SMART CITIES LIVE

Lindab Innovation Hub focuses on the indoor climate with a mini fair at Mindpark in Helsingborg. The purpose is to increase knowledge about the indoor climate. - We want to create an awareness and make people reflect on how important it is, says Nicklas Friberg, Head of Lindab Innovation Hub. As Sweden's leading company in ventilation and indoor climate, Lindab wants to work to educate people about the indoor environment. With the help of its innovation hub, a mini fair is a

Work will start later this month to install new lifts, ramps and a footbridge at Stechford station to ensure step-free access across all three platforms for the first time. The £3.9m upgrade to make the station accessible for everyone will be complete for West Midlands Railway passengers by the end of 2019. A temporary footbridge will soon be built on site to minimise disruption to passengers while the work continues. The station, located on the West Coast Mainline and on the

The EU is ensuring that tap water across the EU is safe to drink. The Council today adopted its position on the proposal to revise the drinking water directive. The proposed new rules update the quality standards drinking water must meet and introduce a cost-effective risk-based approach to monitoring water quality. They also contain new provisions on materials in contact with drinking water and on improving access to water. The revision is a direct result of the first-ever s

Big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of things create the conditions for a development of the smart city of the future. Through a unique research collaboration via partnership between Stockholm City, KTH - The Royal Institute of Technology and MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the city will gain an in-depth understanding of socio-economic and environmental challenges in the growing city. Stockholm is a city in strong development with a rapidly gr

Recycling rate of plastic packaging almost doubled since 2005 The recycling rates and use of recycled materials in the in the European Union (EU) are steadily growing. Overall, the EU recycled around 55% of all waste excluding major mineral waste in 2016 (compared with 53% in 2010). The rate for recovering construction and demolition waste reached 89% (2016), the recycling rate of packaging waste exceeded 67% (2016, compared with 64% in 2010) while the rate of plastic packagi

OTTAWA , March 4, 2019 Canadians know that pollution comes at a price. Carbon pricing is an integral part of Canada's plan to fight climate change and grow the economy. The pricing of carbon pollution is the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stimulate investment in clean innovation. Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, went to an Ottawa Canadian Tire today to introduce Ontarians to how to use their Incentive Payments for

NEW YORK, March 1, 2019 / Chubb announced today a partnership with Impact Forecasting, Aon's catastrophe model development center of excellence, to develop a new terrorism risk model for Manhattan in New York City and other dense urban environments. Risk modelling specialists from Chubb and Impact Forecasting are utilizing a unique approach to model terrorism exposures in order to enable more realistic quantifications of property and casualty losses than offered by currently

Mould, mildew and damp cause misery for thousands of people in homes across the UK, and cost housing associations, landlords and homeowners millions of pounds a year in repairs. Now researchers at Northumbria University, in Newcastle upon Tyne, have come up with a solution which could lead to a change in how homes are designed in the future – making mould a thing of the past. Over the last year, Northumbria academics, along with partners from BIM Academy and the National Ener

This graph shows the projected impact of fully implementing the Paris Climate Agreement on the GDP of different countries in the EU by 2030, compared to a ‘business as usual’ baseline forecast. Latvia, Malta and Belgium will experience the largest boost to their GDP. At close to 6%, the projected growth in Latvia’s GDP is by far the most significant – this is largely due to the energy efficiency investment required, and the reduction in fossil fuel imports relative to GDP. Th

A smart city is defined as a local city, district or region which holistically employs information technology and real-time analysis to encourage sustainable development of its economy. There are six key areas a city is evaluated on to determine its smart ranking: energy generation, environment, delivery and usage, buildings, mobility and government. The need for smart cities is evident by the fact that 70 percent of carbon dioxide is emitted by cities while only half of the

There has been a lot of talk over the past few months about the movement towards electric vehicles. France and the UK have both announced that they will implement policies to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040, Norway is going a step further and is aiming to phase out these polluting vehicles by 2025. Also, Volvo recently announced that from 2019 they will only make electric or hybrid vehicles, announcing the beginning of the end for the internal combustion engine

The global community has a renewed focus on cybersecurity in the wake of the recent WannaCry ransomware attack.  The effects of the WannaCry hack are quite widespread, and the threat of such malicious intrusion has re-awakened government, business and individual interest alike to the dangers of and the need for protection from cyber attacks. What is ransomware? Ransomware is a type of malicious software that attacks and infects a computer, ultimately denying or restricting us

A San Francisco-based startup has recently created the world’s first cloud-connected electric motorbike called simply the M1. How does this work, exactly? The M1 electric motorbike is a ‘two-wheeled Tesla’, a bike with motorcycle-like capabilities and has the same cost as a Vespa, but with a unique style that urban dwellers crave. The best part? You don’t need a license to ride it. ‘At Monday Motorbikes, we have created the world’s first electric bicycle with motorcycle capab

The Environment Bureau (ENB) in Hong Kong announced that its 2017-2018 budget would have two major changes to regulations regarding their electric vehicles First Time Registration (FTR) scheme. The first regards privately owned electric vehicles (EVs), the tax will now only be waived up to $97,500 and the second refers to electric commercial vehicles which will no longer benefit from the FTR waiver scheme. The main reason for the new tax system is to limit the growth of the p

How much do you enjoy travelling by train? Do you prefer this method of transportation or would you rather take a plane or another vehicle? To be sincere, I have always liked trains. I feel like they had the power to transport you back in time (at least the ones in Romania do). When I travel by train, I cannot help but think that this was one of the best ways of travelling in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Here in Romania, we have an almost ancient train that carries y

DevLoop is the first and only full-scale Hyperloop test track and was just revealed to the public. Development Loop or DevLoop will allow engineers to take testing of the cutting edge technology one step further. So far testing was conducted at the innovation campus in Los Angeles, but an outdoor testing facility will answer many questions. Hundreds of trials involving tests of levitation, propulsion, vacuum and control technologies will be conducted over the next few months,

We all know that a smart city is a digitalised city, set to function with the help of the internet of things which connects the whole city. There are some cities that have already got there, while others are struggling to pick up the pace. NEC Corporation has just announced its plans to help develop smart city standards for Europe. The company is one of the members of a new European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), a working group which could be furthermore call

On his 80th birthday, the Head of the Catholic Church got his first electric vehicle. According to mobilityhouse.com the Nissan LEAF was a gift from the German investor Jochen Wermuth who is a strong believer in sustainable investment. The Pope has addressed climate change issues before, in 2015 he called for action to promote a clean-energy future in his environmental encyclical Laudato Si’. The Vatican is committed to becoming the first zero-emission state. Currently, a res