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Individual car traffic is responsible for nearly a third of the total energy consumption. However,  many commuters feel indeed very dependent on their car. Here, ridesharing promises to contribute to environmental protection, while still offering individual mobility. Although ridesharing options have been discussed since many years, internet and smartphones provide completeley new opportunities to find ridesharing partners today. Thus, this book deals with current efforts on implementing flexible internet- and phone-based ridesharing services. With a main focus on the users' perspective, their demands and acceptance limits, the authors aim to explore success factors for non-profit, but also commercial ridesharing concepts. Weiter...

Enhanced spatial trading, transport optimisation, help for victims: the benefits offered by localisation technologies are many and varied. The use of private geo-data for marketing purposes, or for monitoring individuals, on the other hand, is more controversial. With this new study, TA-SWISS aims to shed some light on the benefits that may derive from localisation technologies for the economy and for society, and to identify possible ethical, legal or social problems that they might engender. IZT was one of the research partners.  The English summary "Geographical signposts in cyberspace.Localisation technologies as a challenge for an open society" is avalaible online. More...

Academics and scientists from the IZT have written a new paper about futures studies called "Futures Studies and Future-oriented technology Analysis". The paper was handed to the first symposium of the newly founded "Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society" in Berlin. This independent German research institute had received funding from Google and is located at Bebelplatz in the heart of Berlin. More...

The winners of the IZT's short film competition "greenITube" have been chosen: One of them, the sixteen-year-old Johanna Hoppe, produced a film with no spoken words, which means that English native speakers are welcome to see it. More... The nine best short films are available in PDF form for download. They have been made by young people and uploaded on youtube. More...

IZT and its research partners at University of Victoria (Canada) and Grenoble Business School (France) have published five teaching cases about trade-offs in corporate sustainability. The cases put students in the shoes of managers who have to deal with the full complexity of sustainability-related trade-offs. The case studies focus on strategic decisions of companies related to, for instance, choosing a sustainable product label (“Towards a sustainable coffee market? Paradoxes faced by a multinational company”). The case studies were published in a Special Issue of the journal “Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management”. More....

In the uncertain times of global economic crisis and global climate change it is increasingly important to develop strategies to cope with different futures. Scenario-technique is especially suited to explore different futures and their implications for decision making. The new IZT study "Methods of future and scenario analysis" provides an overview of the diverse range of techniques and approaches used. A free download is available on the website of the German Development Institute who commissioned the study. More...

The international Energy Foresight Network (EFONET) is supported by the European Commission and organised by a group of fifteen futures-research
institutions and foresight practitioners. The goal of the EFONET project is to assess how current knowledge on energy-related foresight methods and on their practical application can assist energy policy making. More...

This book summarizes the results of an international research project - the first Europe-wide Delphi study on future developments in the energy sector. With a time horizon of 2030, this expert survey not only provides a useful perspective on long-term developments of energy technologies, but also evaluates these technologies in different sets of social values or ‘visions’. Close to 700 energy experts from 48 countries participated in the two-round, web-based Delphi study. The international survey and its publication have been coordinated by IZT researcher Timon Wehnert.

Further information and online-order: http://www.springer.com/dal/home/engineering/electronics?SGWID=1-191-22-173710918-0

This analysis is an attempt to map and compare the publicly funded research efforts carried out by the EC, Member States in the EU, and those undertaken in the US and Japan in all fields of non-nuclear energy research. It sheds light on the various research agendas and the coordination and links between these, and provides leads for further collaboration both on European and international level. The study, carried out by IZT scientists, evaluates the following energy research areas: hydrogen and fuel cells, CO₂ capture and storage, photovoltaics, concentrated solar thermal, wind energy, ocean energy, bio-energy, geothermal energy, electricity grids.

The study ‘State and prospects of European energy research’ was published by the European Commission.

Free Download (PDF): http://bookshop.europa.eu/uri?target=EUB:NOTICE:KINA22397:EN:HTML