PARTNERSHIPS AND COLLABORATIONS

The AGS has generated a global community of scientists and engineers focused on sustainable development. In addition to offering a global network, the AGS acts as a facilitator for researchers facing language, culture, scientific vocabulary, and cross-discipline challenges. Each AGS research initiative has led to the creation of an international network of scholars and practitioners.

The challenges of global sustainability are immense and complex. Together with business leaders, government policy makers, and environmentalists worldwide, AGS is working to learn more about innovative solutions to difficult problems, to ensure a better-informed public, and to educate the next generation of leaders.


CURRENT UPDATES

• Todai AGS seminars strengthen collaboration with industry
• AGS collaboration in the WBCSD Vision 2050 process
  

PAST EVENTS:

CYPRUS INSTITUTE

On June 21-22, 2005 the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS) partnered with the Cyprus Research and Educational Foundation (CREF) to host a workshop on “Climate Change and Energy Pathways for the Mediterranean” in Cyprus. Participants, including sixteen speakers from fourteen countries, explored the implications of climate change for the eastern Mediterranean and the impact of climate change response on regional economic activity, particularly in the hydrocarbon industry.

The CREF was created in February 2005 and charged with establishing a new independent research and educational institution, the Cyprus Institute, with a strong scientific and technological orientation. With the accession of Cyprus to the European Union last year, the country is well-positioned to serve as a gateway between the EU and the eastern Mediterranean, including the Middle East and North Africa. The Cyprus Institute intends to serve that purpose both as a first class technical research/educational institution and, building on that foundation, as a convening place for bringing science, technology, and analysis to bear on important public issues.

The Institute will be built in phases, with a research center focusing on issues energy, water, and the environment to be the first element. MIT’s Lab for Energy and the Environment and the AGS are collaborating on the initial steps of this phase. The June workshop was the first in a series of semi-annual workshops that will begin to engage the international community.

EUROPEAN UNION
In 2003, European Commission member and AGS International Advisory Board member Mrs. Margot Wallstrom invited the AGS to participate in a brainstorming meeting in Brussels on ways to promote development and use of environmental technologies. The discussions held on October 21 have flowed into two strategies, which are now under development: improvement of economic performance and sustainable development in the European Union.

EXPERT MEETING on Global Accords Discusses Inter-Linkages between Ozone and Climate Change Conventions
2-3 November 2000
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations University (UNU), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Global Accords Program, and the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS) organized an expert meeting to discuss problems in implementing global accords, specifically on linkages between the ozone and climate change conventions, at the MIT campus, Cambridge Massachusetts on 2 and 3 November 2000. The meeting focused on the linkages between global accords, the Ozone and Climate Change Conventions in particular, and the potential for their harmonized implementation. The experts explored a number of issues relevant to synergistic implementation of the conventions. Other topics discussed were: institutional implementation at the national level; the roles played by the financial mechanisms that support or were created to support convention implementation; and the “Issue Management Approach,” which was highlighted by the UN Secretary- General in his Programme for Reform as a tool to resolve the coordination needs of UN agencies with regards to issues that require an integrated and systematic approach.

UNITED NATIONS -World Summit for Sustainable Development,
26 August – 4 September 2002, Johannesburg, South Africa
AGS sponsored a delegation to the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, including 6 students who co-organized the only officially recognized side-event for youth at the summit. The students also presented information at the NGO Forum at NASREC and represented a Zurich Student community initiative, the Climate Ticket, on a panel within the main plenary in addition to an informational boot at the NGO forum.

MOBILITY 2001 – World Business Council for Sustainable Development
In 2001, AGS mobility researchers at MIT joined forces with the WBCSD and a consulting firm in the US to study world challenges in meeting future global demand for transportation. The resulting report released in November 2001 concluded that several “grand challenges” must be addressed if the worldwide community hopes to improve the outlook for sustainable mobility. Of particular relevance to the AGS, concerned as it is with conducting policy-ready research, is the need to develop institutional capacity to address complex, long-term issues that will facilitate the technological progress that will be necessary to meet global demand for sustainable mobility.