Oord trailing suction hopper dredgers shifted 3.8 million cubic metres of sand to the area in one week, breaking all previous land reclamation records. The quay walls that will comprise the Maasvlakte 2 harbour are set to measure more than three kilometres in distance and will contain fi ve million tons of freshly quarried rock supported by 240 million cubic metres of sand. Upon completion, Maasvlakte 2 will further ce-ment Rotterdam’s position as Europe’s largest, busiest and most important port.

Cost: ¤2.9 billionStatus: Halfway to completionCompletion: April 2013


PROJECT FOCUS 139

Wastewater treatment plant, EpeEpe, a small town in east Netherlands, will become the site of one of the world’s most sophisticated and sustainable wastewater treatment buildings when the new plant opens in mid-2011. Both cost-effective and carbon-effi cient, the plant will cut the town’s carbon footprint while doubling the existing plant’s treatment capacity with the utilisation of new Nereda technology, which nurtures special microorganisms that grow in compact granules (rather than ‘fl oc structures’, which act as inhibitors), allowing for more effective wastewater treatment. Water Board Veluwe and engineering consultancy DHV signed the design and build contract for the plant.

Cost:¤15 millionStatus: Contracts are all signed; initial work is imminentCompletion: Mid-2011

Sun Island, AlmereSun Island is one of Europe’s most innovative sustainable energy projects and is located in the Noorderplassen-West district of the Dutch city of Almere. Urban planning for the area has been fully committed to sustainable living, and Sun Island is the fl agship project. The island is comprised of water collectors that are heated by the sun’s rays. The heated water is then fi ltered directly into the 2700 homes in the immediate vicinity, providing hot tap water and central heating, and supplying 10 percent of the district’s annual heating needs. Sun Island’s collector area is approximately 7000 m2, making it the fourth-largest solar collector fi eld in the world.

Cost:¤7 millionStatus: Fully constructed, partially connectedCompletion: Summer 2010

Project Buiksloterham, AmsterdamThe aim of the Project Buiksloterham is to transform a former 100 hectare industrial estate into climate-neutral inner city land that is suitable for a variety of usages, including residential and commercial. A total of 2000 property dwellings (comprising 30 percent social housing) are planned by 2015, with every property made completely climate-neutral. Various companies involved in the project have pledged to a climate table that will rank and track the progress of CO2 reduction. The overall aim is to achieve 100 percent C02 neutrality, with all building-related emissions compensated by the use of renewable energy and local power generation. New bridges, bus and ship connections and improved public space are also under construction at the site on the banks of the river Ij.

Cost: ¤200+ millionStatus: Construction has begun on the residential buildings and public spaces Completion: 2015


From the people you hire to the products you sell, if you’re in business, we’ve got it covered...

Your World. COVERED

Find out more: www.euinfrastructure.com

InfrastructureInfrastructure provides insight on how developers can achieve critical objectives by integrating leading-edge solutions across their operations – helping them to make informed decisions about technology and operations solutions for all of their areas of responsibility.

Next Generation PharmaceuticalApproximately 50% of new drug development fails in the late stages of phase 3 – while the cost of getting a drug to market continues to rise. NGP is written by pharmaceutical experts from the discovery, technology, business, outsourcing, and manufacturing sectors. It is committed to providing information for every step of the pharmaceutical development path.Available for: EU, US

Find out more: www.ngpharma.eu.com

Next Generation Power & EnergyA poll of 4000 utility executives posed the simple question: what keeps you up at night? The answers were costs, new technologies, ageing infrastructure, congested transmission and distribution, viable renewables and inadequate generation capacity. Available for: EU

Find out more: www.ngpowereu.com

Oil & GasCollaboration between Government and multinationals to ensure the energy supply is developing on two fronts. O&G is the defi nitive publication for stakeholders and service companies to read about the regional projects, technologies and strategies affecting their group.Available for: MENA, US, Russia

Find out more: www.ngoilgasmena.com

Business ManagementWhat business processes work? What are the proven, successful strategies for taking advantage of domestic and international markets?Business Management is about real, daily management challenges. It is a targeted blend of leadership and learning for key decision makers in government and private enterprise.Available for: US, Middle East, EU

Find out more: www.bme.eu.com

ALSO AVAILABLE FOR: US & MENA

MENA EditionEditionMENA E

US Edition

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BOOK REVIEWS 141

Building for a Changing Climate: The Challenge for Construction, Planning and EnergyBy Peter F. Smith

With a practically universal consensus that our climate is changing rapidly, there is extensive debate about what we can do to mitigate the damage being caused. It is becoming increasingly clear that a large part of our resources will have to be directed towards adapting to new climatic conditions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the built environment. In this book, sustainable architecture guru Peter Smith lays out his vision of how things are likely to change, and what those concerned with the planning, design and construction of the places we live and work can and must do to avert the worst impacts.

EU Infrastructure says: An invaluable mine of information on the global environmental crisis.

Construction Materials, Methods and Techniques: Building for a Sustainable FutureBy William P. Spence and Eva Kultermann

Comprehensive coverage of the most up-to-date green methods for residential and commercial building construction, along with the construction materials and properties needed to carry them out. A logical and well-structured format follows the natural sequence of a construction project.

EU Infrastructure says: A thoroughly rounded, need-to-know guide that could prove critical to success in the green building sector.

LEED Materials: A Resource Guide to Green BuildingBy Ari Meisel

It may be good to be green, but it’s still far from easy and an architect’s knowledge of materials can make

or break a building’s green rating. Though LEED’s performance-based criteria exclude individual materials and products from earning points toward certifi cation, their specifi c use can. Apply a material in the wrong situation and you may not get credit for it. Fortunately, with a little insider knowledge, you can also use one material to get credit in two, three, or even more areas. LEED Materials is packed with critical information on nearly 200 materials, products and services.

EU Infrastructure says:This book fi ts well alongside other LEED references in any architects’ library.

Sustainable and Resilient Critical Infrastructure Systems: Simulation, Modeling, and Intelligent Engineering By Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan and Srinivas Peeta

As our critical infrastructure becomes increasingly interdependent, the need to ensure that it remains resilient and sustainable, whilst at the same time being adaptive, has become a key focus area for the future. This book is looks at recent advances in simulation, modeling, sensing, communications/information and intelligent and sustainable

The Green House: New Directions in Sustainable ArchitectureBy Alanna Stang and Christopher Hawthorne

From the arid deserts of Arizona to the icy forests of Finland, the authors of this book have travelled the globe to fi nd all that is new in the design of sustainable homes. Six different climactic zones are presented in The Green House – waterfront, forest and mountain, tropical, desert, suburban and urban; there is also a section on mobile dwellings. Each chapter features a series of homes. Projects are presented with large colour images, plans, drawings and an accompanying text that describes their green features and explains how they work with and in the environment.

EU Infrastructure says: A beautiful book and one that is an indispensable reference for anyone interested in sustainable design.

technologies that have resulted in the development of sophisticated methodologies and instruments to design, characterise, optimise and evaluate critical infrastructure systems, their resilience, and their condition and the factors that cause their deterioration.

EU Infrastructure says: Particularly pertinent for those involved with infrastructure planning, design, fi nancing and maintenance. 5

2

1

3

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142

36 Hours in...Budapest

In the knowYou should watch your step in Budapest. Never-ending architectural splendour catches the eye everywhere you look, making it a one of the most distracting and beautiful cities in Europe, so tread carefully. The glorious Danube splits the city in two, with Buda on the west and Pest on the east linked by a procession of wonderful bridges. Beyond the city limits is the great Hungarian Plain, which is one of the fl attest sections of land on continental Europe and an untouched primordial swathe of dense forest, save for the occasional sliver of high speed road and rail networks linking east with west with increasing ease and effi ciency.

EconomyBeing the capital of Hungary and one of the main centres of commerce in Eastern Europe, Budapest is something of an economical powerhouse, attracting thousands of workers each year from the surrounding towns and cities, and often from other countries too. MasterCard’s Emerging Markets Index ranks Budapest third globally; the Economist Intelligence Unit ranks it as central Europe’s most liveable city and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology is headquartered there. Tourism is also a major source of income, with the city attracting approximately 20 million visitors per year.

Time: +1hrs GMT | Currency: Forint | Language: Hungarian | Population: 1.7 million

Time off

Hungarians can only sigh wistfully at the thought of a cooling dip in the sea; the nearest coastline is thousands of kilometres distant, and the country’s very own ‘Sea’ – Lake Balaton – is also quite a drive away. Fear not though: Budapest is home to some of the fi nest and most famous natural spas in Europe (the reason why the Romans fi rst settled here), each with its own unique atmosphere and attraction. The most famous is the Szechenyi Baths on the eastern Pest side, which is one of the largest bathing complexes in Europe and comprises medicinal treatments, saunas, plunge pools, steam rooms and all manner of waterways and indoor and outdoor pools fi lled with patrons. Some of whom will be naked. You can choose to join them in the buff or preserve your modesty; it’s up to you. Other downtime attractions include the magnifi cent Parliament Building, Heroes Square, the Museum of Fine Arts and Buda Castle, which sits proudly atop Castle Hill.

CITY GUIDE


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EatThe city’s most famous restaurant is the Matyas Pince, which has been fi lling bellies and emptying wallets for over a century. It is located right on the banks of the Danube near Elisabeth Bridge and delivers the perfect balance of traditional Hungarian cuisine (not all bad, but defi nitely an acquired taste) and international dishes to make it a good choice for pretty much all travelling parties, particularly if you catch the live gypsy music that comes a-plucking toward your table every evening. If this strikes you as a little contrived, then a true glimpse of Hungarian dining can be experienced at a number of lovely restaurants throughout the city – the Kisharange Etkezde is one such example, comprising paper tablecloths, cramped seating, hearty fare, moustachioed waiting staff and a warm – if incomprehensible to non-Hungarian speakers – welcome. An experience not to be missed!

SleepHotel GellertThe four-star Hotel Gellert is Budapest’s most famous hotel, boasting the best location in the city and its famous natural baths, which rival those of Szechenyi for splendour and variety. The hotel opened in 1918 and has been a favourite with tourists and travelling dignitaries ever since, delivering top-quality service, state-of-the-art facilities and a regal, elegant décor that evokes memories of Romanesque extravagance.

Continental Hotel ZaraOpened in June 2010, the four-star Continental Hotel Zara is a magnifi cently modern establishment that combines its excellent location and top-class facilities with impeccable service to make it one of Budapest’s best new hotels. The chic and contemporary design is sure to appeal to business guests, while its location at the heart of the historic quarter makes it a fi ne option for tourists hoping to explore the city on foot.

CITY GUIDE

DrinkBudapest’s distinct districts have fostered a number of delightfully different atmospheres in which to relax and unwind. The popular Castle District is a magnet for trendy types who enjoy their drinks cool and their décor cooler. Nowhere is this more evident than at Oscar Café, which is an American-themed cocktail bar refreshingly lacking in the pretension you fear its reputation and gaudy lighting might foster. Head over to the Jewish Quarter in Pest and you are met with yet more funky bars vying for your custom: Bar Domby is the most atmospheric, delivering charming service with understated décor and some of the best cocktails in the city.


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Football fi rst, environment second

Spain’s Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, reluctantly draws his eyes from the big screen that was specially erected at the EU Headquarters in Brussels so that ministers could follow their respective nations during the 2010 World Cup. Moratinos was attending the one day European Summit to discuss jobs, the economy and climate policies, but the football was an evidently more pressing matter on the day.


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