Author:  INNOVA <innova@bcsdla.org> at INTERNET

Date:    02/03/2001  18:35

Priority: Normal

TO: brian chambers at Unctad4

Subject: INNOVA 20 Ingles

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INNOVA 20

     

Welcome to INNOVA. Here, you will find short reports on eco-efficiency and

sustainable development projects, currently carried out by individuals,

companies and organizations that are members of the INNOVA NETWORK,

including the Business Council for Sustainable Development-Latin America

(BCSD-LA, CEDSAL for its name in Spanish), as well as our partners, friends

and strategic allies.

    

This bulletin is published every month by the INNOVA Center for Sustainable

Development, and it is distributed in Spanish, English and Portuguese.

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A man is nothing else that what he makes of himself...

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INNOVA 20                                       02.03.01

    

    

INNOVA CENTER INTRODUCES ITS ONLINE COURSE, "FUNDAMENTALS ON CLIMATE CHANGE"

    

Global warming is a phenomenon affecting every living being on Earth. Its

visible consequences reflect on the increase of sea level, food production,

changes to the ecological balance, human health, and a lot of other things.

The study of its sources shall allow us to know how serious consequences

are and, therefore propose alternate solutions. The INNOVA Center for

Sustainable Development shall start on March 15 its online course

"Fundamentals on Global Climate Change", transmitted through

www.tec.com.mx. The course intends to teach the basic knowledge, to a

general audience, to understand the problem of climate change, its causes,

consequences, and solutions. "Fundamentals on Global Climate Change" is

part of the Diploma Course on Sustainable Development 21. It consists of

six subjects given through tec.com.mx; covers different topics such as

Eco-efficiency; Corporate Social Responsibility; Bio-technology, Bio-ethics

and Sustainable Development; Sustainable Development and Financial Systems;

and other more. For more information, refer to www.climategateway.com.

    

INNOVA Center for Sustainable Development

E-mail: clima@bcsdla.org

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INNOVA REPORTS MEDICAL ADVANCES ON THE NETWORK

    

The INNOVA Medical Network (RIMM) reported at the end of December some of

its more significant advances. It is worth mentioning that its arrival has

affected countries such as Italy, India, Brazil, Argentina, Puerto Rico,

Mexico, Chile and the United States. Furthermore, among registered

physicians, it is noticeable the fact that 60% resides in countries other

than the US, and that most of them do not belong to Pediatrix or Obstetrix;

and according to the latest statistics from  the RIMM website, they register

an average number of visits of 800 physicians per day. The NETWORK has been

working on various strategic alliances other than the one with ITESM, among

which we can mention that of the US Fetal-Maternal Medicine Society, the

Instituto Gemelli in Rome and the Padova University in Italy. As part of the

commitment to create this important Network, Pediatrix and Obstetrix have

assigned three full units of Physicians and technical staff in Dallas,

Texas; and other units in Mexico, and Tucuman, Argentina. The Network is

currently negotiating to open offices in Barcelona, Rome and Santiago de

Chili, thus guaranteeing the quality of the nataldoc.com site. It is worth

mentioning that Nataldoc is going through final negotiations to be the Latin

American health channel for America On Line's Internet portal. In addition,

by using RIMM and nataldoc.com, RIM supports health care actions for the

global health fund by Melinda, William Gates.

RIMM

WORLD INNOVA MEDICAL NETWORK

E-mail: rimm@bcsdla.org

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ITESM REPORTS...

INTRODUCTION OF ITESM TEC.COM.MX

    

The Virtual University of Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de

Monterrey (ITESM) started up in February the tec.com.mx website. The

website has started operating with more than two hundred students, over the

Internet. Being a pioneer in this kind of studies, ITESM shall allow many

persons to train themselves and study a professional career in a virtual

manner. The program starts with an induction course for remote students who

shall be able to get acquainted to the elements available, and to take

advantage of the programs, including up to now four professional careers

and four master courses.  Furthermore, the session includes explanations

regarding how to work in a virtual campus, and queries for professors.  In

order to prevent any problem with the Worldwide Web, the website is

simultaneously working with two servers, thus preventing service

interruption for students due to any problem.

    

ITESM

E-mail: innova@itesm.mx

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ARGENTINA REPORTS...

TECNA DEVELOPS ENERGY PROJECTS USING CANADIAN TECHNOLOGY

    

The Argentinean company TECNA executed an agreement with Canadian company

DynaMotive Technologies Corporation, to use services provided by the latter

for engineering, consulting and construction. This agreement will undertake

energy trade projects using BioOil in Latin America and other markets.

Meanwhile, TECNA shall contribute with its knowledge for the technical

design, and optimizing the access to BioOil production. TECNA has played a

role as leader in the oil and gas sector both domestically and abroad. The

Argentinean company was chosen by its Canadian counterpart since they deemed

that it has a provable record as engineering, consulting and construction

contractor in the energy sector, manufacturing facilities of the highest

quality as guarantee for multinational companies in the energy sector.

Companies are such as BP Amoco, YPF, Petrobras, Total, Shell and Dow

Chemical, among others. The Canadian company wants to become the world

leader in developing technologies to offer bio-mass based liquid fuel at

competitive process. BioOil can be obtained using patented technology that

converts agricultural residues, such as barks, in liquid fuel. The BioOil's

significance is that is renewable (contrary to fossilized fuel) for clean

combustion, low emissions level and neutral for greenhouse effect gases. For

more information, refer to: www.ambienteyenergia.com

    

El GLOBO, Clean Energy, Environment and Standardization

E-mail: elglobo@ambienteyenergia.com

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BRAZIL REPORTS...

GRUPO PAO DE ACUCAR EXTENDS RECYCLING ENCOURAGEMENT PROJECT

    

Grupo Pao de Acucar, pioneer in the retail food sector in Brazil,

followed-up its recycling encouragement project last January, by installing

forty automated machines for plastic bottle and aluminum can collection at

ten Rede Extra stores in the Grande Sao Paulo region. Each returnable

plastic bottle and aluminum can includes a coupon that may be used as a

rebate coupon for shopping at Rede Extra supermarkets, or be donated to the

UNICEF Brazilian campaign:  "Education on Garbage, Never More", which is

intended to eradicate child labor in garbage dumps.  All the material

collected is then picked up and sold to recycling centers. The "Recycle and

win more" project has been carried out as an experiment during the last

then months. During that time, two machines collected forty-seven tons of

plastic and twelve tons of aluminum. Grupo Pao de Acucar intends to expand

the project further, in order to include all kind of recyclable material,

including glass and paper. To get those, it shall distribute supermarket

bags of different colors, one for each type of recyclable material, to

facilitate material classification for the Group's customers.

    

GRUPO PAO DE ACUCAR

E-mail: pa.imprensa@paodeacucar.com.br

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COLOMBIA REPORTS...

CNPMLTA CREATES WORKSHOPS "AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST SECTORS UNDER KYOTO

PROTOCOL"

    

The National Center of Cleaner Production and Environmental

Technologies-CNPMLTA-carried out last February 1st the training workshop

"AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST SECTORS UNDER THE KYOTO PROTOCOL", in the Medellin

Chamber of Commerce. This event was conducted by the expert Carmenza

Robledo, PhD in Natural Science, with a postgraduate degree in Economics,

and Regional Development. Dr. Robledo is Director of the Sustainable

Management Program of the Swiss Federal Material Testing and Research

Institute (EMPA), and Technical Director of the "Alternate Financial Model

to Manage Forest in San Nicolas Valleys" project (CORNARE- EMPA agreement).

Academic curricula for the Workshop referred to the Clean Development

Mechanism in the United Nations Conference on Climatic Changes.  It is

worth mentioning the Special Report on Territory Usage, Usage Change and

Forestry (LULUCF) by the Inter-government Climatic Change Panel (ICCP),

focusing on questions such as subject definition, existing perspective, and

examples of projects in countries such as Bolivia and Colombia.

    

CNPMLTA

National Center of Cleaner Production and Environmental Technologies

E-mail: monica.florez@cnpml.org

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MEXICO REPORTS...

CMP+L INAUGURATES ROUND TABLE FOR POLLUTION PREVENTION

    

One of the goals of the Round Table for Pollution Prevention in Mexico

(MRPCM) is to create integrated working groups to give improvement

proposals for five different items: Pollution Prevention (PC) Actions in

the Industrial and Service Sector, Policies to drive PC, Education and

Training on PC, Tools Supporting the PC Implementation and Financing for

PC. To start these groups' activities, the Mexican Center for Cleaner

Production (CMP+L) realized a Planning Meeting 2001 on past February 1st,

in order to set clear goals, design a working plan and establish results

that may be submitted at the next Round Table.  At the Round Table, the

factors affecting the accelerated deterioration of the environment were

discussed, such as disorganized growth, lack of planning and poverty, among

others. Emphasis was placed on some guidelines related to Environmental

Politics, such as stopping expansive growth of urban areas, and

environmental policy within the context of economic development; taking

preventive actions, assuming a cleaner production concept, sustainable use

of resources.  Regarding air quality measures, there are plans to implement

emission reduction strategies for ozone precursors and breathable fraction

particles. Regarding water and soil, some control and prevention strategies

were discussed, as well as problem identification and spreading an

environmental education and urban forest care.

    

CMP+L

Mexican Center for Cleaner Production

E-mail: cmpl@correo.cmpl.ipn.mx

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OUR FRIENDS REPORT...

    

THE UN INTRODUCES THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN CORPORATE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

AND FINANCIAL SUCCESS

    

According to the new UN new report, "Buried Treasure", there is a positive

association between corporate sustainable development and financial

success. It was stated that the report is based on an international

research that clarified the fact that a strategic focus on sustainable

development can be aligned in a significant and positive manner, with the

corporate success trend. Supported by the Industrial Division of the United

Nations Environment Program and more than twenty companies, the report has

resulted in two main focuses. The written report is being simultaneously

analyzed by means of a website with free interactive access, at:

www.sustainability.co.uk/business-case. So far, the corporate world has

been far from associating itself to the concept of sustainable development;

however, in recent years, evidence regarding corporate success associated

to the term "sustainable development" has grown in a significant manner.

The report indeed shows a practical aspect, taking into consideration that

it highlights ten major links between the usage for sustainable development

and ten conventional measures applied to achieve corporate success. In

addition, the report supplement is based on actual cases. It is also shown

that there are significant common points between sustainable development

and terms such as operating efficiency, human and intellectual capital and

corporate risk profile.

    

SustainAbility

E-mail: prakash-mani@sustainability.co.uk

    

    

THE UN LAUNCHES A PIONEER SITE REGARDING THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT STATUS

    

Launch of a new website by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)

was highlighted at the last meeting of its Governing Board. Session number

twenty-one of the UNEP Board was held at Kenya in early February, with the

participation of more than one hundred countries. The new site was launched

from here, with a presentation of the degradation effects worldwide. The

site shall allow to provide more up-to-date information each country or

region environment; it also provides satellite maps, thus becoming the most

comprehensive environmental database available in the Internet. For each

country or territory, the site offers ecology information, human impact and

climate, acknowledging also priority zones for each area, taking into

consideration its biological as well as preservation significance. It is

worth mentioning that the site contains an overview of the Organization for

each country of territory, describing their impact on the climatic changes,

and it also offers an overview of domestic governments and the relevant

legislature and related domestic policies.

    

EDIE

Environmental Data Interactive Exchange

E-mail: newsdesk@edie.net

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The following organizations are part of the Business Council for

Sustainable Development-Latin America's Network:

    

ANDI

Asociacion Nacional de Industrias (Colombian Federation of Industry)

    

CEADS

Argentinean Business Council for Sustainable Development

    

CEDES-El Salvador

Salvadorian Business Council for Sustainable Development

    

CEDES-Golfo de Mexico

Business Council for Sustainable Development-Gulf of Mexico

    

CEDES-Mante

Business Council for Sustainable Development-Mante Chapter

    

CEDES-Tampico

Business Council for Sustainable Development-Tampico

    

CEHDESO

Honduran Business Council for Sustainable Development

    

CEMCODES

Costa Rican Business Council for Sustainable Development

    

CESPEDES

Center for Private Sector Studies on Sustainable Development

    

CEVEDES

Venezuelan Business Council for Sustainable Development

    

CNPMLTA-Colombia

National Centre for Cleaner Production and Environmental Technology of

Colombia

    

CODESARROLLO Foundation - Colombia

    

CMP+L

Mexican Center for Cleaner Production

    

Iniciativa GEMI

    

Libertad Foundation - Argentina

    

Moises Bertoni Foundation - Paraguay

    

Sinaloa EcoRegion Foundation - Mexico

    

ITESM

Monterrey Institute of Technology

    

Pediatrix - Obstetrix and NATAL International

    

PERU 2021

    

PLEDS

Business Leadership Program for Sustainable Development

    

PROPEL

Promotion of the Small Latin American Eco-Efficient Company

    

AIESEC Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Venezuela

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Visit our web site at http://www.bcsdla.org

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Contact us!

E-mail: innova@bcsdla.org

    

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Responsible for the publication: INNOVA Center for Sustainable Development

Contact: Julia Hernandez, Communications Coordination

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Copyright c2001. INNOVA Center for Sustainable Development. All Rights

Reserved. Any printout, publication in the WWW or by any other means, in

addition to its commercial and electronic distribution, should be under

prior agreement from the editor.