IEES

 EcoEng Newsletter No. 9, June 2004
 

Minutes of the IEES Board Meeting Bjørnholt, March 04

By Grit Bürgow, EcoEng correspondent
 

The 2004 Board Meeting was held from March 12-14 in the forest farm house "Bjørnholt" in the woods of Nordmarka, North of Oslo, Norway.

Participants

  • Hein van Bohemen (Board Member), University of Delft, Netherlands [HvB]
  • Anja Brüll (Board Member), aquatectura – sustainable landscape designers, Germany [AB]
  • Grit Bürgow (Newsletter Correspondent), aquatectura – sustainable landscape designers, Germany [GB]
  • Björn Guterstam (Board Member), Global Water Partnership/ Sida, Sweden [BG]
  • Johannes Heeb (Board Member, IEES President), seecon GmbH, Switzerland [JH]
  • Petter Jensen (Board Member), NLH – Agricultural University of Norway at As [PJ]
  • Florian Klingel (replacing Heinz-Peter Mang/ Board Member); GTZ EcoSan project, Germany [FK]
 

Major results concerning strategic IEES work in the future
 

Foundation of an International Ecological Engineering Institute (IEEI)
  Discussing the first strategic work papers set up by the IEES workgroup members, it was proposed to found a new operational IEES partner institution for future project cooperation. The pre-founding of the "International Ecological Engineering Institute" (IEEI) – was decided and took place on March 12, 2004. Current members are the Board Meeting participants, also representing the currently active workgroups (WG):
 

Objectives and next steps:

The IEEI shall serve as a cooperate EcoEng-company of small and medium enterprises dealing with a broad diversity of EcoEng-systems. It shall enable a project-wise international cooperation on a business level. Advantages are to better market "whole package EcoEng systems" ("from vacuum toilets to wetlands") by integrating different expertise of IEEI-member firms. Therefore IEEI members templates are to be set up within the next weeks, as well as member criteria are to be defined.

In addition a business plan will be prepared in cooperation with the HSW & Business School Lucerne (MBA students) by starting with defining market idea and performing a market analysis. The "WG II" will prepare a first strategy paper incl. questions that are to be addressed in the Business-Plan.
 

IEES - Workgroups
 

To improve coordination and exchange among the workgroups, especially also for IEEI biz plan development, common agreement was made on merging the currently four active groups to three:

  • WG I: Curricula, Scope + Content [JH, PJ, HvB]
  • WG II: Marketing, Lobbying + Networking [AB, BG, GB]
  • WG III: Case Studies [HvB, FK]

Focus of the specific workgroups:

WG I: Develop a common curriculum for EcoEng courses -> coordination and use of info material on a platform base, e.g. through using MyNetworks (see point 4). EcoEng-Curricula already exist at Delft University/ Netherlands (incl. linkages to architectural design issues), at Basel University - Transdisciplinary Course "MGU" (Mensch-Gesellschaft-Umwelt) and at The Agricultural University of Norway (NLH) in Ås/ Norway [PJ]. At NLH a trans-disciplinary University group was formed from different Departments directed by Petter Jensen (Program Director). The University already started to decentralize the facilities, acquired sponsors, etc. Currently there is a pending proposal addressed to Norwegian Government to put EcoEng at the major NLH-agenda.p>

WG II: Move from the research phase to the implementation phase on a broad scale -> therefore identify market barriers and unique selling points as well as form lobby strategies -> close coordination with IEEI-Biz-Plan development; link up with World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as Ecosystem Health issues on the global policy level

WG III: Promote EcoEng reference projects and case studies by evaluating performance data, including local performance standards EE-systems meet, key-case studies within regional context, e.g., in South Asia with the Kalyani Centre for Ecological Engineering as reference example for comprehensive set of EE-modules, etc.

More IEES members are very welcome to join the workgroups as well as discuss ideas.
 

IEES/ EcoEng Reference Systems
  In order to better market and promote the IEES projects that already have been successful implemented as well as initiated, a first list of EcoEng-systems was brain stormed.
 

Key-reference project locations:

These project locations may become a key reference for Ecological Engineering:

  • Kuching/ Malaysia: Urban EcoSan (400'000 citizens -> city with decentralized sewer system, have separate toilets (septic tanks), grey water is used for irrigation purposes [PJ]
  • Bangalore/ India: project cooperation of NLH + seecon GmbH. There is a potential to develop a Center of Ecological Engineering there, since urban and rural issues are addressed. There is a need to link the university [PJ, JH].
 

Existing EcoEng key-systems to further be developed:

  • Grey water system at Oslo [PJ]
  • Tropical Greenhouses [JH]
  • Typha systems [JH]
  • Urban EcoSan in Sweden and Stockholm (Hammarby Sjøstad - largest area within the docklands) [BG]
  • Solar Aquatic Systems (analogous to Living Machines): Current projects by Ecological Engineering Group/ David Del Porto, USA [AB]
 

New EcoEng project proposals:

  • Bio-Energy in Berlin: Remodeling former waste water irrigation fields at suburban municipal properties -> stressing the link between EcoEng and Renewable Energy Production [AB, GB]
  • Roads as Ecosystems: ongoing demonstration projects about rest areas and motorways in NL [HvB]

Additional comments and suggestion by IEES members can be sent to WG III or the project contact persons
 

EcoEng Platform MyNetworks - www.mynetworks.org
 

MyNetworks is a Swiss initiative on a web based Sustainable Environmental Technology collaboration, which is led by Andreas Schoenborn, armadillo media, and Marcia Pereira.p>

The objective is to develop MyNetWorks as a key information system for EcoEng and EcoSan as well as developing and promoting the EcoEng curriculum (close collaboration with WG I). Publication and information exchange through the virtual meetings (option to use project library, run courses). "Courses space" of special interest for external participants (normal size of the course about 15 people).

Provided web courses can also be linked with existing university courses and offered as extended course (e.g., "appropriate sanitation for developing countries" run by PJ at NLH).

For better funding links are to be set up with international capacity building initiatives, e.g. CapNet - Capacity Building Network (funded by the Dutch and UNDP/ Director Paul Taylor), Norwegian Government (NORAD), who funded Euro 16 million for eLearning. IEES should try to acquire supportive money to finance an Education Secretariat.

 

Cooperation with EcoSan
 

Presentation of the hand-out draft promoting Eco-San projects for Norwegian Government (Ministry of Environment). It is important that the paper reaches acceptance by the global community involved in the CSD-12 process where the Norwegian Government has committed itself to focus on water as the key issue for sustainable development. A strategy to lobby for the ecological sanitation approaches at CSD-12 was discussed with journalist Knut Werner Alsén of NLH.

 

IEES Finances and Sponsors
 

The objective is to reach a membership growth of 10% per year. According to the current budget there is a need of additional sponsoring. The present website frequency (about 4.000 visitors/ month) can attract potential sponsoring companies, who will be approached within the next months.
 

Activities 2004-2005 (board meetings, workshops, conferences, etc.)
 

The next IEES-Board Meeting was decided to take place at Rigi or Saentis Mountain, Switzerland, September 24-26, 2004.

The next IEES-conference will be probably co-organized with the 2005 ECOSAN conference at Pretoria/ South Africa (probably held by November 2005). Therefore an IEES related ECOSAN-workgroup will be formed.
 

© 2004, International Ecological Engineering Society, Wolhusen, Switzerland