Contributions published at Informatics and Sustainability Research (Lorenz Hilty)

Die Entwicklung von Smart Grids ermöglicht die Einführung dynamischer Stromtarife, etwa mit sich stündlich ändernden Preisen. Diese können der zeitlichen Abhängigkeit von Angebot und Nachfrage nach elektrischer Energie und Netzkapazität Rechnung tragen, dadurch Lastspitzen vermeiden und die Nutzung fluktuierender erneuerbarer Energiequellen begünstigen. Wir stellen ein Simulationsmodell vor, das den hohen Strombedarf für die Beheizung und Kühlung moderner Bürogebäude im Kontext dynamischer Strompreise untersucht. Das Modell erlaubt die Simulation von Szenarien, in denen vorhandene thermische Energiespeicher (Warm- und Kaltwassertanks) durch eine angepasste Steuerung und Regelung gezielt für die Smart-Grid-Integration genutzt werden. Das Modell wurde im Rahmen einer Diplomarbeit an der Universität Zürich in Zusammenarbeit mit IBM-Research entwickelt und am Beispiel des Gebäudes von IBM-Schweiz erprobt. Insbesondere wurden die Einsparpotentiale abgeschätzt, die eine Anpassung der Steuerung der bestehenden Anlage unter der Annahme dynamischer Strompreise bietet. Im Modell konnte unter diesen Annahmen für den untersuchten Sommermonat Juni eine Einsparung von 31 % der Energiekosten erreicht werden.

The master thesis at hand investigates how a company, supported by a Cap & Trade System, can regulate limited resources by restricting the tradable permissions for the emission of the respective resource. The focus this master thesis lays in the development of a software application in which the consumption or emission of a resource can be calculated and traded with the therefore necessary permissions. Moreover, this thesis examines how the incentives and business processes should be structured within a company so that the minimization of a resource can be successfully implemented with the support of the application. The reduction of CO2 emissions caused by business related travel serves as a concrete example of the application.

Adequate handling of environmental resources is a theme which is becoming more and more important in the near future. In particular, bigger companies have a major impact on the environment due to emissions which are released. When in the future the cost for using environmental resources is getting higher, there will be a direct impact on economic performance as using resources will cost more. The following Master’s thesis deals with exactly this problem. The aim is to fulfil the same missions but with fewer resources, such as an 80% usage of environmental resources. This reduction should not have any impact; it should just be achieved in implementing an efficient market for the internal use of a company’s resources. Hence, one main part of the Master’s thesis was the identification of areas in a company which can be used for economization of resources. The other main part of the Master’s thesis was a proof of concept. For that, a plugin for calculating the CO2-usage was implemented using real life data. The accuracy of the data was achieved by using an external API. At the end an evaluation with stakeholders has been performed. In the final step the evaluation has been interpreted and presented in a graphical way in order to provide links for future continuation.

An increasing amount of technologies are being used that involve information on the location of objects or persons. In addition to the widely known geolocation by satellite via GPS, today at least 12 more technologies are being used that make it possible to determine the location of devices, and indirectly that of their users, such as GSM/UMTS, WLAN, RFID, optical or even acoustical technologies (for details see Hilty et al., 2012). This may happen in real time (tracking) or after a delay depending on the technology (tracing); it may happen with a degree of precision ranging from a few kilometers to a few centimeters, and either with or without the knowledge of the persons affected. The mix of technologies in use today bears greater privacy risks than the relatively manageable RFID technology, which created a public debate some years ago (Oertel et al., 2005). Because tracking and tracing can be technically implemented with increasing convenience and decreasing cost, more and more location data are being generated and stored. When the results of many positioning processes are combined, movement profiles, or even relationship profiles, can be done on persons. In addition to navigation, there are numerous other application areas of localization technologies: location-based services, micromarketing, calculation of fees and insurance premiums, surveillance of individuals (for health reasons or in law enforcement), emergency missions, documentation, and forensic evidence. Localization technologies offer many societal opportunities, e.g. for promoting public transportation (easier to find connections and to pay for them), for emergency and rescue operations, for personal security and orientation at unfamiliar locations, for meeting friends and perhaps even for making friends among strangers. They may even provide a technological basis for the vision of a sustainable information society that has been around for a decade (Dompke et al., 2004; Som et al., 2009). However, as localization technologies become more readily accepted, society is becoming more dependent on them. They are becoming new critical infrastructures the malfunctioning or collapse of which can have far-reaching consequences comparable with a breakdown of the telephone network. Manipulated localization information may have even more serious consequences than a lack of information, because it can misguide vehicles, persons and freight.

Digital information and communication devices –smartphones or tablet, laptop and desktop computers– are often perceived as much more environmentally friendly than newspapers and magazines – but is this common opinion justified? Previous studies comparing the environmental impact of electronic vs. print media show that the answer depends on many parameters of the technologies under study and the use patterns assumed. Empa’s Technology and Society Lab, the University of Zürich the “Denkfabrik visuelle Kommunikation” jointly developed a web-based tool that can be used to evaluate the environmental effects of a broad variety of printed and electronic media for clearly defined use patterns. In a first step, the basic scientific facts were established using the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodological framework. Two LCA studies have been done, one for the production and disposal of the various media, the other one for the (active) use of each of these media. Technical data from various producers have been used for the ICT devices examined as well as for the power consumption during the use phase. All inputs to these processes have been modeled using background processes from the ecoinvent database. The results from these two studies are environmental indicators for each type of media representing production and disposal resp. (active) use of the device, calculated per device resp. per unit of active use. Combining these data in the second step made it possible to calculate the environmental impacts from any specific use pattern combined with the various types of print and electronic media. In order to make those findings available to users who have no knowledge in LCA methodology, a website providing an easily applicable tool has been developed. Two cases studies – one comparing different ways of advertising for (food) products; the other one taking the conference paper at hand as example – show some of the possibilities this tool offers to non-specialists.

This bibliography covers articles published in journals, conference proceedings or as book chapters that reflect on the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in society’s challenge of developing more sustainable patterns of production and consumption. The bibliography is focused on contributions presenting conceptual frameworks intended to structure this interdisciplinary field of research. Some sources not explicitly presenting a conceptual framework were included for their contribution to structuring the research field.

Global and European financial crises, which have had bad effects on people of all income classes over the years, have made people rethink the economic system, rules of action, and their priorities in life. On the global level, UN institutions work on new instruments and agreements beside the GDP (gross domestic product) to measure growth. On the local level, policy, civil society, and business institutions work on new models of economic and social development in countries such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Through those initiatives, conferences, and research activities, society and policy makers largely agree upon two things: firstly, the importance of highlighting and strengthening the humanistic values in the businesses and the economies on global and local levels and, secondly, the need for change and transformation to more sustainable developments in our lifestyles and economic behaviour. Also, during the past decades, we have learned that it is a long way from knowledge to action. Widely acknowledged studies like ‘The Limits to Growth’ published by Donella H. Meadows et.al. (1972) for the Club of Rome or, more recently, the ‘The Spirit Level – Why Equality is Better for Everyone’ by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (2010) showcase the effects and the impacts of human carelessness on the environment and society because of economic growth and egocentrism, and questioned the present system. The aim of this chapter is to provide insight into the recent and current policies and initiatives that strengthen and promote the humanistic management in the region of DACH (Germany [D], Austria [A], and Switzerland [CH]).

Purpose – Numerous policy announcements and articles have been produced over the past 20 years calling for higher education institutions to give greater focus to social, cultural, economic and environmental sustainability in their curriculum, research, engagement activities and operations. However, there has been much less attention given to establishing how to ensure these desired developments are successfully initiated, implemented and sustained. It is to these key areas of effective change management, leadership, support and governance for embedding sustainability into the core activities of higher education institutions through transformation that this special issue of Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal (SAMPJ) gives focus. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This paper brings together a consolidated analysis of the existing empirical literature on effective change management and leadership in higher education transformation with particular focus on the results of a recent international empirical study of 188 experienced leaders of sustainability in universities in Australia, the UK, the European Mainland, North America and South Africa. Findings – The paper brings together the case for action in the sector, identifies an integrating framework for addressing sustainable development in the university curriculum, research, engagement activities and operations consistently, comprehensively through a whole institutional approach and identifies the key challenges and lessons on effective change management and leadership for sustainability transformation initiatives in universities and colleges. Originality/value – Higher education institutions often give more attention to discussing what should change in their provision than to ensuring that desired transformations are actually put into practice effectively, sustainably and with positive impact. This paper and the articles which follow seek to address this gap.

To be able to estimate the commercial wood assortment of forests at all times is an important requirement of economical wood production. This makes it possible to improve management decisions by quantifying the revenues of alternative silvicultural and bucking strategies. So far a functional simulaton instrument for bucking single trees and whole stands was missing in forestry and in forest science in Switzerland. The SorSim bucking simulator of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) fills this gap. SorSim is implemented in Java and is platform-independent. An overview is given how the simulator works. Two examples show applications in practice and science. Of particular value is the possibility of estimating wood assortments of planned harvesting operations based on simple timber marking protocols. Especially in science and in strategic planning, SorSim allows the analysis of the long-term development of revenues of forest stands given different silvicultural methods. Combining SorSim with IT-based harvesting productivity models provides greater insight. Further development of SorSim entails testing different optimization approaches, e.g. single tree bucking to value and whole stand bucking to order.

In this paper, previous research results on the use of social media by employers and employees in the filling of positions are reviewed. Based on these research findings it is investigated how job seekers potentially benefit from the use of social media platforms, but also what problems can arise from sharing private information. It is analyzed which risks and opportunities the use of social media by employees in the job search pose and how relevant they are today. As a result of this analysis, best practice guidelines are presented for the use of social media by job seekers that demonstrate how the job search can be optimized by social media and the risks that are to be observed.

Our world is getting smarter: smart homes, smart cities, smart grids, smart vehicles and logistics, cloud computing, crowdsourcing. Many smart solutions are today designed in a “Green IT” context and proposed with the intention to contribute to environmental or social sustainability. Such claims include, for example, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saving energy, finding the most sustainable alternative in a decision situation, optimising a process with regard to sustainability criteria, or enabling participation and reducing poverty. However, it is difficult to determine whether the potential net benefit of the smart solution will materialize under real-world conditions, in particular when considering the dynamics of markets, possible rebound effects and other systemic effects. "Smarter" does not necessarily imply "more sustainable". The First International Conference of Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainability (ICT4S), held in Zurich on February 14-16, 2013, gathered more than 200 researchers and decision makers from 50 countries to exchange their insights about an effective contribution of ICT to sustainable development. The papers presented at the conference are contained in this volume. These contributions show the multi-facetted relationship between Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and issues of sustainability. First, although creating virtual worlds, these technologies are physically dependent on the supply of energy and scarce materials. How can we reduce the ecological footprint of ICT? (Sustainability in ICT) Second, ICTs are enabling technologies with the potential to increase the energy and material efficiency of production and consumption patterns and processes. Essentially depending on the socio-economic framework, they can support the decoupling of value creation from resource use instead of accelerating resource-intensive processes (Sustainability by ICT). Third, the computational models we can design and implement with the aid of ICT contribute to our understanding of complex systems. These models and the applications based on them support the creation and assessment of potential solutions to urgent problems, among them climate change (Sustainability Research by ICT). The following cross-cutting issues have been repeatedly addressed in the contributions to the ICT4S 2013 conference, thus defining the outline of a research agenda in the emerging field of ICT for Sustainability: 1. The power of software: How can we use the power of software to reduce hardware energy consumption? 2. Scarce materials used in ICT hardware: How can we reduce hardware obsolescence and close material cycles? 3. Smart energy use in buildings: How can we manage the energy used in buildings smarter and thereby reduce this largest fraction of our total energy consumption? 4. Sustainable behaviours and lifestyles: How can ICT be used to support users in making choices that contribute to sustainable development? The presentations and discussions of the conference are also available as podcasts and visual protocols via the website http://www.ict4s.org.

Since the beginning of the computer science, the impacts of computers on the society have been discussed. In this discourse, leading representatives of the computer science community have often been involved, particularly in the context of the IFIP TC9 (Technical Committee "Relationship between Computers and Society"). IFIP is the leading multinational, apolitical organization in information and communications technologies and sciences; it was founded in 1959 by the UN. It has been organizing conferences "Human Choice and Computers" since 1974 in more or less regular intervals. The focus of this work is the analysis of this conference discourse with the lexicometrical method. In this approach, quantitative relationships between the lexical items in a text corpus are derived. The results are finally presented and partially interpreted.

The direct energy demand of Internet data flows can be assessed using a variety of methodological approaches (top-down, bottom-up, or hybrid/ model based) and different definitions of system boundaries. Because of this diversity, results reported in the literature differ by up to two orders of magnitude and are difficult to compare.We present a first assessment that uses a pure bottom-up approach and a system boundary that includes only transmission equipment. The assessment is based on the case study of a 40 megabit per second videoconferencing transmission between Switzerland and Japan, yielding a consumption of 0.2 kilowatt-hours per transmitted gigabyte for 2009, a result that supports the lowest of the existing estimates. We discuss the practical implications of our findings.

This paper is about the online application 'Media Analytics Tool', short mat. This is a program which is used to calculate and compare the environmental impact of different electronic and printed media. In order to accomplish that, information about the used methods for printing and transporting the paper media, as well as input on the usage of electronic media has to be entered. The idea for this tool, along with the necessary calculations were developed by Empa. The assignment for this project was given by 'Denkfabrik Visuelle Kommunikation'. This paper will introduce the scientific bases of the Tool and then describe the making of mat and all its functionalities. In the end, the work process and final product will be evaluated.

The present thesis is to be understood as a survey about the topic of serious games. Serious games describe a category of digital games, whose primary purpose is not the entertainment of their players. After introducing serious games, this thesis describes different application areas of serious games. Furthermore, this thesis gives an overview about various components of serious games, which are responsible for motivating the players. The core of this thesis consists of developing a conceptual framework for serious games. This framework should be used to examine serious games regarding their capability of motivating their players. The framework will be subsequently applied on an existing game. The application points out that it is possible to identify the purpose and the elements of motivation in a serious game.

This study evaluates several multivariate methods for dimensionality reduction in terms of performance by ways of a quantitative analysis with random data. They are also evaluated in terms of adequacy for the context of the TBDis system, a debate structuring system developed at the University of Zurich, by ways of an interpretative analysis. Similarly, the performance of the current algorithm for dividing participants of a debate in groups with similar opinions (fractions) in the TBDis system is compared to alternative multivariate methods for cluster analysis.

Most part of the “Green IT“ or “Green ICT“ discussion is addressing issues of energy efficiency, implicitly assuming that more energy-efficient technologies will substantially contribute to a reduction of total energy consumption and, as a consequence, of CO2 emissions. This assumption is usually challenged by historical evidence for the rebound effect. This paper presents a case study on smart vending machines, showing that the ocurrence and size of the rebound effect can vary greatly depending on several factors. Some suggestions on how to avoid rebound effects when applying “smarter” technologies to save energy are derived.

The goal of this master thesis is to assess to which extent electricity costs caused by heating and cooling systems in office buildings can be reduced by applying dynamic prices. For this purpose, we analyze the heating and cooling system of the IBM business building in Zurich-Altstetten which is very efficient and thus certified by MINERGIE. The most salient components of this system are the three chillers which are used as the main source for cooling as well as heating energy. We model this system with its important properties as a simulation model in Desmo-J. We run the simulation experiments with data from a past winter month and a summer month so that we can compare the results between the different control strategies as well as the two seasons. The strategies include the current control strategies, new strategies under the current electricity pricing and new strategies under dynamic prices. With the help of the simulation results, we can estimate the electricity costs and saving potentials for the heating and cooling system of the IBM building. The results also help us to draw conclusions about the saving potentials for all office buildings.

The consumption and disposal of electrical and electronic equipment forms a dynamic system. This paper applies system dynamics methodology to assess mass flows of end-of-life equipment. In the paper, two modelling approaches to forecasting disposal of consumer durables are discussed, namely the “delay model” approach and the “reverse diffusion model” approach. Applying the same dataset on the disposal of cathode ray tube personal computer monitors in Switzerland to both the approaches, the estimates and forecasts of the models are compared against real system data. The comparison provides an opportunity to discuss further improvements to both modelling approaches.