Sustainability accounting and accountability [book]

Authors: Jeffrey Unerman, Jan Bebbington and Brendan O’Dwyer

Explains how the "techniques of sustainability accounting and accountability have the potential to be powerful tools in the management, planning, control and accountability of organizations for their social and environmental impacts." - page 3.

Low Carbon Fuel Standards (journal article)
By Daniel Sperling and Sonia Yeh
from Issues in Science & Technology Vol 25 Iss 2 Winter 2009, pp. 57-66
"The article discusses policy strategy for reducing oil dependence and decarbonizing transportation. It is stated that transportation consumes half the oil used in the world and accounts for almost one-fourth of all greenhouse gas emissions. It is also stated that for any policy to succeed, it must adhere to three principles. It must inspire industry to pursue innovation aggressively, must be flexible and performance-based and it should take into account all Green House Gas emissions associated with the production, distribution, and use of the fuel, from the source to the vehicle. It discusses low carbon fuel standard that is based on the total amount of carbon emitted per unit of fuel energy."

Reduce Greenhouse Gases Profitably (journal article)
By Richard Munson
from Issues in Science & Technology Vol 25 Iss 2 Winter 2009, pp. 67-70
"The article discusses a regulatory system that rewards energy companies for innovations. It is stated that nearly 70% of U.S. greenhouse emissions comes from generating electricity and heat, whereas only 19% comes from automobiles. According to the author, the U.S. Congress could move beyond Lieberman-Warner bill and develop an energy plan that satisfies both pro-business and pro-environment advocates. He states that each producer of electricity and thermal energy would obtain initial allowances equal to the previous year's national average output of CO[sub 2] emissions per delivered megawatt-hour of electricity and Btu of thermal energy."

Climate Change (journal article)
By Charles F Kennel
from Issues in Science & Technology Vol 25 Iss 2 Winter 2009, pp. 46-52
"The article discusses climate change and the need for U.S. scientists to develop regional assessments of climate change that are essential to the local policymakers who will have to make the critical decisions about how to respond. It is stated that climate change will not only affect each community differently, but each community has a unique combination of environmental, economic and social factors and its own ways of reaching decisions. It is also stated that the scientific community needs to help by providing local leaders with the specific regional climate information they need to motivate and inform coordinated action."

Unearthing business requirements : elicitation tools and techniques [book]

Authors: Kathleen B. Hass & Rosemary Hossenlopp

How to conduct elicitation sessions in order to gain consensus on the business need across the units involved before the implementation of a new system or process.

Crunch time for ageing - could radical changes to the make-up of food keep us younger for longer? (journal article)
By Graham Lawton.
From New Scientist, 29/11/2008, Vol. 199 Issue 2684, p36-39, 4p; Abstract: The article investigates the impact of radical changes to the composition of food on ageing. It examines the claim of Russian biochemist Mikhail Shchepinov that he has discovered an elixir of youth and the concept of using chemical isotopes to combat ageing. Further information on the research of Shchepinov and the spread of his study to a wider audience is provided.

Won't somebody think of the adults? (journal article)
By Mark Newton.
From Policy, Summer2008/2009, Vol. 24 Issue 4, p3-4
"The author offers commentaries on the proposed policy of the Australian government on Internet censorship. He argues on the proposed policy's costs, performance impact, and the likelihood of not complying with the required reliability standards. In examining the various considerations of the policy, the author discusses virtual private technology (VPN), copyright issues, and legal implication on censorship."

Cities and innovative urban transport policies (journal article)
by Giuliano Mingardo
from Innovation: Management, Policy and Practice, Vol 10, No 2/3, October-December 2008
"Successful modern cities must combine high levels of accessibility and quality of life. These aims may conflict with each other: increasing accessibility could be detrimental to the urban environment while the improvement of urban air quality might mean restricting the accessibility of the city. The challenge for cities in the 21st century is to maintain economic growth, stay accessible and improve quality of life at the same time. The aim of this paper is to increase understanding of how cities should address their transport policies. Examples from London (UK) and Gothenburg (Sweden) are used to emphasize the character of innovative urban transport policies."

Lost in translation? Building science and innovation city strategies in Australia and the UK (journal article)
by Paul K Couchman, Ian McLoughlin and David R Charles
from Innovation: Management, policy and practice, Vol 10. No 2/3, October-December 2008
"With the development of the 'knowledge economy' in many advanced industrial nations, there has been a growing interest in regional innovation systems and the role that universities might play in these. One result has been the demarcation by government actors of specific spaces for the creation, transfer and transformation of knowledge. Such spaces have been given various names, such as 'smart regions', 'science cities' and 'innovation corridors'. Whilst the associated policy rhetoric has much in common with the earlier interest in science and technology parks there are also clear distinguishing differences. More recent policy initiatives have sought to foster industry clusters within these spaces to contribute to economic development and diversification and link this to economic, social and cultural regeneration. This paper explores policy-driven creation of 'innovation areas' by focusing on two contrasting examples: Newcastle Science City in the North East of England and the Gold Coast Pacific Innovation Corridor in Queensland, Australia. The paper compares the rhetoric of university-industry-government policies with the realities.

Cities, systems of innovation and economic development (journal article)
by Björn Johnson
from Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice, Vol 10, No 2/3, October-December 2008
"Innovative cities are essential for the economic growth and development of countries. At the same time, however, social and environmental problems related to city growth can be serious threats to the full realisation of the socio-economic contribution that cities can make. In this paper it is argued that the notion of a 'system of innovation' is helpful in understanding the factors that shape the processes of innovation and that determine the extent to which problems related to city growth may be solved.
It is also argued that it is in cities, especially big cities that the power of innovation to promote economic growth and development will be tested, and that in this context, institutional innovation and political innovation as compared to technical innovation are of special importance. "

Getting it right : business requirement analysis tools and techniques [book]

Authors: Kathleen B. Hass, Don J. Wessels and Kevin Brennan

Covers the process of preparing for requirements analysis and specification, conducting requirement analysis activities, and other considerations such as requirements management and analysing best practices.

The Microguide to process modeling in BPMN [book]

Authors: Tom Debevoise and Rick Geneva
A straightforward guide to mapping your business processes using BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation). Offers real life examples and solutions that are useful whether you are in government, manufacturing or business.

OECD. Information Technology Outlook, 2008 [online resource]
Author: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
"Designed to provide member countries with a broad overview of trends and near-term prospects in the information technology (IT) industry, analysis of the growing impact of IT on the economy and society, developments and emerging applications in selected areas of information technology, and a review of IT policies and new policy directions."

Using Social Network Analysis to Measure IT-Enabled Business Process Performance [journal article]
By: Nik R. Hassan
From: Information Systems Management, Winter 2009, Vol. 26 Issue 1.
"The goal of this study is to demonstrate how the social network paradigm supports the task of designing information technology (IT)-enabled business processes. SNA theory provides social network measures useful for evaluating alternative process designs. These measures offer better information for process designers who are faced with making IT investment tradeoffs, especially as the process design task is being undertaken. The audience for this paper includes business and IT managers as well as process designers and researchers interested in studying and designing the most effective IT-enabled business processes."

Scope for improvement 2008 : a report on scoping practices in Australian construction and infrastructure projects [book]

Authors: Blake Dawson, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia & Australian Constructors Association

Findings include that there remains a high prevalence of deficient scoping in Australian construction and infrastructure projects and that these inadequacies are being discovered too late. The main reasons behind this is the lack of experienced personnel and insufficient time to prepare the documents.

Climate change law : comparative, contractual & regulatory considerations : proceeding of the 2008 conference of the National Environmental Law Association at Freemantle [book]

Edited by: Wayne Gumley & Trevor Daya-Winterbottom

"Opens with a chapter on the latest scientific findings by former CSIRO climate theme leader, Dr Chris Mitchell, and follows with analytical papers on a wide range of critical legal issues including international comparisons and harmonisation, Pacific Island perspectives, emission trading scheme design, renewable energy incentives, voluntary offsets, geo-sequestration, contractual considerations, corporate governance implications, land use and impact assessment considerations, tortious liability, inter-generational equity and the key elements of the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme." - cover.

Technology transfer: opportunities and outlook in a challenging economy [journal article]
By: Clifford M. Gross
From: Journal of Technology Transfer, Vol 39 No 1 (2009)
"The business world has recently been staggered by radical changes that no one could have imagined with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DOW) at 2002 levels and the Nikkei Index at it 26 year low, but one thing remains the same—companies still need to grow, or they die. And, the best way to grow is to innovate. ... A recent study by BusinessWeek analyzed the 2,000 best companies in the world rated on financial performance and innovation capability. The top 50 innovators significantly outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 even in a tough economic climate. The upshot: if one can innovate rapidly and efficiently one can grow a business, and win market share— even in difficult times like these. We may have lost some players in this financial crisis, but we have not lost our ability to innovate."

Review of regulatory burden on the upstream petroleum (oil and gas) sector [book]

Author: Australia. Productivity Commission

Recommends the establishment of "a new national offshore petroleum regulator in Commonwealth waters, and then provide state and territory governments, on a bilateral basis, the options of delegating existing petroleum-related regulatory responsibilities in coastal waters to this regulator." - page xx.

Vernacular Culture and Urban Economic Development : Thinking Outside the (Big) Box [journal article]
By: James H. Carr and Lisa J. Servon
From: Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 75, No. 1, Winter 2009
"This article addresses the increasing homogeneity of urban commercial areas and the loss of local culture associated with this trend. It seeks to identify strategies that build effectively on vernacular culture as an asset in neighborhood development."

Productivity in the mining industry : measurement and interpretation [book]

Author: Vernon Topp & others, Australia. Productivity Commission

"Identifies measurement and interpretation issues of relevance to productivity estimates for the mining industry in Australia. Quantitative evidence is presented regarding the effect on mining industry productivity growth of two important factors: systematic changes in the underlying quality of natural resource inputs used in mining; and production lags in response to increases in capital investment." - overview.

Reform, Risk and Reality: Challenges and Opportunities for Australian Urban Water Management [journal article]
By: Stuart White, Kate Noble and Joanne Chong
From: Australian Economic Review, Vol 41 Issue 4 2008
"In this paper we review recent challenges to the water industry in Australia and describe a set of risks and opportunities in the form of a set of response measures. Some of these are being implemented or are being actively discussed within industry circles. These response measures are analysed for their potential benefits and their potential to be implemented in ways that yield either positive or negative social outcomes."

Water for Today,Water for Tomorrow: Establishment and Operation of the SEQ Water Grid [journal article]
By: Daniel Spiller, Queensland Water Commission
From: Australian Economic Review, Vol 41, Issue 4, 2008
"A new approach to water supply planning and management was required to respond to these challenges and to provide the capacity to be able to adapt to climate change. The Queensland Government response comprises an award winning demand management program, a range of innovative infrastructure projects and extensive institutional changes. The benefits of these initiatives will be long lasting, delivering new standards of water security and efficiency while building on recent improvements to waterways health. The range of initiatives and the speed in which they are being implemented is unprecedented in Australia. This paper provides an overview of the key elements of the SEQ response."