The CEO Game

United States, Germany, Canada and Japan new solution to reduce pollution is transforming urban rooftops to flourishing gardens, who will reduce the heat and noise, clean the air and improve the city’s grayish skyline.

In the heart of downtown Chicago, in the corner of LaSalle street and Washington street, lies the historical town center which was founded in 1911. Its architecture tries to replicate the classic era, with Roman pillars who surround the building from all around. But, the most interesting thing about the building can only be viewed from high above: the building has 1,886 square feet of gardens on top.

Chicago's City Hall

Those gardens are botanical gardens in fact, which are composed of 20 thousand plants of 150 different species, with vines and apple trees, and beautiful pastures amongst them. The entire irrigation system of the gardens is based on rainwater. The man behind the roof, is Chicago’s mayor, Richard Dally, who had promised to make Chicago the “greenest city in America”. He gathered the funds from compensations the town hall had received from the local electric company ComEd. According to him, since its completion in 2001 the green rooftop saves some 3,600$ yearly on cooling in the top floors of the building and moreover, it is considered a popular tourist attraction in the city.

“It wasn’t easy to explain to anyone what a green rooftop is, in those years”, comments Kimberly Warthington, a chief executive in the environment department of Chicago’s town hall. “In the fire station, they refused to give us permissions cause they thought it was too weird. I also recall one of the contractors thought a green roof meant a rooftop that is actually painted in green!”.

Since the foundation of this “hanging garden”, more than 300 additional gardens where planted on Chicago’s rooftops. Altogether they sum up to 1.5 million square feet. Chicago’s lovely roof gardens not only look good, they also improve the isolation of the top floors of the buildings which on top they are planted, and save a lot of air conditioning expenses. In addition, they turn CO2 to oxygen, attract birds, take advantage of rainwater which otherwise would have been wasted, reduce the amount of noise drawing from the building and also will help fight the urban “heat islands”-metropolitan areas which are significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas because of the bare concrete which attracts heat.

In conclusion, the green rooftops seem to be a bright new environmental growing trend and one of the first green initiatives the world’s cities and countries are actually pulling off.

We will continue next time, to see how is this initiative doing over in other countries. Another green project you might like: winds of change, on a new self powered, wind driven tower in London.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

An example of how can man harness his environment for a better future

Who would have thought that a 2.5£ million penthouse will be offered to take in Elephant and Castle? One of London’s more controversial districts, that many believe is a disaster sprung from plans that went wrong way back in the 60’s. The southern district which is less than 3.2 kilometer far from Westminster, was always described as simple, grayish and ordinary. On the contrary, the new emerging tower in the heart of it, the “Strata SE1″ residential block is anything but ordinary. The 43 floor tall building will be the highest residential tower in London according to the “Financial Times”.

London's New Hope?

The skyscraper’s height is “174.9 meter”, said Karl Debenfort from Chestreton Homberts real estate agency, “but he looks almost twice as tall, you can see it from any street corner in London. It is a symbol for a better future throughout the area”. The tower is the most protruded project out of many regeneration projects, which are the goals of an ambitious plan to change the area. The Strata, which is expected to be open in April, contains 408 apartments, amongst them you can find: studio apartments for 285£ thousand, one bedroom apartments for 369£ thousand, two bedroom apartments for 495£ thousand and penthouses for 2.5£ million.

The first ten floors are given over to affordable housing and the top eight boast penthouses with views across London. The tower which is already nicknamed by the locals as the “Razor” because of its similarity to an electric shaver, was designed by the architecture firm Hamiltons and is both revolutionary and functional- the building’s rooftop will include three wind turbines which will provide the electricity need for the entire building (it will still be connected to the city’s power lines, just in case). When the blades, nine meters across, are lifted into place later this month they will help create the first “wind farm” of its kind to be integrated into a building.

Nick Stanton, leader of Southwark council, which is the driving force behind the regeneration of Elephant and Castle, says: “We want to give people space and smaller buildings on smaller developments that are green and safe, with better homes, shops, community facilities and a new park.” In conclusion, the Strata is a bright positive change set in the heart of an urban catastrophe which is now undergoing a green make over and is hoping to wind up just like Pittsburgh did a few years ago.

Want to learn more? Try the Elephant and Castle Regeneration Project on Wikipedia.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

The CEO Game continues its coverage of the fascinating COP15 Climate Change Conference: Experts claim that the breakthrough that was achieved by American President, Barak Obama, is somewhat limited. African countries object bluntly and beyond all doubt: Sudan even disgracefully compared the agreement to the Holocaust.

COP15: African Disaster?

Many developing countries feel that the agreements made, were achieved without them and have announced that they object the draft and plan to block the road to a final consent. Sudan’s representative stirred up a storm when saying a despicable yet concerning remark: “solution is based on the same very values, in our opinion, that channeled six million people in Europe into furnaces”. Obama replied: “If we would have waited for a full obligatory consent we wouldn’t have made any progress at all”.

Even though, the document that Obama agreed upon with the primary leading countries is considered a turning point, it encountered strong and blunt criticism in the conference. It now looks like a true agreement is a bit farfetched. Half of the criticism is coming as mentioned above, from the poor and developing countries, who claim that the document isn’t ambitious enough and doesn’t include any specified rates to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, they claim the treaty isn’t legally binding and doesn’t provide any promise to assist them with dealing with the climate change, when all along they are the ones who will suffer first from it. They are saying that if the rich and developed countries don’t agree to significantly decrease the emissions, the agreement won’t help stop and prevent global warming at all. According to them, the draft’s suggested action- to lay under a 2 degrees rise in temperatures, is just not enough. They fear that goal is too low, and would condemn to death.

This sort of criticism was already made by Tuvalu, an archipelago country that might sink in the ocean when sea levels rise, but the Sudanese representative was the harshest. He, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-aping, claimed that COP15 agreement will bring a “holocaust” to Africa. He claimed that the results of this type of treaty will be fatal: more floods, more droughts, more avalanches and finally the rise of sea levels. He criticized Obama for choosing to form a discriminatory agreement and doing it “intimately”, instead of a wide forum that included more countries.

The different delegations are now holding marathon discussions concerning the draft. The question that now remains is whether to adopt the draft agreement or to reject it- which means to lock the conference with no agreement at all.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Countdown to Copenhagen : Only 11 days to go. Meanwhile, White House Officials declared: Obama will attend the Copenhagen Conference.

A thumb up for the "Green Thumbs"?

A thumb up for the “Green Thumbs”? White House officials have announced this evening that the United States President, Barack Obama will come to Copenhagen in order to take part in COP15, United Nations’ conference on world climate change. This is the first confirmation for the president’s participation in this global mega event coming from official sources. Only two weeks ago Obama stated that he will come to Copenhagen only if he felt that his presence there could make any meaningful contribution.

The COP15 conference will be held in 7-18 December. According to the White House announcement today, Obama will arrive in the Danish capital on 9 December, two days after the summit’s jump-off. Following the conference, Obama will precede to Oslo, in order to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Right now, Obama isn’t scheduled to return to the conference after receiving the prize. This is another mega event for Obama after hosting the G20 summit this year, the Pittsburgh Summit and a one that he needs to take good advantage of, since polls lately show his popularity is dropping rapidly.

COP15 is the official name of the Copenhagen climate change summit, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The COP is the highest body of the UNFCCC and consists of environment ministers who meet once a year to discuss developments in the convention. Among this year’s sponsors you can find DHL, Cisco and even BMW, Mercedes- Benz and Honda who probably trying to portray their image as environmentally friendly.

The Danish hosts announced that in addition to president Obama many more of his diplomatic counterparts have confirmed their participation in the conference. Among them 65 heads of states, while one must keep in mind that the summit itself was intended only for Energy and Environment Ministers. As of now, the Danish are refusing to reveal the entire list of the participants but have mentioned that leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, Indonesia and Brazil (newly elected host for the 2016 games in Rio) are planning to take a part in the conference.

Representatives from 191 countries worldwide will try to thrash out a global deal on climate change, which will lead countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, the main issue causing the earth’s climate change according to scientists. As mentioned above, the officials will try to agree on a new climate treaty as a successor to the Kyoto protocol of 1997, the first phase of which expires in 2012.

However, it seems that the differences and disputes between the different sides in general and between the Western countries and the developing countries in particular, are too big to overcome in order to achieve an understanding. While the developed European countries have agreed to reduce emissions, the US is refusing as long as financially growing developing countries like China, India and Brazil don’t do the same. On the opposite, these countries claim that any limitation on them will pervade them from saving millions of people from dire poverty. Moreover they claim that anyway most of the industrial production is made on their ground, while it is intended to be sold to the rich countries, where the quality of life is much better.

Another profound disagreement is on the money the Western countries will give to the poor countries, so that they could wage, assimilate and start taking advantage of technologies which are more environmentally friendly. Therefore, the organizers of the conference are seeking a suitable compromise which all sides will agree on, meaning that the deal will probably be more of a political understanding than a legal agreement- that will force to reduce pollution- a one that is very much needed.

The amount of emissions to reduce, the coming up schedules and goals for each country and many other specifics will be decided in the first months of 2010. Right now, all there is to do is wait, but one must look on the bright side- Obama’s participation means that all the spotlights will be aimed at Copenhagen and finally the environment might get the attention it really needs.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.