26 05.2015
× FOOD IS ENERGY, ENERGY IS FOOD ×
oxygen | 26 — 05.2015
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editorial board Enrico Alleva (president) Giulio Ballio Roberto Cingolani Derrick De Kerckhove Niles Eldredge Paola Girdinio Maria Patrizia Grieco Helga Nowotny Telmo Pievani Francesco Profumo Carlo Rizzuto Francesco Starace Robert Stavins Umberto Veronesi
OXYGEN IS ONLINE oxygen.enel.com Follow us on
editor in chief Andrea Falessi
/ Oxygen Enel / @Oxygen_Enel / enelsharing/oxygen
editorial director Vittorio Bo publishing coordination Luca Di Nardo Stefano Milano Anastasia Milazzo Dina Zanieri managing editor Cecilia Toso editing Cristina Gallotti editorial team Simone Arcagni Elisa Barberis Michele Bellone Marco Boscolo Davide Coero Borga Emanuela Donetti Nicola Ferrero Michele Fossi Chiara Priante Gianluigi Torchiani
translations Laura Culver Alessandra Recchiuti Joan Rundo art direction and layout undesign picture editor white
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summary
FOOD IS ENERGY, ENERGY IS FOOD
10 ˜ editorial
Faced with a distracted administration of resources, we have made sure we change the rules of the game which has been depleting the Earth and subjecting it to an increasing stress which it can no longer support. Over seven billion people are demanding more food and energy in an area that is getting increasingly smaller. But somehow food and energy are both the dilemma and the solution for the present and the future: efficient, intelligent, and reasoned management of both of them is the basis for beginning to rethink our development. Environmentalists, nutritionists, economists, businesses, and citizens have been talking about this for some time. Oxygen tells us about the projects and activities concerning the urban and energy revolution, ranging from the great revolutions of the production systems to small agricultural technologies, which are being spread through education in schools. This is occurring just as nations and governments are together in Milan, on the occasion of the Universal Exposition, to gather ideas and decisions about our future through food and energy. These are the two indispensable and interdependent gears with which to start up a new approach to ourselves and the planet we inhabit.
12 ˜ editorial
THE COMPASS OF SUSTAINABILITY by Maria Patrizia Grieco
A FOOD PACT by Maurizio Martina
14 ˜ interview with giuseppe sala
IDEA TIME by Stefano Milano The whole world will be at hand in an edition of the Expo which is the space for narration and comparison, and a stimulus for new ideas. Hosted by the country that has made its food renowned for its excellence, over 140 countries and 20 million people will be involved in a dialogue concerning food, the equitable distribution of resources, energy, and sustainability: all crucial for the well-being of our planet.
18 ˜ contexts THE MADE IN ITALY FACTOR YOU DID NOT EXPECT by Carlo Tamburi Expo 2015 offers an opportunity to describe innovation, a kind of vision of the future, the business landscape, a way of envisioning the city of tomorrow, and the ability to design. In all respects, it is a showcase of Italian excellence, and also a ‘school’ for visitors and the many countries that are participating; the chance to talk about Italy and a product that you did not expect: the energy of the future.
22 ˜ scenarios AN INTELLIGENT EXCHANGE by Barbara Corrao The great themes of Expo 2015, food and energy, have parallel lives and tangents. Their future, in fact, depends on solutions and strategies such as sustainability and efficiency, and their resources can be fruitful and mutual exchange goods.
26 ˜ in-depth ENERGY FOR EATING by Marco Boscolo
28 ˜ interview with
mathis wackernagel
STAYING WITHIN THE LIMITS by Gianluigi Torchiani There are more and more of us and the planet is becoming impoverished. Everybody has been telling us this: experts, scholars, and the news anxiously warn us of the risks of climate change, and that is only one of the problems that threatens our planet. Our passage has left an indelible mark, but we can still understand what the limits of the planet are and live within them.
42 ˜ interview with andrea segrè
WE ARE WHAT WE LEARN by Cecilia Toso If it is true that we are what we eat, today we are food that is wasted and unbalanced, either unhealthy or too elaborate. By devaluing it, we are devaluing ourselves. In order to give the right value to food, nutrition education must become the mantra of the present. Only if there is the right approach and correct information, will we be able to eat well, correctly, and sustainably. And then we may take our first steps in the best direction.
46 ˜ interview with cary fowler
32 ˜ infographic
THE FUTURE BELOW ZERO by Michele Bellone
FEEDING THE PLANET
In order to explain why biodiversity is useful, just think of evolution: if there had been no raw material to work with – and therefore an immense variety of living species – none of us would be where we are today. Located 1,300 km south of the North Pole, there is one of the banks that preserve something much more precious than gold: the seeds of our past and the roots for our continuous evolution.
34 ˜ contexts THE EXPO IS A SMART CITY by Livio Gallo The ideal city is a dream for many people: a place to live, with all the conditions for well-being. For that to happen, however, there are two objectives to aim for: efficiency in terms of energy, and sustainability. The solution is not a fairy tale: it is called a smart city and it is based on the smart grid built by Enel to illuminate the Expo and the future of our cities.
37 ˜ focus THE CAR IS CHARGED by Pierluigi Bonora
38 ˜ in-depth SMART GRID LIGHTING by Federico Golla Important issues involving not only important works, as well as the biggest names in technology and industry, who have come forward to bring their contribution in the months of Expo 2015.
50 ˜ scenarios FOOD MOVES PEOPLE by Tom Standage Spices from India that appeared on the dining tables of the English nobility, and trans-boundary tomatoes despite the distance between the Americas and the Old World: food has never been concerned with borders and distances, and more than anything else, it has always been about communication between human beings. Globalization has never been so old, and so tasty.
oxygen | 26 — 05.2015
54 ˜ contexts
68 ˜ in-depth
ENERGY ECOSYSTEM by Alessandro Farruggia
SIX-LEGGED PROTEIN by Marcel Dicke and Arnold van Huis
At the Expo, the electricity network is palpable, in fact, you are immersed in it. This is the idea behind the Enel pavilion at the Universal Exposition in Milan: a LED-lit virtual forest rising from a sensitive grid; a journey into the future of energy and an experience that brings the end-users to the foreground.
The world population is increasing and it could find the solution to its demand for protein in ever-smaller animals. Even though almost everyone still turns their nose up at the idea, researchers, chefs, politicians, and farmers are engaged in the challenge of feeding the planet, at least in part, with an invaluable and definitely sustainable resource: insects.
58 ˜ data visualization
72 ˜ interview with
EXPO, GREEN CITY
andoni luis aduriz and charles spence
60 ˜ in-depth
EATING EXPERIENCES INVOLVING OUR FIVE SENSES by Michele Fossi
INGREDIENTS FOR COMMUNICATING by Simone Arcagni Communicating an event the size of the Expo and making it something even greater than an Expo. This is being done through various technologies – the simplest or most complex –, used for sharing and telling. Thus the event has become smart and is plunging into the realities of social media, videos, sharing, and web series. It goes even further, thereby heightening reality.
64 ˜ scenarios THE INTERNET OF FOOD. THE SHOP IS AT HOME by Elisa Barberis The future of food is futuristic. Buying and selling, growing, cooking, and distributing: the Internet of Things has become the Internet of Food. What could the kitchens and supermarkets of the future be like? How will we be able to solve the problems of food distribution? Technology also comes into play with regard to the most natural thing in the world for us, and certainly not to make it unnatural.
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Eating is not at all an everyday matter. What we do almost automatically three times a day is actually able to activate links and connections that we can’t even imagine and which are the basis of sensory experiences studied by gastro-physics and thanks to the use of technology, offered by some renowned restaurants. There are times when you are literally left speechless.
76 ˜ interview with peter ladner
REVOLUTION IN THE CITIES by Emanuela Donetti Health, food safety, production: cities are the answer to many of the problems of today and tomorrow, because they have a huge agricultural potential. Not only are there roofs, flower beds, parks, and avenues that have become available for growing our vegetables, but it is thanks to the collaboration that this practice requires that we are creating social and generational bridges. And making urban spaces more beautiful.
79 ˜ focus
92 ˜ enel foundation
SOCIAL FARMING by Cristina Gallotti
WHERE DO THE KWH GO? by Emanuela Colombo and Mariano Morazzo
80 ˜ in-depth THE 10 FRONTIERS OF INNOVATION IN AGRICULTURE by Nicola Ferrero In London, salad greens are being grown in tunnels under the ground, roof gardens have now been surpassed by vertical gardens, and soon we will no longer see farmers craning to scan the sky: instead they will be looking at their smartphone to check the data from satellites and drones. These are stories of agricultural technology, one of the cards to play in order to prepare for an efficient, productive, and sustainable future.
86 ˜ contexts WARM WASTE by Chiara Priante Use organic waste to produce energy? Nothing could be easier and, above all, nothing could be more widespread. Italy ranks in third place worldwide for biogas energy plants: this is an important choice at a time when fossil fuels for energy production are scarce and the population is destined to keep increasing.
90 ˜ science at the toy store A RED PRAWN FAIRY TALE by Davide Coero Borga A basket of bread, a poisoned apple, a gingerbread house, a bar of Willy Wonka’s chocolate, and the ever-hated soup. At the Red Prawn Inn, eating is a fabulous fairy tale.
When we think about energy, it’s easy to imagine that, all over the world, a single click is enough to get light, just as we do at home. But this is not always the case: today a considerable part of the world’s population still does not have access to energy. It’s therefore necessary to find solutions. Enel, in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano, is working in this direction, developing a theoretical model to understand the impact of energy-related cooperation projects and guide future interventions.
97 ˜ enel foundation NEWS
98 ˜ enel foundation WATER AND ENERGY: INTERDEPENDENT NECESSITIES by Renata Mele and Christian Zulberti Water is a precious and limited resource, which is undergoing a progressive impoverishment in every continent: it is essential not only for human life, but also for the production of energy. And it is the importance of this link that the International Energy Agency has recognized in its World Energy Outlook, stimulating initiatives and research related to energy efficiency and the adoption of other clean energy sources.
102 ˜ enel foundation REDUCING CONSUMPTION. ENEL INITIATIVES by Carlo Ferrara, Renata Mele and Christian Zulberti
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WELCOME TO ENERGY VALLEY. WHERE INNOVATION IS A STATE OF MIND, A PASSION, A GIFT.
This is energy’s Silicon Valley. Where a smart grid creates and manages new energy. Come and see the grid in Enel’s pavilion at EXPO and you’ll discover a remarkable Made In Italy product that makes our country the benchmark for innovation and hi-tech. And makes Italy the world’s Energy Valley.
enel.com
Enel
Official Global Partner
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contributors
Contributors to this number 01˜ Andoni Luis
02˜ Pierluigi
03˜ Emanuela
Aduriz
Bonora
Colombo
He is a Basque starred chef who started working at El Bulli, Ferran Adrià’s restaurant. Since 1998, he has directed the Mugaritz, which since 2006 has ranked among the ten best restaurants in the world according to Restaurant Magazine.
Since 1989, he has been a journalist for Il Giornale, of which he became the department head, vice editor, and then managing editor in 2011. As of this year, he is a contributor and continues to edit the pages on cars and special articles.
Associate Professor and Deputy Rector for Cooperation and Development at the Polytechnic of Milan, she holds the UNESCO Chair in Energy for Sustainable Development. She is also Adjunct Professor at the Nelson Mandela Institute.
04˜ Barbara
05˜ Marcel
06˜ Alessandro
Corrao
Dicke
Farruggia
She is a journalist who has worked for the newspaper Il Messaggero, specializing in the economy and, in particular, in the energy sector. Currently, she is the chief editor of FIRSTonline, an Internet newspaper dealing with economics and finance.
He is Professor of Entomology at the University of Wageningen where he works on insects in relation to agriculture. He received the Spinoza award. An advocate of the use of insects as food, he is one of the authors of The Insect Cookbook.
As a journalist he deals with foreign affairs, the environment, economy, and politics. Among the winners of Enea’s Energy Environment award, he follows the summits on the environment and, with Vincenzo Ferrara, wrote Climate Instructions.
07˜ Cary
08˜ Livio
09˜ Federico
Fowler
Gallo
Golla
Founder of NGOs in the food sector, he received the Right Livelihood Award. In 2006, he became the director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, for which he is now a consultant. He was among the founders of the Global Seed Vault.
Head of Global Infrastructures and Networks of Enel, from 2010 to 2013 he was the President and founder of EDSO for Smart Grids and previously, the Director of Enel’s Commercial Customers.
After receiving a degree in Electronic Engineering from the Polytechnic of Turin, he joined Siemens, holding positions in the medical field. After working abroad, in 2009 he became the CEO of Siemens Corporation and then its President in 2014.
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10˜ Maria Patrizia
11˜ Peter
12˜ Maurizio
Grieco
Ladner
Martina
Enel Chairman since May 2014, she was CEO of Siemens Computers, and then in 2008 of Olivetti, becoming President of Board of directors until June 2014. She is also a member of the board of directors of Fiat Industrial, and Anima Holding.
He is a journalist, and the author of the book The Urban Food Revolution: Changing the Way We Feed Cities. During his term as a city councilor in Vancouver, he worked with the Vancouver Food Policy Council to create urban gardens.
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, he was Secretary of State of the same Ministry under the Letta government. Since 2013, he has been the chairman of the Commission for the Coordination of Expo Activities.
13˜ Renata
14˜ Mariano
15˜ Giuseppe
Mele
Morazzo
Sala
Head of the Research on Sustainable Development and Innovation of the Enel Foundation Study Center, she joined Enel in 2007, and coordinates studies on the environmental and social impacts of large infrastructures and power generation plants.
Head of Socioeconomic Research at the Enel Foundation Studies Center, he has worked on research and programs on renewable energy, energy efficiency, climate change, and regulation of the electricity sector.
The Commissioner of the Government for Expo 2015, in 1998, he became the CEO of Pirelli Tire Company. In 2009, he was appointed general manager of the City of Milan and, since 2010, he has been the CEO of Expo 2015 S.p.A.
16˜ Andrea
17˜ Charles
18˜ Tom
Segrè
Spence
Standage
Professor of International and Comparative Agricultural Policy, he founded the Last Minute Market and chairs the scientific committee of the national waste prevention plan. President of the Agri-food Centre, he wrote Economics in Color.
Director of Oxford’s Crossmodal Research Laboratory, he deals with ways in which the brain handles information from the senses, particularly regarding food. The author of articles and publications, he received the Ig Nobel for nutrition.
He is the Deputy Editor of The Economist, and also its digital strategist. He is the author of several books, including An Edible History of Humanity, published in Italy by Codice Editions, which has also just published his Cicero’s Tweets.
19˜ Carlo
20˜ Mathis
21˜ Christian
Tamburi
Wackernagel
Zulberti
Head of Country Italy of Enel since 2014, he worked for Citibank, the IRI and the Ministry of Economy and Finance. He has been a director at Finmeccanica, Alitalia, Wind, and Enel, which he joined in 2002.
The co-inventor of the Ecological Footprint, he is the president of the Global Footprint Network. He is the author of the WWF International’s Living Planet Report, and received awards including the Blue Planet and the Binding Prize.
Researcher for the Enel Foundation, he deals with production cycles of energy, access to energy, and sustainable urban mobility. He has worked for Enel, Endesa, and Repsol, on renewable sources and integrated networks.
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THE COMPASS OF SUSTAINABILITY by Maria Patrizia Grieco Enel Chairman
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The Universal Exhibition in Milan was inaugurated on May 1, as a world showcase where each country can display the best of their excellences, to provide an answer to a vital need of humanity: ensuring healthy food that is safe and sufficient for everyone, while respecting the planet and its equilibrium. But Expo 2015 is not just about food; these six months are also an opportunity for discussing sustainable energy solutions, another key theme for the future of humanity. There is no life without food, but there is also no life without energy that lets us take care of ourselves, feed and heat ourselves, and move around. Food and energy have a lot in common: the natural resources, essential for human survival, are in fact scarce
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and limited, and the demand for them is growing. The International Energy Agency has estimated that the world population will increase from 7 billion in 2012 to 9 billion in 2040, with a consequent growth in the global energy demand by about 40%. In terms of food, according to the FAO, meeting the need for food worldwide in 2050 will require an increase in global food production of between 70 and 100%. This is a trend that forces us to rethink the current model of development in terms of consumption and environmental impacts. So if our resources are limited, the real problem is how to make the best use of them in order to allow social and economic development that is more sustainable in the long run. There
is effectively a great inequality in how these resources are distributed and consumed: on the one hand, there are those who have easy access to these resources or possess them in abundance but do not use them rationally, and on the other, there are those who have practically no access to them at all. A third of the global production of food, equal to about 1.3 billion tons of food, is wasted every year. This amount would be more than enough to feed the 800 million people in the world now suffering from malnutrition. This contradiction is highlighted even more by the fact that for every person suffering from malnutrition, there are two people who are obese or overweight (2.1 billion). This same paradox is also reflected in the field of energy: 1.4 billion people still lack access to energy whereas in another part of the world, there are countries with energy systems producing an overcapacity. In such a context, technological innovation plays a key role in defining solutions and finding a new balance between the availability and consumption of resources. The methods of using resources, such as in Italy, have already begun to change. The key word for understanding this evolution is sustainability. You can already see the effects of these strategies in the business model of the two sectors that have become increasingly similar and comparable in many ways. The profile of the consumers is similar, because in evolving, they have become more sophisticated, and in addition to being consumers, they have also increasingly become producers. For example, customers in the energy market are much more concerned with how electricity is generated and the impact that this production has on the environment. This kind of attention is also found in the food industry, where consumers are increasingly paying attention to what they eat, to the quality of their food, and how the products were grown. In addition, greater attention towards the behavior of companies is developing; it is no coincidence that in recent years we have witnessed a boom in organic, fair trade, or zero-distance products. Food and energy also have some common characteristics in the dynamic evolution of the value chain: production that is increasingly intelligent, rational and less intensive,
with a more efficient distribution, and a greater sharing of resources. Today, energy generation is getting closer to people through power plants distributed throughout the land, thus allowing citizens to produce electricity where they consume it. Likewise, people growing vegetables in their gardens, on terraces, or in communal spaces has become increasingly widespread. Production has also become more environmentally friendly: consumers prefer crops that limit the use of pesticides and promote the use of less intensive farming techniques to preserve the land. This attention to the environment is also found in the world of energy, which is increasingly developing research into new technologies for a cleaner production of electricity. Regarding the distribution of energy, smart grids are the most innovative tool for supporting the new bidirectional energy flows that can also offer customers new technological solutions. In the food industry, local products are becoming increasingly important in supermarkets or in restaurants, and the origin of the products is also advertised in connection with a minimal impact on the environment. Sustainability is indeed the key word for creating an inclusive and equitable future that can be achieved and sustained over time through innovation, as a sort of compass to define the strategic guidelines in the world today. Sustainability means making choices by considering the long-term consequences on society and the environment, it means leaving our children a world that is better than ours was. For a company like Enel, sustainability means acting as an integral part of a community, thinking of its products and its services as tools capable of giving solutions to the needs of people even before those of consumers. This Expo is therefore a great opportunity for exchanging experiences and sharing ideas in order to identify new sustainable solutions. This is an opportunity to showcase the great excellences that Italy has, and which it mustn’t forget it has. Enel is one such excellence, and we are proud of that because it is a demonstration of our role in the growth and development of Italy and its industrial and technological expertise. This expertise, with regard to technological innovation, enables us to present a new vision of the future of energy at the Expo.
Food and energy have some common characteristics in the dynamic evolution of the value chain: production that is increasingly intelligent, a more efficient distribution, and a greater sharing of resources
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A FOOD PACT by Maurizio Martina Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry
I am convinced that the 20 million visitors expected at Expo can become 20 million world ambassadors of the right to have food
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Behind the 2015 Milan Expo, there is an Italy that is passionate and confident. It has the face of each of us and it believes in the strength of the Italian system, in the extraordinary platform of opportunity that it represents, and in the power of its message. Because the real soul of the Universal Expo lies in its content, “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, which summarizes the global food issue. The right to have food presents us with a great theme of equity and justice, the fight against inequality, redistribution of opportunity, protection of biodiversity, and the protection of essential goods such as water and land. All this is the 2015 Milan Expo, the first Universal Exhibition that will be remembered for its contribution to the international debate and the start of an unprecedented participatory process. Italy is leading this discussion by making an important contribution. We are doing so with various projects, Lab Expo, Women for Expo, and Feeding Knowledge, to name a few, but especially with the Charter of Milan, a real pact between the citizens of the world on major issues: the food paradox of malnutrition and obesity, combating malnutrition and the wastage of water and food, in addition to reflections on the management of natural resources and farming in the future. During the six months of the Exhibition, everyone – associations, rep-
resentatives of institutions and academia – will sign this document, which will be delivered in October to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in view of the Millennium Goals. I am convinced that the 20 million visitors expected at Expo can become 20 million world ambassadors of the right to have food, that “healthy food, sufficient and safe for all” is not just a slogan, but truly a shared condition. Food has always been synonymous with sharing and, precisely by sharing common goals with the more than 140 countries participating in Expo in terms of food, we can begin to break down all the barriers created by the lack of employment, social exclusion, and lack of resources, thus redefining the concepts of limits and power. Expo sholud help us to accelerate and re-launch, and to understand that flexibility is not enough but that we need even more investments, including those in technology, renewal, and human capital, in order to support the Italian agricultural model the best we can. Beauty, know-how, and innovation are therefore the keys that we will use to talk about our country and issue a challenge to the world, thanks to the great theme of the 2015 Milan Expo. This is not the Italy that we would like, but the Italy we are called upon to become, with pride and a sense of belonging.
The 2015 Milan Expo is the first Universal Exhibition that will be remembered for its contribution to the international debate and the start of an unprecedented participatory process
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IDEA TIME Interview with Giuseppe Sala Commissioner of Expo 2015 by Stefano Milano Journalist
The whole world will be at hand in an edition of the Expo which is the space for narration and comparison, and a stimulus for new ideas. Hosted by the country that has made its food renowned for its excellence, over 140 countries and 20 million people will be involved in a dialogue concerning food, the equitable distribution of resources, energy, and sustainability: all crucial for the well-being of our planet 014
The name ‘Universal Exposition’ immediately brings to mind London in 1851, or the Expo in 1889 that left Paris with the legacy of the Eiffel Tower. But today this great event, which took 78 million people to Shanghai five years ago, and which is going to bring about 20 million to Milan, is something quite different. Like the first expositions held on the eve of the second industrial revolution, it has maintained the desire to present the inventive genius of the countries involved within a single space and with architectural structures built ad hoc. Today, however, the center of attention is no longer on the confrontation of industrial power and technology, but on coming together to discuss issues that affect everyone and to which everyone can contribute, by solving problems, and exchanging ideas and projects: that is the purpose of the contemporary world fairs – to showcase ideas. And after having lost their attractiveness in the late twentieth century, it is because of this change of perspective that the Expo has been attracting the attention of spectators and nations over the last three years. The theme that the Expo in Milan plans to put on our plates is food, the only true primary resource for our future, energy for the life of individuals and the planet. But that is not the only thing that makes this Expo important: Oxygen has talked about the ideas, perspectives, numbers, and innovation of Expo Milano 2015 with its sole commissioner, delegated by the Italian Government, Giuseppe Sala.
hibition villages bringing together a total of more than 80 countries that have the production of a food – coffee, rice, cocoa, cereals and tubers, fruits and legumes, spices – in common; or a specific food theme – Mediterranean, organic, agriculture and nutrition in the Dry Areas, the islands, the sea, and food. But the Expo’s offerings do not end there: a highlight will also be the four thematic areas acting as a guiding thread during the visit. These spaces will be dedicated to the introduction to the visit (Pavilion Zero), to food distribution and new consumption (Food of the Future Pavilion), the richness and variety of plants (Biodiversity Park) and the education of children (Children’s Park). Today, with the level of connection and sharing reached, is there still any need for people to come together physically in a context such as the Expo? Technology has made great strides: it only takes the click of a PC, tablet, and mobile phone to be instantly catapulted onto the other side of the world. We live in a global and globalized era, where connectivity and innovation are part of our way of daily life. Therefore Expo Milano 2015 is the best opportunity for speaking with hundreds of realities, associations, and institutions from all over the planet. In a nutshell, this is one of the many added values of the Universal Expo: for six months the world will be a guest of Milan and Italy.
Expo Milano 2015 is the best opportunity for speaking with hundreds of realities, associations, and institutions from all over the planet
The Universal Expos are often defined as “major theme parks”. Yet this definition is likely to diminish their seriousness and scope. Can you explain instead why it si still an important event? Because Expo Milano 2015 is an extraordinary event. Visitors will have the entire world at hand, in an exhibition area of 1.1 million square meters: this is an innovative example of people connecting and sharing customs and traditions. For six months, from May 1 to October 31, about 140 countries from around the world will present visitors with their excellent food and technology. It will be a truly engaging tour for the expected 20 million visitors, who will be able to admire the more than 50 self-built national pavilions, or make a stop among the nine clusters, ex-
Food and energy: a sensitive subject on which our future depends. Why has Italy chosen to be the nerve center of the discussion on such a central issue? Feeding the planet in a balanced way is an issue that is more topical than ever for the future of humanity. The theme of this Expo is an invitation to adopt common policies to curb the scarcity of water, of agricultural and natural resources, as well as an appeal to avoid wastage and engage constructively in ensuring food that is healthy, safe, and sufficient for everyone. In this sense, the Expo 2015 in Milan – and consequently Italy – will be a laboratory for innovation and research. It will be a moment of confrontation and international debate to find concrete and shared solutions, also in terms of the intelligent use of energy resources – 015
oxygen | 26 — 05.2015
I’m thinking of the Smart Grid that our partner Enel has developed specifically for the event. By giving direct evidence of what we know and can do, Italy will have a central role in defining those guidelines that will allow us to ensure sustainable development, food safety, and the quality of the production chain. We know what Italy has given the world in terms of food to date, but what contribution, through food, can it make in the future? A contribution of expertise, technological innovation and scientific research. Our country represents world-class excellence in the agribusiness and food industries. The professionalism of our ‘experts’ places Italian food as a global leader in the sector. The brilliant combination of culinary tradition, age-old flavors, and innovative production techniques certainly represents an added value, an example to be followed by all other countries. What can Milan learn from this event and what can it teach? We certainly have a lot to learn from others. However, the Universal Exposition is an important driver of change and improvement, the effects of which can be beneficial if they are directed in the best way. Expo Milano 2015 can give us some important signals. For example, we can ask the whole world to have greater respect for the environment and 016
Italy will have a central role in defining those guidelines that will allow us to ensure sustainable development, food safety, and the quality of the production chain
engage in spreading a new awareness of food. This is ambitious, but certainly achievable, thanks to the involvement of all the people involved. The Expo will also be an example of innovative sustainable development: we are thinking of creating the first smart city of the future, a city in which digital technologies will be available to the visitors. In short, a global interaction to enjoy the dedicated services, demonstrating how progress can make human life better. Leaving a legacy is one of the goals inherent in this event. What legacy will the Expo leave in Milan? In this context, I wish to reflect on the immaterial kind of legacy, made up of ideas, proposals, and strategic solutions on the issues of food and environmental sustain-
ability. We are working on the drafting of the Charter of Milan, a document to be presented at the end of the event to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon. This is a text that will collect tips and guidelines concerning food safety. Expo Milano 2015 will also establish the best practices, models of eco-sustainable development in the agri-food sector that will guide the future actions of associations, companies, and governments. With this in mind, with the preparation of the Sustainability Report in 2013 and in 2014, we most certainly launched important signals. For the first time, in the history of the Universal Expositions, at the end of the event, all the actions undertaken to protect the environment will be published: that is truly a legacy worthy of a great event.
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THE MADE IN ITALY FACTOR YOU DID NOT EXPECT by Carlo Tamburi Head of Country Italy of Enel photographs by White
Expo 2015 offers an opportunity to describe innovation, a kind of vision of the future, the business landscape, a way of envisioning the city of tomorrow, and the ability to design. In all respects, it is a showcase of Italian excellence, and also a ‘school’ for visitors and the many countries that are participating; the chance to talk about Italy and a product that you did not expect: the energy of the future. 018
Our goal is not only to make the energy that nourishes life inside and outside the Expo visible, but also to try to make all of us aware of what intelligently managing a valuable resource means
Numerous studies and several operators agree that Expo 2015 represents a great opportunity for Italy’s economic recovery and attraction of investments: €2.7 billion, equal to 0.2% of the national GDP and 0.3% of total consumption, are some of the data which, according to Confcommercio, measure the positive impact that the Expo will have on the Italian economy. Foreign countries are investing €1.2 billion to attend, and according to organizers, the event is bringing a wave of positive productivity to the national system that, starting from 2012 (the year Milan was awarded the Expo), will reach €23.6 billion of additional production by 2020, with 191,000 people employed directly or indirectly, and about €4.5 billion of added value from tourism, with more than 20 million visitors. That is what Expo 2015 represents for Italy. It is, however, also interesting to try to see what Italy is bringing to the World Expo and all its visitors: an experience
that goes far beyond its universally recognized food culture. In fact, in Milan, a far less well-known Made in Italy factor can be discovered: its technological and industrial excellence in sectors that are seemingly unrelated to food, but which are very topical and have global relevance. One of these is energy, an ‘ingredient’ that is instrumental in the development of all economies. Enel has chosen the Expo precisely for creating the first ‘green field’ smart city in the world, consisting of an electrical network built from scratch that occupies a space comparable to a city of 100,000 inhabitants, like the majority of Italian urban centers. In nearby Rho, the smart grid consists of 100 cabins connected by fiber optics which transport the electricity and information in real time and supply the ‘city’ 100% with electricity. The Expo only uses electricity for all of its activities: for lighting and powering the exhibition technologies, ensuring ideal temperatures in the pavilions, for cooking, and getting around in the peripheral areas; and all the energy of the Universal Exposition is monitored and managed intelligently by the Energy Management System, which governs the entire site, right up to the single pavilions. This is the first time that these technologies have been applied together in such a large space and have contributed to a completely new and concrete urban experience: it is an actual smart city, one that is cleaner, more efficient, digital, and custom built for the people who are living in it. It is no coincidence that this model of sustainable urban architecture was created in Italy: Italy is the country with the most automated and digitized power grid on the planet. Enel is an international leader in the field and the first in the world to have introduced solutions such as remote monitoring and digital meters, which have radically transformed the way energy is distributed. This smart grid model will also be applied in other countries, in some of which Enel is present with its distribution network, so that it becomes an Italian solution exported worldwide. This is the ‘Made in Italy you did not expect’: technology and innovation that can be exported and are a way of driving domestic industry. At Expo 2015, we are presenting all our innovations in the electrical system, starting from the network and involving the entire production chain, from power plants to consumption and the tools in citizens’ hands. Thanks to them, we have had the opportunity to redesign the production model 019
oxygen | 26 — 05.2015
KINETIC MODULES In the Enel Pavilion at Expo 2015, a wall with 144 mirrored kinetic modules represents the energy, the flows, and the life of the smart grid, always coordinated with movements that create waves and ripples on a hi-tech surface. This is a project by the Turin design studio TODO.
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and adapt it to the new market dynamics and the greater involvement of consumers: power plants are smaller and geographically distributed, the consumers themselves produce the energy they need, and green production is increasing. In Italy today, over a third of the electricity consumed is already renewable and the smart network that we are showing at Expo will support even more growth. Electricity is being extended to more and more new applications in people’s everyday life, including in areas such as mobility and home heating, just as at the Expo site. Software and new generation devices are transforming the role of consumers, who have more information on their energy consumption and are therefore able to make more efficient and more aware choices. Consumption awareness is one of the great themes of Expo 2015: the scarcity of resources for a population that is growing at a steady rate and a greater environmental sensitivity are making people become more responsible and seek an active role, informed, consume better, and be reconciled with their local area. This is the direction in which energy consumption model is headed, and Italy has achieved a high level of cultural and technological maturity, thanks to the solutions for energy efficiency available to citizens. We want all the visitors to Expo 2015 to have the opportunity to become aware of these issues and we have worked to render the new concept of energy visible in our exhibition pavilion, so as to let everyone know how technology transforms our daily lives. Located in the control room in the center of the pavilion, the Energy Management System is an information tool that visitors can see on a large display, and a 107 meter-long pathway through panels and videos describing the evolution of energy and the solutions that people now have in their own hands. Our goal is not only to make the energy that nourishes life inside and outside the Expo visible, but also to try to make all of us aware of what intelligently managing a valuable resource means. Enel developed not only the
electricity grid, but also the lighting of the entire Expo: 8,500 smart LED light sources, along the Cardo and Decumano main streets and the internal roads, combining Italian design and energy saving with a consumption reduced by 36% compared to traditional solutions. Many pavilions, including the Italian Pavilion, the flagship of the Expo, are also illuminated with Enel’s technologies and visitors can enjoy the beauty and the artistic forms of lighting that respect the environment. Through its energy, Italy becomes an example for all those who wish to further a more responsible kind of behavior: the Expo is a small town that, in six months, will have become a multicultural megalopolis visited by approximately 20 million people. If individual visitors can learn some small gestures, many countries present can learn of the latest technologies to import in order to renew the energy systems underlying their development. The Expo is an opportunity to share and circulate culture, knowledge, and technology, even for the participating companies. The Universal Exposition set a challenge to Enel which, in rising to meet it, completed a project never attempted before, at least not of this size, and Enel has also exploited it as a growth opportunity for those who work for the company. Next to the smart city, we have created a field school for technicians, where those who will manage electricity in our cities in the near future can learn about and field test the technology. For Milan Expo 2015, Enel has created its latest technology, which is crucial for the evolution of the power system: in the very heart of the Italian Pavilion, which after the Expo will become a center of excellence for permanent innovation, we have built a large 270 kilowatt battery, an innovative storage system guaranteeing constant energy that, hopefully, helps to fuel the new ideas that will arise here. Innovation, research, the ability to build long-lasting goods and to design services that improve the quality of life of people and the planet: this is Italian energy and this is the industrial and consumption model that Italy is bringing to Expo.
At Expo 2015, we are presenting all our innovations in the electrical system, starting from the network and involving the entire production chain, from power plants to consumption and the tools in citizens’ hands
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scenarios
AN INTELLIGENT EXCHANGE by Barbara Corrao Journalist
The great themes of Expo 2015, food and energy, have parallel lives and tangents. Their future, in fact, depends on solutions and strategies such as sustainability and efficiency, and their resources can be fruitful and mutual exchange goods. While food gives us energy with its waste, energy can help food to grow. This path will inevitably make them increasingly interdependent.
Eating food, consuming energy. Food is life energy, energy feeds our well-being. Food tells of our history, energy tells of our development. Ethics, culture, philosophy, and economics are intertwined in these two elements that are so important to our lives, and they pose the new challenges of the millennium, which are aiming for more conscientious consumption, the reduction of waste, smart production, efficient distribution, respect for the environment, and growth. For these reasons, food and energy have come together and chase after one another, and both are essential for nourishing our lives. We can see for ourselves just how much and in what ways they do so at this Expo 2015, which proposes the objective of “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”. If food takes us back to our roots, energy propels us into the future. These are two paths that continually intersect as they often depend on each other, for better or for worse; but above all, both are at the crossroads of courageous decisions which will require a major change in our way of living and consuming. Of course, we will continue to use cars for moving around the city, but our cars will have an electric motor; or else we might have a hybrid car, but it will run on biofuel made from agricultural waste, which can also power electricity generation plants by using biomass, as is already increasingly the case on many animal, and fruit and vegetable farms. Not to mention the urban and indoor gardens, and patches of tomatoes and salad, home-grown perhaps even in the living room, thanks to LED lamps, which are the most efficient. Eccentric visions? Not really, since the 2014 World Outlook of the International Energy Agency (IEA) anticipates a 190% boom in renewable energy (in terms of installed capacity) by 2030. For sure, in the next few decades we will no longer be able to afford consumption patterns geared to the wastage or careless use of the planet’s resources, which are limited and therefore valuable. This awareness has now entered our culture and is pushing us toward virtuous revolutions whose practical effects are already beginning to be seen: in 2014, the global economy grew for the first time, whereas the CO2 emissions did not increase. “This fact gives me hope that humanity will be able to work together to combat climate change, the greatest threat that we face,” said Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA, when he presented the data. So are we facing a turning point? It’s nice to think so and it is right to believe
Food and energy, individual and collective well-being: 800 million people will make their entry into the middle class and the concentration of population in urban areas will rise from 3.9 to 6.3 billion inhabitants. With these numbers, how can the Earth possibly hold up? 023
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so. For now, the fact is that last year, the level of emission of CO2 emissions stopped at 32.3 billion tons, while the global GDP grew by 3%. As the Agency observed, this was especially due to a long ecological pressing in Europe, a greater commitment by the United States, and the recent conversion of China. This is a change of course that will not fail to have a favorable impact on the Paris Conference at the end of 2015, from which a global plan of cuts in greenhouse emissions needs to emerge. These results were obtained with considerable efforts also made by the energy companies. But that is only one side of the battle on sustainability. We are looking at feeding the world, and “Expo opens the doors on an alarming global scenario. Statistics say that in order to feed the future nine billion people on Earth, agricultural production will have to increase 60% by 2050. But above 024
all, this is a world where 805 million people suffer hunger today,” José Graziano da Silva, the Director-General of FAO, told the newspaper Corriere della Sera in February. Yet “the problem of obesity is growing rapidly and many countries in the developing world, especially those with average incomes, are now having to simultaneously fight both hunger and obesity.” This is one of the many paradoxes of the food equation. Another equally serious one is that of food waste, which according to FAO amounts to 1,000 billion dollars a year globally; a disaster to which Italy contributes with 8.1 billion dollars in wasted food (data from the University of Bologna, Last Minute Market). Furthermore, the food wasted every year in the world is also responsible for putting about 3.3 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere: to give an idea of the immensity of the problem, if it were a country, it would be the third largest emitter in the world after the US and China. “Today, a third of the food sold in our cities gets thrown away. This is an absurd waste that has devastating consequences on natural resources. Wasting food, soil, energy, and resources is a luxury that we can no longer afford,” concluded José Graziano da Silva. The need for food is growing, but so is the need for energy; by 2030, it has been estimated that 1.5 billion people will gain access to electricity in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, with a 30% growth of electricity consumption per capita. At the same time, 800 million people will make their entry into the middle class and the concentration of population in urban areas will rise from 3.9 to 6.3 billion inhabitants. With these numbers, how can the Earth possibly hold up? Mature economies have already started virtuous practices, judged nevertheless as entirely insufficient to save the planet from global warming, according to the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet the signals of an acceleration of the paths at zero distance, whether concerning food or energy, are multiplying. Enel is committed on both the fronts of in-
Food and energy are at the crossroads of courageous decisions which will require a major change in our way of living and consuming
Enel is committed on the fronts of both innovation and efficiency. According to its sustainability report, 46.7% of its energy comes from sources that produce zero emissions
novation and efficiency. According to its sustainability report, 46.7% of its energy comes from sources that produce zero emissions and the shift towards an increasing share of green production, with the farewell to coal, convinced the Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, to shake hands with Enel’s CEO Francesco Starace, after years of tenacious opposition. Enel is not alone, among the Italian energy giants, in having undertaken this path. For example, Eni has reduced its emissions of sulfur dioxide into the air by 44% and gas flaring (the tail of fire of gas associated with oil production) has undergone a 65% reduction, and it is involved in various projects to support the development of agriculture in Nigeria, Tunisia, Iraq, and Congo. Terna, too, in these days, has been launching the idea of a new pact on sustainability, with enforced regulations, to “bring together the best of the company that is looking ahead,” said its President Catia Bastioli, so as to make investments for the innovation of networks totaling 3.9 billion dollars in the next five years. The reason for this assumption of responsibility is not only due to the widespread awareness that the heritage of the Earth must be preserved for future generations and therefore that it is necessary to intervene to make development more sustainable. But it also lies in the fact that protecting the environment and sustainability have become an indispensable business factor. The McKinsey report Beyond the storm – Value Growth in the EU Power Sector allowed Enel to estimate a growth of 15 billion dollars in 2020 for the worldwide turnover linked, in mature economies, to the more innovative new business opportunities: storage systems, electric mobility and digital distribution networks, integration of renewables, and new consumer services. Then, the potential offered by energy efficiency measures is gigantic: condensing boilers, cogeneration plants, heat pumps, high-saving light bulbs, and LEDs are capable of generating, in the best case scenario, an increase in the GDP of 2.1% compared to 290 billion kilowatt hours saved, according to the latest 2015 report by the Polytechnic University of Milan. Food and energy, individual and collective well-being. The challenge to ensure all this with a more efficient use of available resources has now been launched and there is no turning back. 025
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in-depth
Energy for eating by Marco Boscolo Journalist
What we put on our table and in our mouths every day originated from an energy transformation. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, rather, it is transformed: and so plants grow thanks to sunlight and then they become food for us and for the animals with which we feed ourselves. We will always need these two kinds of fuel and we must be able to preserve them.
At a conference in 2003, Richard Smalley, Nobel Prize for Chemistry winner, indicated what he thought were the most important problems of humanity. The first three places, in descending order of importance, were energy, water, and food. Smalley was convinced that winning these challenges would have positive effects for the environment, for the fight against poverty, and for peace. In that list, the American chemist had hit upon the major theme that has characterized the beginning of this century and which runs through the Expo in Milan: the relationship between energy and water resources and the capacity to produce enough food to feed us. After all, it is always a question of energy: food is the ‘fuel’ that keeps us alive and its production is the exploitation of the ability of plants to store the energy of the sun. The first law of thermodynamics says that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but is transformed. Namely 026
that each of our cells and every calorie we consume comes from what we eat. In terms of energy, the process is similar to what happens in a car engine, with the difference being that we do not immediately consume all the available energy, because our body builds up stocks for future use. “The storage capacity,” says Gianna Ferretti, a biochemist at the Marche Polytechnic University and an expert in nutrition, “is a mechanism of adaptation, securing the main functions of the body and balancing energy needs with fat reserves, of our ancestors who had to survive when facing the scarcity of food sources.” Whatever we eat, whether it’s a steak, a plate of pasta, or a skewer of fish, has its origin in the energy capacity of plants to transform the energy of sunlight into chemical energy through photosynthesis. Starting with carbon dioxide and water, and with the help of sunlight, plants provide those organic compounds, pro-
cessed or not, that we call food. And we and other animals, precisely through the opposite process of cellular respiration, obtain the energy we need by consuming food and releasing a bit of waste into the environment. Ever since it was invented in the Middle East 10,000 years ago, farming has been the most profound transformation factor of the planet. We learned how to prepare, sow, and harvest the fields at the right time. We domesticated a number of plants, such as cereals, which have been crucial for the development of entire civilizations, just think of rice in Asia or wheat in Europe. The ultimate goal of this effort has always been the same: ensuring sufficient production to feed a growing population and a surplus to be stored. The innovations of farming that have occurred throughout its ancient history, however, have not yet achieved a definitive solution to the problems listed by Richard Smalley, especially in terms of the interdependencies between resources and food production. A striking example of this close relationship? In July of 2012, 620 million Indians were left without electricity because there was no longer enough water in the lakes that feed the major hydroelectric plants in those regions to fuel the turbines: it had been extracted by farmers in a particularly intense period of drought. Now 80% of the water we use worldwide is used for farming. Michael E. Webber of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin recounts in an article in Scientific American that “almost 13% of energy production is used to extract, purify, transport, heat, cool, and dispose of our water.” Any innovation that allows considerable savings in these areas would make a significant contribution to more sustainable food production. Help has come thanks to the marriage of farming and data. This is precision farming, which allows determining the best interventions and maximizing the use of resources. The cultivated fields are scanned with specially developed sensors in order to get a detailed map which highlights the differences of the land, meter by meter. “Not all fields are the same,” explains Luca Toninato, President of AGER, an agency that deals with technology transfer in agriculture. “Knowing that in that a geo-referenced
point there is more need of fertilizer allows for an optimization, which means saving between 30 and 40% of the fertilizer.” This is an approach that can also be used for irrigation, where drip systems that maximize the exploitation of water are being developed, and there are also innovations on the front of sowing, where machines able to distribute the optimum quantity of seeds on the land are being designed. Analytical skills, curiosity, and innovation have allowed us to invent and improve farming, and to understand how we derive energy from the food we produce. But to really be able to feed everyone, we must not leave any possibility untried, let alone forget the intimate relationship between energy resources and food.
Whatever we eat, whether it’s a steak, a plate of pasta, or a skewer of fish, has its origin in the energy capacity of plants to transform the energy of sunlight into chemical energy through photosynthesis
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interview
STAYING WITHIN THE LIMITS Interview with Mathis Wackernagel President of the Global Footprint Network by Gianluigi Torchiani Journalist
There are more and more of us and the planet is becoming impoverished. Everybody has been telling us this: experts, scholars, and the news anxiously warn us of the risks of climate change, and that is only one of the problems that threatens our planet. Our passage has left an indelible mark, but we can still understand what the limits of the planet are and live within them. Humanity cannot expect to grow infinitely, from a financial and demographic point of view: this is a message that perhaps, in times of difficulty and recession, is difficult for most people to accept, but for the ecologist Mathis Wackernagel, President of the Global Footprint Network, it is an obligation. “Like all living beings, human beings also depend on the ecological resources available for everything they need. Therefore our economy is limited by available resources, though – compared to the animal kingdom – the matter is a bit more complex: with money, you can buy the products you need from other places, if the raw materials in the region where you are physically based are scarce or insufficient. For example, countries like Switzerland, but also Italy, are using more resources than their environment is able to renew, but they can buy them elsewhere or use them even without paying, such as when they abuse the atmosphere and affect deforestation without having to bear the 028
economic cost.” According to Wackernagel, almost all of the Western population lives in countries that consume more than their ecosystem can renew, but which do not experience the issue of the global scarcity of resources as a real problem because their economic wealth allows citizens to enjoy resources acquired from outside. However, scarcity is already a serious problem for the countries that have a lower average income than the world average and that do not have this possibility. And it is certainly not a minority: 71% of the world population has to deal with these problems on a daily basis. The solution, according to the President of the Global Footprint Network, is not that of continuous growth: “Our societies are very focused on the production of income, so that all politicians, both on the right and the left, become quite nervous and worried when indicators of their national GDP give off a negative signal. In fact, it’s really hard to explain to people that available income is
*Percentage of evolution expected by 2050 of crop 0 yields due to +100 climate warming. The countries that benefit more or less from rising global temperature are marked from red to green. -50
No data available
*Source: 2033, Atlas des futurs du monde, Virginie Raisson, Lépac, 2012.
decreasing. Always having more wealth available would be a wonderful dream, it would make things easier, and it is also extremely attractive from an electoral point of view. The problem is that the economic system, such as we have made it so far, is based on continuous economic growth, a model which is not physically sustainable. Basically, we are facing a fundamental contradiction: on the one hand, we have an economic system that cannot be stable unless there is continuous expansion, on the other, there is an ecological system that cannot be stable with this expansion.� So what countries pose the greatest risks to the ecological stability of the planet? Those that are wealthy and industrialized or those that are developing, growing, and hungry for resources? Wackernagel does not give a definitive answer, arguing that dividing the world into good and evil is nothing but a game. Rather, the question that everyone should be asking is what they want for the future, or better yet, what could make their country more stable in the long run on a planet that, with the current levels of growth, is becoming increasingly hungry for resources. The risks inherent in this model apply to all countries, albeit with different levels, depending on the availability of goods and raw materials. According to Wackernagel, Italy is in a risky situation in the long term, because it has no fossil fuels and is forced to import from increasingly unstable countries. Contrary to what one might expect, however, his hopes do not lie in being saved by a mega international agreement on climate and environment: “Today there is a complete misunderstanding concerning international climate negotiations, because some nations think that in the absence of an agreement, we should not do anything. On the contrary, each country should act even more aggressively within itself.� Indeed, the President of
The economic system, such as we have made it so far, is based on continuous economic growth, a model which is not physically sustainable
Note: The two studies group the areas of the world a little differently. The countries reported separately behave very differently from the average of the geographical area to which they belong.
RUSSIA
+1,5% EUROPE
+7% / 38%
CENTRAL ASIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
+5,6%
THE MIDDLE EAST
82%
AFRICA
+19% / 79%
Demographic distribution (2033) Percentage of land still available for cultivation
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oxygen | 26 — 05.2015
CENTRAL AND EASTERN ASIA
80%
EASTERN ASIA
18,4%
JAPAN
+1,4%
SOUTH ASIA
+24,8% SOUTH ASIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
23%
SOUTHEAST ASIA
+8,5%
OCEANIA
+0,5% / 88%
Demographic distribution (2033) Percentage of land still available for cultivation
030
the Global Footprint Network believes that at this time there is an excessive expectation in relation to the issue of climate change, even though it is evaluated as an important phenomenon, which threatens to create many more losers than winners. “I think, however, that there has been a little too much emphasis on extreme weather events, for a number of reasons, particularly because ordinary people tend to forget about all the other environmental problems. Climate change is also complicated by the ongoing international negotiations, which, nevertheless, are extremely frustrating. I also think that a real global agreement is rather unlikely: in the past, there were at least 20 negotiations that have never led to anything. But I think there are many other things that can be done, such as curbing population growth, which is continuing at a rather fast pace. Since our goal is to have better lives for all human beings, it will be very difficult to reach it without a decrease in the global population.” Unlike many other ecologists, Wackernagel does not have any specific hopes in technological
Almost all of the Western population lives in countries that consume more than their ecosystem can renew, but which do not experience the issue of the global scarcity of resources as a real problem
NORTH AMERICA
+4,9% / 52%
progress: “Technology is a far cry from being homogeneous, so wondering if it will save us is rather stupid. Let me explain: there are technologies that can be helpful in decreasing energy dependence, just think of those related to wind power, for example, and at the same time, there are others that bind us to them even more.” What can an ordinary citizen do, in such a complex panorama? The response of the President of the Global Footprint Network, an association that developed the ecological footprint – an accounting tool that measures how many natural resources each person uses – can’t help but be positive: “There are a lot of things that each of us can do; first of all, become informed about the risks and therefore make better decisions, which can then influence our friends and, why not, even the political debate.” In short, rather than through difficult and complicated international solutions, the salvation of the planet depends on each and every one of us.
CENTRAL AMERICA
72%
The question that everyone should be asking is what they want for the future, or better yet, what could make their country more stable in the long run
CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE SOUTH AMERICA
+8,3%
SOUTH AMERICA
78%
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Feeding the planet Infographics edited by Centimetri
FOOD
Cereals production and demand (million metric tons)
LEGEND
For Stockbreeding
+124%
+24%
+60%
+38%
Var. % 2050/2000
For total demand
Producing enough food for everyone and meeting the increasing demand for electricity, possibly using renewable sources: these are the two main challenges that we are facing. Food and energy dictate the rules of the game of the future and the world is looking for the way to ensure them. What are the areas where the demand for cereals (a staple food for people and feed for livestock) will increase? Will these same areas be able to produce it? The data shows that while not everyone may be ready to face the growing demand, there are others that may have a surplus production. In some areas of the planet, thanks to the increase in wealth and the transition from the consumption of vegetable protein to animal protein, the demand for cereals for farming will have the most significant growth. And as always, when there is an increase in consumption, especially in developing countries, there will also be the demand for energy and the need to satisfy it. Electricity, for its part, will become increasingly “zero kilometer�, because renewable sources will meet a good portion of the demand. It is and will be especially the emerging countries that will set a good example by managing their economic growth hand in hand with that of clean energy.
032
853 619
Production of cereals in 2000 and estimated for 2050 Demand for cereals in 2000 and estimated for 2050
287 180
2000 Geographic Area
2050
2000
2050
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
EUROPE * AND NORTH AMERICA
+109.2%
+38.2%
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
NORTH AMERICA
How the consumption of green electricity has changed (Var. % 2012/1990)
+78.2% +27.5%
Electricity demand
Var. % 2035/2010
Global electricity demand in 2010 and estimated for 2035 Geographic Area
4,659 875
1,559
2010
2035
LATIN AMERICA
ENERGY
2010
5,939
2035
AMERICAS
Global demand for electricity (in TWh)
Sources: IFPRI, OECD/EIA, IEA
* The division of the world into sub-regions in the IFPRI report is due to the IMPACT model, which analyzes and groups 115 countries according to several factors. North America and Europe are united because they are leaders in world cereal production.
+14%
+13%
+157%
+152%
+300%
+100%
+189.1%
+102%
+71%
+31%
688 524 427 267
235
243 90
84 2000
2050
EASTERN EUROPE * AND ASIA
2000
2050
2000
182
2050
250
2000
2050
SOUTH ASIA
2000
2050
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC
+108.2%
+111%
+135.3%
EUROPE
AFRICA
THE MIDDLE EAST
EURASIA
ASIA AND OCEANIA
+110%
+115.6%
+46.5%
+156.1%
+7.1%
+267%
+21.8% 13,705
3,232
3,938
2010
2035
EUROPE
The future of renewable energy in the world
(production estimates in TWh)
5,352 569
1,195
680
1,466
1,350
1,978
2010
2035
2010
2035
2010
2035
AFRICA
THE MIDDLE EAST
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
2010
EURASIA
5,724 6,030 6,340 6,672 7,000 7,313
2035 ASIA
AVERAGE ANNUAL GROWTH RATE
27.7%
Co
contexts
THE EXPO IS A SMART CITY by Livio Gallo Head of Global Infrastructures and Networks of Enel
The ideal city is a dream for many people: a place to live, with all the conditions for well-being. For that to happen, however, there are two objectives to aim for: efficiency in terms of energy, and sustainability. The solution is not a fairy tale: it is called a smart city and it is based on the smart grid built by Enel to illuminate the Expo and the future of our cities.
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“Once upon a time, there was a man intent on building his house. He wanted it to be the most beautiful, warmest, and coziest house in the world. Others came to ask for his help because the world was on fire. But he was only interested in his house, not the world. When he had finally finished, he found that there was no longer a planet where he could put it.� These words are from the book The Prayer of the Frog by Anthony de Mello, an Indian writer who was a Jesuit. We all want our homes to be situated on a hospitable planet, but for that to happen, we have to rethink the construction of our cities, of the places where we live, and we must do so in a shared manner. The Expo is the ideal place for the exchange of experiences and the sharing of ideas in order to find solutions. In rebuilding our cities, technologies play an important role in creating a model of sustainable urban development that ensures environmental protection by simultaneously integrating energy efficiency and economic sustainability, and creating new services for citizens and public administrations. Smart grids are the basic infrastructure of the smart cities: in fact, in smart cities, the transport systems are electric and sustainable, the public lighting is efficient, and the buildings are equipped with sensors and actuators designed to optimize energy consumption and create greater aware-
ness by citizens, while providing more information to the institutions so that they can draw up a plan of urban development integrated with energy development. Smart grids are an answer that comes from the evolving technology now increasingly affecting our daily lives. This evolution could be summed up as follows: less iron, less copper, more silicon, and more data. This is a trend that Enel has been pursuing for over ten years, utilizing 32 million smart meters in Italy, while a project to install 13 million electronic meters is underway in Spain; finally, there are also ongoing pilot projects in Romania and Latin America, with the goal of bringing all networks in the countries where Enel is present to a technological convergence. Over the past decade, we have developed one of the most important remote control systems in Europe with more than 100,000 secondary stations that are monitored and controlled remotely: this is an excellence that enables recovering most of the failures on the power grid through an automatic buoyancy configuration that minimizes the number of customers affected by the fault. Our systems enable real-time management and supervision of our personnel’s interventions on the network in the areas where we are present, while advanced systems make predictions and collect measurements of the production of renewable energy plants, and carry out energy
The goal that smart cities aim to achieve is gathering information through distributed intelligence and bringing the municipalities closer to customers through a better service
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In rebuilding our cities, technologies play an important role in creating a model of sustainable urban development that ensures environmental protection
balances on the different levels of the network structure. Smart grids make it possible to offer services to municipalities and citizens by collecting signals from the cities’ sensors such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, the waste in bins, and any other type of survey you can imagine. The goal that smart cities aim to achieve is gathering information through distributed intelligence and bringing the municipalities closer to customers through a better service. Our network distributes energy in the major cities of Latin America: Bogotá, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, which will all have more than ten million inhabitants by 2020; here too the concept of smart city, or rather of mega city, will be a key factor in promoting energy efficiency, economic sustainability, and the creation of new services for citizens. In a nutshell, Expo 2015 is a truly a smart city based on a smart grid, the objectives of which are the management and control of the electricity grid with the optimization of the energy consumption for the pavilions of the exhibition area. These technologies include the most modern systems for the management and control of the electricity grid, for the integration of distributed generation from renewable sources, up to the electric energy storage systems. More specifically, Enel has installed 100 smart cabins interconnected by fiber optics for distribution throughout the entire exhibition area and for the integration of generation by renewable sources. Enel has installed
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dozens of charging infrastructures for electric vehicles that are perfectly integrated into the smart grid, and which will be available for operators and visitors. Enel has also helped illuminate the Expo with 8,500 LED light points controlled by a remote control system integrated with the smart network. Through the instruments of augmented reality and the showroom, visitors will have direct experience of energy optimization inside the area and know what modern technology can do to protect the environment and create a sustainable future. Enel’s activity is also materialized in its provision of services to the exhibiting countries, with a catalog of modular services that exhibitors can choose from according to their needs and the footprint of sustainability they wish to give their pavilion. These services include the measurement of the consumption and production of energy, the display of aggregated, precise real-time data and load control inside the pavilion (Energy Management System); Moreover, Enel provides exhibitors with the opportunity to install external LED lighting controlled by an integrated system with the Energy Management System and, as well as installing charging stations for light vehicles, monitoring them throughout the exhibition site. We hope that this opportunity of experiencing a smart city within the Expo will be important for ensuring that all visitors can personally and actively contribute to the sustainable development of our society and the cities of the future.
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THE CAR IS CHARGED by Pierluigi Bonora
Journalist
At the recent CES in Las Vegas, automobile manufacturers meanwhile introduced a number of solutions on how to charge the batteries of an electric car in as rapid, economical, and environmentallyfriendly a way as possible For years now, the focus has promptly been on the electric car. And the state of the art, at least in recent times, has not changed one iota. The products are there and the manufacturers that have invested more in them than others already have them on their price list. However, among the automakers, there is no shortage of the recalcitrant – such as FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) – who view electric cars as an energy expense, in this case, an economic one. In this regard, the hybrid model (thermal engine associated with an electric one), better if plug-in (ability to recharge the unit from a simple electrical socket), has everyone in agreement: including FCA, which is committed on this front. Therefore the sector is ready, and has been for some time: the latest generation batteries offer greater economy and take up less space; what is missing in order for electric cars to take off is the legislation. In fact, the EU needs to acts on its promises and enact specific legislation that, on the one hand, supports the continued investment of the producers, and on the other, establishes the rules on how to standardize the charging stations so that no problems of ‘plugs’ will arise between one country and another. Instead, individual countries are called to a greater commitment in order to facilitate the purchase of these cars and above all, create the conditions so that the users who decide to invest in electric cars are not forced to circulate only in the city, but can
also go on highways and freeways without fearing that their vehicles will go ‘flat’. This is why Enel and Eni have created a plan for electric mobility through the installation of a system called “Fast Recharge Plus”. The Eni Station on the Pontine highway between Rome and Pomezia was chosen for its debut, and the two CEOs, Francesco Starace and Claudio Descalzi, were there. Other installations in Italy have been announced and the former Minister of Infrastructure, Maurizio Lupi, had been committed to this direction. It is now up to Lupi’s successor Graziano Delrio to keep the promise, thanks to the contribution of Enel and Eni, to help create a network of charging stations in extra-urban areas in the country. At the recent CES in Las Vegas, automobile manufacturers meanwhile introduced a number of solutions on how to charge the batteries of an electric car in as rapid, economical, and environmentally-friendly a way as possible. For example, BMW presented a system of home charging that is based on solar panels placed on the garage roof. There are some, again in Las Vegas, who aimed at ensuring a ‘full charge’ of electricity in just three minutes. In short, the ideas, the will, and initiatives are out there, but we need a clear political commitment in order to make the volumes of this market grow. In fact, the numbers continue to be modest. And, for now, the substantial investments made by the car manufacturers are not paying off.
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S M A R T G R I D LIGHTING by Federico Golla President and Chief Executive Officer of Siemens Italia
Important issues involving not only important works, as well as the biggest names in technology and industry, who have come forward to bring their contribution in the months of Expo 2015. So now there is the partnership formed by Siemens and Enel that looks to the future of the electricity network, thanks to the Energy Management System and smart energy management that will power the entire event. 038
The innovation is the glue, the culture is in the forms and expressions, the essence is in the messages and debates. The synthesis lies in the technology. This is what Expo 2015 is: innovation, culture, messages, and technology, and Siemens has a certain experience in many of the ingredients of the Universal Exposition. Not only has Siemens participated in 19 editions since its founding in 1847, but it has innovation deeply engraved in its genetic code. The Expo has always been a stage for attracting the world’s attention to innovation and the major cultural issues that humanity has had (and will continue to have) in common, concerning its fate and evolution. It was in 1851 that a form of a trade fair similar to today’s came about, created not so much to display the objects, but rather, the progress being made, in order to generate debate about the common good on the major issues of general interest, from work to health, and from politics to the great social achievements. But then Expo was to become what has always been a sort of springboard for change, the evolution of the surrounding area; an exposition in terms of extraordinary works designed to be temporary and become, if not actually symbols, elements and magnificent perennial testimonies of important epochs. Just think of the Eiffel Tower (Paris Expo in 1889), now a symbol of Paris, of the German pavilion designed for the Expo in Barcelona in 1929 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the masters of the Modern Movement, and of the Expo in Genoa which was entrusted to Renzo Piano in 1992. Or even Milan itself, which hosted the Expo in 1906. All the exhibition halls were designed for temporary use, except the Aquarium which was designed by the architect Sebastiano Locati: back then it was the pavilion dedicated to fish farming, and today it is one of the most beautiful examples of Art Nouveau buildings in Milan. The Expo left traces in Rome, too, even though it was never actually inaugurated. The Eternal City was to host the 1941 edition, which it wanted to set up on some reclaimed land, named the EUR, between Rome and the sea, the pole of the expansion to the southwest of the city. Howev-
er, the Expo was postponed to 1942, and finally suspended because of the war, but the EUR was left standing as its legacy. But it is not only a matter of the architectural works: the universal exposition has also been the place for discussions and reflections. To name a few, the main theme of the Expo in Brussels in 1958 was the Atomic Energy Agency, the 1974 World’s Fair in Spokane, Washington was the first to elect the theme of the environment, repeated in Okinawa in 1975, and again in 1998 in Lisbon. In the case of the Shanghai Expo 2010, the theme was great, even if expressed in a simple way: “Better City, Better Life”, improving the quality of life by improving the urban environment. “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” is also is a strong theme expressed in a simple way. The Expo 2015 is based on nourishment in all its forms, from generation to processing; but also energy, which is generated by nourishment and allows its enhancement and transformation into a common good which mankind must undertake to distribute fairly and in a widespread manner. The great themes of Expo are both a stimulus and incentives for the participant countries for both reflection and debate aimed at developing thoughts and ways of behavior that will hopefully be transformed into actions to improve the existence of the entire planet. Besides the word ‘feeding’, the theme of this edition finds the word ‘energy’ at its core, and energy certainly cannot be separated from Enel. As an Official Global Partner of Expo, within the Expo site, Enel has installed the leading technologies that characterize the city of the future. From its smart grid, the most modern system for the management and control of the electrici-
The partnership that Siemens and Enel have made concerns not only the logical union of excellence, but also regards the managerial line and the unity of visions and missions
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ty grid, up to the electrical energy storage plants, the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, and smart and efficient public lighting, this Expo is a pulsating and active showroom for the technological capabilities of Enel. Technological skills to which Siemens has contributed with its research and development, its capacity, and global experience. In fact, energy is also one of the pillars on which Siemens is based. Since its inception, the company has had a very close relationship with energy and today its divisions are testimony to its innovative capacity and the generation of value. Siemens couldn’t help but be part of an event on such a large scale and all the more so, seeing as it was Enel who called upon us. The partnership that Siemens and Enel have made concerns not only the logical union of excellence, but also regards the managerial line and the unity of visions and missions. The partnership with Enel is one that began long ago, marked by significant milestones, such as the one in 2009 that enabled Siemens to create the control system of the recharging infrastructure for electric cars, as part of the Italy e-mobility project of Enel and Smart. Since then, our team in Milan has continued to develop expertise on the issues of electric mobility, even obtaining the recognition of the international center of excellence from our German parent company in October 2013. Siemens is the strategic partner of Enel for the smart grid technology of Expo Milano 2015. Developed by a team of engineers at the Siemens headquarters in Via Vipiteno in Milan, the “Energy Management System” is the digital heart behind the operation of the smart grid, the technological infrastructure that is the nervous system of the entire Expo. There is a control center, where the operating status of all devices in the energy distribution network can be checked in real time, carrying out remote control operations and supporting the processes of ordinary and extraordinary maintenance by signaling the presence of any faults and anomalies. Exhibitors at Expo need only a simple smartphone to see the consumption of
energy, lighting, and air conditioning of their pavilion. The energy management system that we have developed for Enel also receives data from the technological platform that controls the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, the only kind that is used for moving around the area of the Expo. Siemens has provided the software applications as well as the respective hardware, from the primary distribution boards of medium voltage to apparatus for the measurement of energy consumption. As I mentioned, Expo is also about culture and it only takes a small step to get from technology to art. Precisely to underline our prestigious presence in the partnership with Enel, the contribution we bring to the Expo is a synthesis of our values of culture and innovation. We commissioned the architect Daniel Libeskind for the architectural works that stand on either side of the imposing Piazza Italy and represent an extraordinary means for communicating technology. Each sculpture, 10 meters tall and weighing 14 tons, is made up of three sinuous aluminum propellers that intertwine, developing a spiral towards the outside, like the branches of a tree. The works enliven the Piazza Italia by producing sounds and a constant flow of images and pulsating shapes that evoke the technological trends of the future, from digital factories to sustainable energy to smart infrastructures: an ideal combination that unites dynamic art and technology. There are thousands of LEDs embedded in the facade of two sculptures, while two other sculptures emit sound effects. The flight of birds has inspired both the light emissions, that reproduce the phenomenon of murmuration produced by the flight of starlings, and the sound effects, created thanks to the collaboration between Libeskind and the artist Caleb Townsend. Therefore, Expo 2015 is an extraordinary synthesis of the essence of human labor in the direction of innovation, culture, and technology contained in its key message: “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”. With Enel and Siemens in the front row.
Siemens is the strategic partner of Enel for the “Energy Management System”, the digital heart behind the operation of the smart grid, the technological infrastructure that is the nervous system of the entire Expo
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LIBESKIND’S TREES “Let’s meet in Piazza Italia, under the trees”: it is easy to think that many visitors to Expo will choose these tenmeter-tall sculptures as a meeting point. Signed by Daniel Libeskind and built by Siemens, their facades lit with LEDs will be a reference point and a pleasant stop, thanks to the sound effects that mimic the flight of a flock of birds.
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WE ARE WHAT WE LEARN
Interview with Andrea Segrè
Professor of International and Comparative Agricultural Policy by Cecilia Toso 042
If it is true that we are what we eat, today we are food that is wasted and unbalanced, either unhealthy or too elaborate. By devaluing it, we are devaluing ourselves. In order to give the right value to food, nutrition education must become the mantra of the present. Only if there is the right approach and correct information, will we be able to eat well, correctly, and sustainably. And then we may take our first steps in the best direction. If you talk about the fight against food waste and the National Plan for the prevention of waste of the Ministry of Environment, you are talking about Andrea Segrè. If you say Last Minute Market, you are saying Andrea Segrè. If you name the Agribusiness Centre of Bologna and the F.I.CO (Italian farming factory), once again, you are naming Andrea Segrè. In short, when it comes to talking about a sustainable food system in Italy, it inevitably includes having a chat with the professor of international and comparative Agricultural Policy at the University of Bologna, who for years has been helping to improve the idea we have of food. So to put things in their place and set an obviously crippled food system right again, let’s start from the meaning of some words. For example, according to the Italian language, ‘consumer’ is someone who consumes things by destroying them; but isn’t that what we also call people who buy food to feed themselves? “I don’t feel I am a destroyer, just as I do not feel that I am a co-producer, seeing as I am not producing anything. Instead, I use products, which is why I think the word ‘consumer’ should be abandoned in favor of ‘user’”. The President of the academic spin-off Last Minute Market – which deals with saving food that is still edible and redistributing it, in order to prevent it from ending up in the trash – first and foremost points out the terms we use when we talk about food, and so he prefers ‘agriculturist’ to ‘farmer’, because the latter comes from the countryside, thus the historic domination of the landowners over peasants, while he puts the former on the same level as ‘entrepreneur’. And then there’s the strange label of ‘refuse’, the food that we don’t want to eat because we believe it is no longer any good, that we throw away, or send to people whom we, in turn, consider are the ‘rejects’ of society: the poor, the homeless, and people
in difficulty. In short, words, needless to say, are important and speak of our habits; changing them is already a big step towards an awareness of food and its value. It is precisely the value of the food that he spoke of in his book which was published in February by Einaudi: Gold on the Plate. According to Segrè, today the greatest value for our food system would be to have proper nutrition education, directly in the schools. “It would be somewhat like reintroducing what was known as ‘home economics’, which we abandoned thirty years ago. Today nutrition education should be incorporated into the curricula at all levels, as if it were a chapter of citizenship education.” And for the other part of the population? “You can carry out campaigns at the institutional level, and there already are some, but the real investment for the present and for the future is in schools. That is where we will reach a quarter of the population, including students, teachers, and parents: a quarter! And then today our classes offer an even greater challenge, a sort of challenge within a challenge: to talk to young people with a sensitivity towards food that is very different and which varies depending on their origins. Let’s start from there, and then little by little, everyone else will follow.” And it is especially the fight against waste – Segrè’s main field-to-table battle, therefore from agricultural production, on to its distribution, and ending in domestic consumption and catering – that can be affected by proper information and education. Suffice it to say that according to the Waste Watcher observatory, thanks to the One year against waste campaigns, today 81% of Italians smell or taste their expired food before throwing it away; and that is not at all something to be taken for granted. So without wasting food, wouldn’t our food system then come closer to ‘efficiency’, which now seems to be the watchword of
We use products, which is why I think the word ‘consumer’ should be abandoned in favor of ‘user’
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the future? “First of all, I am speaking of eco-efficiency, which is related to sustainability and which is separate from the desire to achieve efficiency at all costs. We must then distinguish two categories: waste and losses. For example, a developed economy can aim for an improvement, in terms of eco-efficiency, over its entire production chain, as well as with regard to consumers” who basically have the tools to prevent both pollution, and disposal and social costs that weigh down the system. Furthermore, there is every kind of consumer technology: there are plenty of apps that help you organize your fridge, cook with leftovers, and share food in excess; and then there is the new frontier of refrigerators that can signal the products’ expiration date. Instead, another story is that of developing countries that “waste less at home but need a major intervention in food production and processing, where there is a lack of tools, technologies, agricultural organizations, and infrastructures for storing and distributing food before it becomes inedible. If the FAO’s saying, “if waste were a country, it would be the third largest polluter after China and the United States” is true, the contribution that waste reduction could make to overall efficiency is very great. Yet ‘efficiency’ and ‘pollution’ are words that have not made inroads into people’s awareness. Rather, the economy is the lever that we must apply. For example, every month almost half of the government bonus of 80 euros ends up in the trash. It gets thrown away despite financial difficulties, because it is not food that we prioritize. Seg-
rè explains that “the percentage of income that we devote to food is on average 15%: the value lowers if we become richer and increases if we become poorer. In fact, when per capita income grows, spending on food does not grow in the same proportion, because you cannot eat endlessly. It may increase a bit, we can fill our stomach, maybe we even change our diet, as has happened in the past, by replacing plant proteins with those of animals, but the rest of our income will be earmarked for other assets, needs, and desires. But, surprisingly, when people lose purchasing power, the percentage does not grow, rather, we lower it in order to satisfy other desires. We have lost a sense of proportion, and this economic poverty translates into food poverty: it is no coincidence that the people who have the most health problems related to food are the poorest. We must tell everyone that if we spend the right amount on our food, we will have lower healthcare costs, and therefore less need to spend money on slimming or diet foods, etc.” In short, we also need education regarding domestic economy. In his book, Segrè writes: “You have to eat just to live. And you have to eat well to live well.” And eating well does not mean looking for ‘elite’ food, which according to Segrè “has become tiresome, because ultimately it is for the few, it does not solve the real problems, it is not easily consumable, and often has high costs. We should aim for average food, which is also the food in our Mediterranean diet.” And he says this at the cost of being unpopular but nevertheless, with the data to support it: research carried out at the University of Bologna showed that a proper Mediterranean diet costs about a third less than a fast food diet and two euros more than the diet Italians follow today. Two euros which we will then save in health care costs, for example. The Mediterranean diet and the Italian food sector are the pillars of Segrè’s latest undertakings, first and foremost, F.I.CO, the Italian farming factory, which in some ways is linked in continuity with the Expo, a major and unrepeatable event but one that has a temporary duration. “F.I.CO, with an area of 80,000 square meters,” is a permanent food education project, a sort of very large and in-depth educational farm. But above all, it is an example of what Italian food is, and can be. “Factory farming means cultivating the land in rotation, and talking about the
Today the greatest value for our food system would be to have proper nutrition education, directly in the schools
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chain in rotation, showing its cultivation, production, and the opportunity to be eaten on site. The purpose of this type of project is to bring people to the food chain and build bridges locally, making its actors become the protagonists. The more real – and far away from the circus of food – the representation, the more successful the education.” Conceived by Segrè, but managed in part by Oscar Farinetti, F.I.CO points to sustainability in every sense. In fact, the energy that supplies its power comes from the roof of the CAAB, and is the largest roof-top photovoltaic system in Europe and a major case of the link between food and energy. The Agribusiness Centre of Bologna – a produce market and one of the largest wholesale distribution points in the food sector – had a covered 300,000 square meter area, which in Segrè’s eyes, was in fact a waste of space. So covering it with photovoltaic panels to generate electricity for the CAAB’s needs (electricity for refrigerated warehouses) and to power electric vehicles for transporting the produce was the logical step. “The CAAB is a laboratory of concrete actions to help us understand that economic, environmental, and social sustainability is possible, we can do it. We wanted to sell fruit and vegetables, and so that is what we have continued to do; it’s just that clean electricity became an opportunity to do so in an even more sustainable way.”
If waste were a country, it would be the third largest polluter after China and the United States
PLAY ENERGY With Enel’s project Play Energy, students can learn about the world of energy, starting from the key themes of great interest: innovation, efficiency, sustainability, technology, and intelligent consumption. This year, space is also given to the link between energy and food, two fundamental resources and a right for everyone.
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The future below zero Interview with Cary Fowler
Consultant for the Global Crop Diversity Trust by Michele Bellone Journalist
In order to explain why biodiversity is useful, just think of evolution: if there had been no raw material to work with – and therefore an immense variety of living species – none of us would be where we are today. Located 1,300 km south of the North Pole, there is one of the banks that preserve something much more precious than gold: the seeds of our past and the roots for our continuous evolution. 046
Biodiversity is the whole of the biological variety of all living organisms. Year after year, the number of species at risk of extinction increases, eroding an ecological heritage of great importance. When it comes to loss of biodiversity, what comes to mind is animals, from corals to crows, but this danger also concerns many plants. This is a problem that has consequences not only on the environment but also with regard to agribusiness, since the diversity of our crops is shrinking more and more. What is threatening them? “The main culprit, although not the only one, is the modernization of our agricultural system, with its increasingly specialized approach, influenced by the market,” Cary Fowler, a consultant for the Global Crop Diversity Trust – an international organization dedicated to the preservation of agricultural diversity – which he directed for seven years, tells Oxygen. “I think it is right for farmers to use the most modern varieties of seeds, it is the most logical choice for them. You can’t ask them to cultivate plants that are known to be susceptible to certain diseases or certain parasites. It is normal for modern varieties to replace the traditional ones, which nevertheless we cannot afford to lose, because that would
reduce the genetic diversity that we have.” Why is diversity so important? How can it help us to cope with food emergencies? “Biodiversity is the raw material on which evolution works,” says Fowler. “In the case of agriculture, we have partly succeeded in controlling this evolution, shaping it to obtain species best suited to our needs. However, if the starting material is reduced, our agricultural efficiency will be diminished, too.” The more varieties of seeds preserved, the greater our ability to help crops evolve. “This is to ensure the widest possible range of possibilities, so that the species we cultivate can continue to adapt to ecological changes,” Fowler continues. “Extinction is not an event that occurs when the last member of a species dies. Extinction begins beforehand, when a species ceases to evolve.” And this is where the seed banks come into play: these are a particular type of gene bank that store various kinds of seeds, generally those of food crops but also those of rare plant species. “They are a kind of backup, in case some varieties get lost,” says Fowler. And he knows the subject well, having played a key role inestablishing the largest seed bank in the world, the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard. This concrete wedge embedded in the permafrost of the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago, 1,300 kilometers south of the North Pole, looks like a bunker. This is where the more than 800,000 specimens belonging to 5,099 different plant species from 232 countries around the world, all carefully sorted and catalogued, are kept in warehouses at -18°C. Most of the seeds stored in the Global Seed Vault belong to varieties that would be called traditional, those that have been selected by farmers since the beginning of farming. It is by combining those varieties that scientists obtain the modern ones. We have no GMO varieties, but this is due to the severe restrictions that the Norwegian government imposes on their importation. Personally I consider myself an agnostic on the issue of GMOs; our role is to conserve biodiversity, not to decide what kind of diversity is worth preserving.” The Global Seed Vault is different from the other kinds of gene banks. It is a safety reserve for other regional, national, and international seed banks, which allows them to compensate for any loss of agricultural varieties. “The structure belongs to Norway but the seeds do not, nor are they ours,” says Fowler. “They belong to whoever deposits them, and who then
Seed banks store various kinds of seeds, generally those of food crops but also those of rare plant species
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has guaranteed access to their own seeds, but not to those of others.” Furthermore, those who deposit seeds do not pay anything, since the costs are incurred by Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust. This is a unique initiative that would never have been possible without the visionary support of the Norwegian Government. “I thought they would have said no to us,” says Fowler. “They listened to us for half an hour while we presented the project, they asked a few questions, and then they said, “Let’s do it.” I was amazed. It was so fast and ... rational. I really didn’t expect it.” After the approval, it took two years to find the nine million dollars needed – fully paid by Norway – to build the structure, which was inaugurated in February 2008. Norway’s enthusiasm was even demonstrated by the appearance of the Global Seed Vault on one of its postage stamps. But a significant contribution also came from other sources, starting with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has directly supported the Global Crop Diversity Trust. “They were interested in dealing with this issue and I made several proposals to them, one of which is closely linked to the Global Seed Vault,” says Fowler. “There are seed banks, especially in developing countries, which do not have the resources to maintain their varieties in a truly effective manner. The funding from the Gates Foundation enabled the Global Crop Diversity Trust to go to these countries to collect the more vulnerable species
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of seeds and grow them under good conditions. The new healthy varieties were then given back to their rightful owners and we kept some samples to be preserved in our Svalbard bank.” The Global Seed Vault has had good media coverage: in 2008, Time included it in its ranking of the best inventions of the year, and it has earned apocalyptic nicknames such as The Food Ark or The Day of Judgment Bank. “Those are terms that we have never used, they were invented by the media,” explains Fowler. “We were actually worried that similar nicknames could generate skepticism regarding our project, by giving off a different picture from the one we had in mind. But on the other hand, they have also given us a lot of visibility, which is good. We have had to learn to take advantage of this visibility without being set in the framework of a catastrophic narrative, bordering on fanaticism.” This approach is important, especially if you want to avoid being trapped in polarized debates like the one on GMOs, where opinions are often based more on political beliefs than on scientific data. “Fortunately, the importance of agricultural biodiversity is recognized across the board and it is not at the center of a heated political debate as much as other environmental and food issues,” says Fowler. “Saving the diversity of cultures is important, regardless, and it seems that this message is making headway in public opinion.”
It is normal for modern varieties to replace the traditional ones, which nevertheless we cannot afford to lose, because that would reduce the genetic diversity that we have
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F O O D M O V E S PEOPLE by Tom Standage Journalist photographs by William Kass
Spices from India that appeared on the dining tables of the English nobility, and trans-boundary tomatoes despite the distance between the Americas and the Old World: food has never been concerned with borders and distances, and more than anything else, it has always been about communication between human beings. Globalization has never been so old, and so tasty. 051
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Vasco de Gama sailed west to reach the spice markets of India while Columbus, knowing the origin of spices, had tried to reach the Indies
MINIMAZE FOOD “Don’t play with your food”; who knows if such reproaches from his parents gave William Kass the idea of using food in his photo shoots. And so here is the world of Minimaze – FOOD: ancient Greeks who philosophize in temples of made of feta cheese, a man launched from a zucchini cannon, astronauts who have landed on a plate of spaghetti. Tiny but tasty worlds.
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Today we think of globalization and international trade as modern phenomena, but they go back millennia, as the history of food vividly demonstrates. It all started with spices. These were exotic ingredients whose value derived from their distant and mysterious origins. They are nutritionally unnecessary. But the fact that they came from far away made spices expensive, and thus symbols of wealth and status. It also means that spices provide some of the earliest evidence of long-distance trade. Cardamom from southern India was available in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC; pharaoh Ramses II of Egypt was buried in 1224 BC with a peppercorn from India inserted in each of his nostrils. In a wave of expansion between 500 BC and 200 AD, the spicetrade network, operating over both land and sea, came to encompass the entire Old World: cinnamon and pepper from India were carried as far west as Britain, while nutmeg, mace, and cloves from the spice islands of the Moluccas were prized in China and India. These last, most exotic spices even reached Europe by the late Roman period. Pliny the Elder thought importing spices from India was crazy and self-indul-
gent; you could say he was an early advocate of minimizing ‘food miles’. Europeans had only a peripheral role in the spice trade in ancient times, which heightened the mystery and appeal of spices to Europeans in particular – and prompted European explorers to set out on voyages of discovery in an effort to gain direct access to spices, rather than buying them through Arab middlemen. Once again, food and globalization were intertwined. Vasco da Gama sailed west, around the southern tip of Africa, to reach the spice markets of India, thus setting in motion the European colonization of Asia. Columbus, meanwhile, tried to reach the Indies (as the source of spices was known) by sailing west, arriving instead in the Americas. So began the great stirring of the global food supply known as the “Columbian Exchange”, as food crops were carried across the Atlantic for the first time. Columbus had set out to find valuable “gold and spices”, but the riches he found were of a culinary nature: his voyages led to the introduction of New World crops including corn, potatoes, squash, tomatoes, chocolate, pineapples, and chili peppers into Europe, and from there to the rest of the Old World. Maize in particular spread throughout Europe and reached China within a few decades of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. Today we consider chili peppers to be integral to Thai cuisine, and tomatoes and polenta central to Italian food. But both are relatively recent introductions from the Americas. The Romans had no tomatoes or corn. Food crops also travelled west across the Atlantic: Columbus found that the West Indies were ideal for growing sugarcane. Sugar production in the Old World had come to rely on slaves, and the explosion of sugar production in the New World prompted the estab-
lishment of a vast trans-Atlantic slave trade. This gruesome trade developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, and ended up consisting of two overlapping triangles. In the first, commodities from the Americas, chief among them sugar, were shipped to Europe; finished goods, chiefly textiles, were shipped to Africa and used to purchase slaves; and those slaves were then shipped to the sugar plantations in the New World. The second triangle also depended on sugar. Molasses, the thick syrup left over from sugar production, was taken from the sugar islands to England’s North American colonies, where it was distilled into rum. This rum was then shipped to Africa where, along with textiles, it was used as currency to buy slaves. The slaves were then sent to the Caribbean to make more sugar. And so on. In Britain, opponents of the slave trade responded in 1791 by giving up sugar, and calling on their friends to do the same. It was an early example of food activism: recognizing that the food on our plates (and the sugar in our tea cups) reaches us along global connections, and our food choices can have far-reaching consequences. Food has a unique political power, in large part because it links the world’s richest consumers with its poorest farmers; moreover, food is a product you consume, and eating something implies a deeply personal endorsement of it. History reminds us that food has long been global, has always linked cultures and has frequently been controversial. The foodstuffs arrayed in our markets, on kitchen shelves or on our plates connect us to other countries and cultures, and to other periods of history, in many unexpected ways. A meal puts the world on your plate.
A first example of food activism is to recognize that the food on our plates reaches us along global connections, and that our food choices can have far-reaching consequences
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E N E R G Y ECOSYSTEM by Alessandro Farruggia Journalist
At the Expo, the electricity network is palpable, in fact, you are immersed in it. This is the idea behind the Enel pavilion at the Universal Exposition in Milan: a LED-lit virtual forest rising from a sensitive grid; a journey into the future of energy and an experience that brings the end-users to the foreground.
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This journey through a forest of virtual trees is worthy of a work of fantasy or science fiction – the hometrees and the tree of souls in James Cameron’s masterpiece movie Avatar come to mind – that helps us understand that everything in the world of energy is changing. The generation of electricity is getting increasingly closer to the territory and people by means of distributed systems with which citizens and companies can produce energy in the same place where they consume it, and smart grids are the flexible tool that supports the new dynamic flows of energy. At Expo 2015, Enel shows us this new scenario with an interactive pavilion designed, both in its external form and contents, to communicate the dynamic concept of energy and the smart grid. The architectural style creates a living system which allows visitors to go
further, not only in a spatial sense but also in sensory terms; to go on a trip in the world of energy 2.0; to see a smart network control center firsthand and understand that the solutions for providing food and energy to the whole planet are not dissimilar and can be achieved by the same solutions: a more intelligent, rational, and less intensive production, more efficient distribution, and sharing resources sustainably. Therefore, it is perfectly in line with the theme. The initial matrix is the smart network. The trees in Avatar were connected to each other in an extensive biochemical network, whereas in the pavilion, the virtual trees are connected to the smart grid, the heart of which the visitors have the
The virtual intersect constantly, because in the world of 2015, a LED, a sensor, and a relay are no less real than an oak tree
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chance to see and understand its logic, when walking through the 890 square meters of the Enel pavilion, which directly overlooks the decumanus (main street) of Expo 2015, and is set between the pavilions of Korea and Brazil. Right next to the Save the Children pavilion. The pavilion was designed by Piuarch – a studio founded and managed by four partners who lead a team of 40 architects – which wanted to express the concept of sharing energy, not with a ‘container building’, but through the creation of a virtual volume, or place, generated on a base onto which 650 illuminated polycarbonate vertical elements in constant flux, have been grafted and that define the space. The main element, visible on the ground covered with gravel, is a sensitive grid which is able to interact with visitors and conveys the idea of sharing energy. Grafted onto the grid are a series of cylindrical elements made of transparent polycarbonate – sort of like magical crystal needles – 15 cm in diameter and of heights varying between 5.3 and 7 meters and illuminated by LEDs placed at the base, which generate a virtual forest that interacts with visitors by creating amazing light and sound effects. The subjective perception of the virtual volume changes continuously in relation to the observation point and the movement of people, thanks to the overlapping, alignment, and misalignment of the vertical elements. What emerges is an experience that is even playful. Visitors walk along a winding wooden walkway that is elevated and protected by a Plexiglas cover, in the forest of virtual trees that opens onto three different real woods, full of flowers and Mediterranean plants, which are a reference to the theme of sustainability. The real and the virtual intersect constantly, because in the world of 2015, a LED, a sensor, and a relay are no less real than an oak tree. The nerve center of the entire system is the control room, where the intelligence that governs the Expo’s electricity network becomes visible. Immersed in the virtual forest, it has great scenic 056
The idea is to present a kind of energy ecosystem to be explored by the visitors and arouse their curiosity. Because that is basically what visitors to Expo 2015 expect: to have fun while acquiring knowledge machinery consisting of a vertical LED-wall surrounded by 127 mirrored kinetic elements that move in harmony with the environment ... just like energy does; a large horizontal display allows visitors to see how the whole smart grid system works, but that’s not all. It wants to tell us how the world of energy has changed and how it is evolving, what innovations are underway, and what is changing and will change even more for the end user. According to Enel, “Today, making energy means cultivating resources and making them grow to fully meet the needs of people, and which can be used in an ever more intelligent and widespread manner.” The idea is to present a kind of energy ecosystem to be explored by the visitors and to arouse their curiosity. Because that is basically what visitors to an event like Expo 2015 expect: to have fun while acquiring knowledge. Not an experience that is just an end in itself, but an enriching one. In fact, visitors can interact with the 3D info-graphics and multimedia contents during the entire route. There is maximum flexibility: those who just want a pleasant experience can simply walk around in the pavilion and enjoy the sensations; those who
choose to explore it further have the opportunity to do so. It will not be uncommon for someone, entering out of curiosity and perhaps intending to give it a cursory visit, to be overcome by curiosity and end up staying much longer than they had expected to. After all, that’s the beauty of a journey. That’s the beauty of the Expo. The Enel pavilion project has been designed by the architect Germán Fuenmayor, who was inspired by the kinetic artist Jesús Rafael Soto, particularly his ‘Penetrable’ series dating from the Sixties. Piuarch tells us, “The Enel pavilion is designed to have a strong emotional component. The visit is immersive: the visitors are surrounded by a virtual woods and real woods in a protected environment on their walk along the 107 meter-long walkway, which is enhanced by a broadcast melody that creates an evocative environment. A team of experts in graphic design and video productions – TODO and (H) Films companies – has treated all the contents to make it a memorable visitor experience. The pavilion is designed to intrigue and attract, to stimulate direct participation, and also be enchanted by it.” And if visitors leave it enriched, the objective will have been reached. 057
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EXPO, GREEN CITY by Oxygen The Expo site shows us the smart city of tomorrow: from the most modern systems for the management and control of the electricity network, the smart grid, up to installations of electric energy storage, and from infrastructures for charging electric vehicles to smart street lighting. It occupies as much space as a city of 100,000 inhabitants, and is 100% powered by electricity. The smart cities combine environmental protection, energy efficiency, and economic sustainability in a single urban model.
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ELECTRIC The smart Expo city
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HOURS OF ACTIVITY PER DAY To manage and control the smart grid from the operations center
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LED LIGHTS For saving about 280,000 kilowatt hours in the exhibition site thanks to the smart lighting system
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MEGAWATTS This is the installed capacity for the exhibition site
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1,000,000 KILOWATT HOURS
The estimated consumption every day
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MEDIUMVOLTAGE CABINS For the delivery of electricity to the pavilions
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CHARGING POINTS 30 on the site perimeter and 70 outside for recharging electric vehicles
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INHABITANTS The energy needs of a city the size of Bolzano can be met in a space like the Expo site
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Number of visitors in the six months of the Expo: a city that becomes a megalopolis
STORAGE SYSTEM For the local optimization of energy flows (270 kW)
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in-depth
Ingredients for communicating by Simone Arcagni Journalist
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Communicating an event the size of the Expo and making it something even greater than an Expo. This is being done through various technologies – the simplest or most complex –, used for sharing and telling. Thus the event has become smart and is plunging into the realities of social media, videos, sharing, and web series. It goes even further, thereby heightening reality.
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The transfer of information and content: today communicating a global event like Expo means taking very different and varied technologies and channels into consideration. The examples of the latest worldwide events such as the Olympic Games and the World Cup gave us a communication system made up of trans-media and pervasive strategies, using traditional channels and digital media. Therefore, a system characterized by convergence and by technologies. Of course, Expo is not a technology showcase, and above all, its pri-
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mary mission is to offer a valuable support to the exhibitors, the ‘condominium residents’, as Giacomo Biraghi, Digital and media PR of Expo 2015 S.p.A. likes to call them. “In terms of technology, the ‘condos’ aren’t very complex, they are very basic, because what really matters is that they are effective, safe, and reliable. They must be functional for the attractions and events, which are the real core of the Expo. There will be large crowds of people and the first requirement is that everything has to work, so everything has to be simple. We have
used conventional, established technologies, then everyone can go wherever they want to inside the Expo.” BEYOND EXPO An example is the case of the German Pavilion, organized by the Frankfurt Book Fair, which will focus on immersive enhanced reality by offering each visitor a device and an app with additional content and information, so that everyone can create their own ‘enhanced’ personal tour. The communicative center of the Expo event is its decumano, or main ar061
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tery, along which the exhibition pavilions are arranged: the piazza, or square, and the road as a model of communication that can accommodate the presence of people and meetings, obviously supported by technological objects such as the totems that dot this space. In fact, the totems have displays of news regarding the appointments, maps, and contents of the individual ‘condos’. Once again, the center of the Expo is a physical location represented by a large outdoor theater with a seating capacity of more than 12,000, where shows and meetings will take place: a great event with Cirque du Soleil has been scheduled. SOCIAL PARTICIPATION Of course, as mentioned previously, there are several communication channels, from the traditional website to the various social networks and integrated aggregates that have been telling us about the Expo since 2013. The Social Media arose from a joint arrangement between the Triennial of Milan and Expo 2015 in order to organize, prepare, and manage the social communication. The project also involves a group of trainees: five young visual communication designers, who alternate every six months. And, in addition to the traditional Facebook and Twitter – used to circulate information, and create calendars and events, as well as for launching applications, making requests, accepting advice, and listening to opinions – Slideshare makes slides and presentations available to users, while Instagram and Pinterest, are for storing and sharing images, and Delicious is for exchanging one’s ‘favorite’ websites and links. Thus the social media helps to generate an archive and a community through exchanging and sharing. There are Linkli.st for the press releases, Tumblr for the “Expo Cluster Game” project, and in order to discover the nine clusters at Expo that represent the history of food and the world (cultures, languages, traditions), through participation and involvement modeled on question-and-answer games. Whereas Expo in a Pill is a kind of web series tutorial 062
Technology acts as a support for the Expo events by having built an information system and a platform for expanded, integrated and smart participation
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on YouTube with ‘pills’ of information, communications, notes, and tips on the best way to understand and experience the Expo. TECHNOLOGY FOR EVERYONE Obviously, the world of furniture is also at the center of the communication project and the official app was designed and built by Accenture, while Dessault System created the virtual tour that even before the event, allows you to go around in the Expo space in Milan and which is integrated with real-time information during the Expo ... a sort of Second Life or Google Street for remotely interacting with real spaces. Instead, Worldrecipes is a huge online recipe book, where users can actively contribute by discussing with bloggers and various other referenced sources: this is a communication flow that has collected 45,000 recipes in Italian and 130,000 recipes in English. And there is also room for a magazine, Exponet, designed specifically for the event and focusing on food-related issues. But to support the official channels of Expo, there is also the RAI (Italian television-radio) structure created precisely for the ‘coverage’ of the event, called Rai Expo, distinguished by a team that has been specifically created to make the best use of trans-media communication models. In fact, the entire RAI broadcasting system will be collaborating: the three main networks, the semi-general and thematic networks, radio channels, TV series, films, printed and virtual publishing and on-line direction. The structure is characterized by the creation of content designed in a cross-media manner and it is experimenting with technologies and formats such as videos by drones, web-documentaries, info-graphics, apps, and viral videos. And speaking of virals – short videos shown on websites and social platforms – even the Vatican Pavilion makes use of them, because the head of communications of the diocese of Milan, Don Davide Milani, together with the Catholic University, decided to try to recount the experience of the pavilion with a young language that looks to new technologies. The EWall, interactive totems, screens, websites, blogs, social
media, apps, and the Telecom Italy’s ‘digital islands’ are areas of information and communication technology for the citizens and tourists ... in short, technology acts as a support for the Expo events by having built an information system and a platform for expanded, integrated and smart participation. And finally, next to the Digital Expo there are number of places where events take place in the thematic areas: from the Zero Pavilion that also propose Short Food Movie, a participatory video project shown inside the Expo wall room. Then there is the Future Food District, curated by Carlo Ratti, Director of SENSEable City Lab at MIT in Boston, presenting possible scenarios related to the extended application of the new technologies at each step of the food chain; and then there are the Children’s Park, the Biodiversity Park, and the exhibition Arts & Food. Rituals since 1851. Ubiquitous, pervasive, and convergent – at least in terms of communication previous to the event, the bet seems to have been won: it is now up to the Expo itself to stimulate the content and participation, and hence, the second stage of communication.
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THE INTERNET OF FOOD
The shop is at home by Elisa Barberis Journalist
The future of food is futuristic. Buying and selling, growing, cooking, and distributing: the Internet of Things has become the Internet of Food. What could the kitchens and supermarkets of the future be like? How will we be able to solve the problems of food distribution? Technology also comes into play with regard to the most natural thing in the world for us, and certainly not to make it unnatural. 064
Displays that trace the origin of each food, tablets for buying it that, with a robotic click, package and deliver the purchase in a few seconds, and visual recognition systems able to advise us of the best products based on our preferences and habits. The supermarket of the future is already a reality and has opened its doors at the 2015 Expo: in the Future Food District – 6,500 square meters in the heart of the World’s Fair – innovation and cooperation working together to give us a taste of how the food we eat will change, as well as how we produce it, distribute it, and bring it to our tables. Just as Italo Calvino’s Mr. Palomar, immersed in a Parisian fromagerie, has the impression of being in the Louvre or in an encyclopedia, because behind each cheese there is a different pasture and behind each item exhibited, there is the civilization that shaped it and from which it takes its shape, hence also the shops of tomorrow will be small museums, guardians of all the stories that the products themselves will be able to tell through simple smart labels transmitted instantly to users. Farewell to the walls of labyrinthine shelves – it just takes a simple hand gesture to have all the information we need. “We can find out everything about an apple,” – the architect Carlo Ratti tells us –, “the tree from which it was picked or the journey that it has made, the carbon dioxide it produced or the treatments that it underwent.” Ratti, the director of MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory who together with Coop has designed the Food of the Future pavilion, imagines a sort of “Gourmet Airbnb”, a place of exchange open to all: buyers and sellers, who in turn become producers. “A transposition of the socalled peer-to-peer – or ‘equal’ – dynamic has emerged in recent years in the world of the Internet.” Herein lies the birthplace of the great revolution of the third millennium, which aims to change the entire supply chain from farm to table. Food is the new
technological frontier, the most promising element of the digital transformation of enterprise. Already today, through the use of Big Data and cutting-edge devices, with the ability to be connected anytime, anywhere, the business model of the entire agricultural sector is changing, improving the work of millions of farmers, growers, producers, restaurateurs, and professionals. The Internet of Food looks to sustainability, helps to ensure traceability and food safety, and brings a whole new vocabulary with it, including ‘precision agriculture’, ‘smart kitchens’, ‘cognitive cooking’ systems and ‘social eating’. In 2014, the year of the birth of eBay Taste and Amazon Dash, which let you order groceries via a push-button, the grocery sector grew by 18%, according to data from the Milan Polytechnic University. Most of the innovations in the food sector regard shopping, which increasingly facilitates the meeting of the local and the global. So virtual shops came into being, giving an opportunity to the small honey-producer in Lombardy or a farmer in Romagna to find a showcase to customers who wish to have fruit and vegetables delivered to their homes. Experiences like those of Cortilia, the first online agricultural market, Foodscovery, a direct sales system throughout Europe dedicated to niche and artisanal products, and MySmartFood, which also offers nutritional advice, have become worldwide promoters of Italian quality, available with just a click. The pleasure of touching, smelling, and actu-
The Internet of Food looks to sustainability, helps to ensure traceability and food safety
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ally choosing a product is offset by the narration of the product itself, which is told through its properties, its creator, and the journey it made. All this information, combined with the ability to communicate openly with food manufacturers and through networking and interactive systems, has turned purchasing and consumption into truly aware acts. As the serial entrepreneur and ambassador of Singularity University, Michele Casucci, reminds us, “sophisticated sen-
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sors that measure temperature, pressure, humidity, and chemical compounds can especially help the way we farm land products. An example: today water, fertilizers, and pesticides are ‘showered’ on the fields, when more targeted and less expensive interventions could be used, thereby saving valuable resources.” From vertical gardens to hydroponics, involving the immersion of the radical system of growing plants in water instead of in soil, tractors equipped with a GPS allowing them to drive by themselves, to drones, the future of agriculture also lies in precision. New cutting-edge tools allow us to collect and share data on the health of plants and produce quality food that is not only a distance of zero kilometers, but even ‘zero meters’. What with 3D printers for food, portable molecular sensors that indicate the content and calories of a food, electronic noses that detect whether a product is fresh, urban gardens that reproduce ideal micro-climates, kitchens complete with a monitor connected to put the desired items in our shopping cart, security cameras, and timers that signal when the pasta is ready, there are thousands of startups that every day present new solutions for simplifying our lives and making the most of the technological potential. The challenge of the future, however, will mostly be to make food available also to those who do not have access, or have a limited quantity and quality. Within the next decade, there will be a billion more people on our planet who will have to be fed. In Italy alone, today 277,000 tonnes of perfectly edible food are wasted. This is why the fight against waste has become a major political commitment and also a central issue at the Expo, where there is “Safety for Food”, which is a technology platform to create a worldwide database of food products that provides the complete traceability of production, according to rules and international standards for the safety, origin, and quality of what we eat.
This information, combined with the ability to communicate openly with food manufacturers and through networking and interactive systems, has turned purchasing and consumption into truly aware acts
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Six-legged protein by Marcel Dicke and Arnold van Huis Researchers at the Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University
The world population is increasing and it could find the solution to its demand for protein in ever-smaller animals. Even though almost everyone still turns their nose up at the idea, researchers, chefs, politicians, and farmers are engaged in the challenge of feeding the planet, at least in part, with an invaluable and definitely sustainable resource: insects. 068
Although we know the environmental benefits, the high nutritional value, the low risk in terms of food security, and even if the product has an excellent taste, it is still difficult to convince most of us. Its cultural acceptance has to do with emotions and psychology By 2050, the demand for meat is expected to increase by about 70%, which is a real problem since its production already absorbs 80% of the total agricultural area. In fact, meat has a high conversion factor, that is to say that a lot of fodder, and therefore land, is necessary to produce one kilogram. Increasing yields per hectare could be a partial solution, but the intensification of agriculture still has its limits. A promising alternative has unexpectedly been found in insects: they are great food for people and for animals, and their production requires much less agricultural area per kilogram of finished product. There are more than 2,000 species of insects being eaten all over the world, especially in tropical countries, and these include many families: beetles, caterpillars, wasps, bees, ants, crickets, locusts, grasshoppers, termites, flies, and dragonflies. Until now, these animals have always been gathered in nature, and the belief that the peoples of tropical countries eat insects out of necessity is actually the result of a Western bias; the same one that has led us to never take them into consideration as a food source. The Western world has always considered them harmful to plants, humans, and animals, even though only 0.5% of all known species fall into this category. In fact, the majority of insects are very important for the environment: pollination and the natural control of waste and agricultural pests are their work, as well as creating products that are important for humans such as silk and honey. If we look at them from a nutritional point of view, the protein content of insects is comparable to that of common meat, but they contain more unsaturated fatty acids (the best kind). They
also provide more iron than meat does, which is an important fact given that a quarter of the world population suffers from anemia, particularly women and children. At the environmental level, however, livestock contributes 15% to global warming because the methane deriving from the ruminants’ enteric fermentation and the nitrous oxide from manure are responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions. There are proposals to reduce these emissions, in particular through using better quality fodder for ruminants and selecting the most productive species, but there is no doubt that substituting traditional breeds with tiny cattle or insects could help a lot. Insects fit for human consumption, such as crickets, grasshoppers, and the so-called ‘mealworms’ (Tenebrio molitor) are responsible for far fewer greenhouse gases and the area needed to produce, for example, one kilogram of protein from mealworms is much less. Another advantage is the yield of fodder: it takes 25 kilograms of fodder to produce one kilogram of beef, whereas for the equivalent of common crickets, 2.1 kilos are enough. This is because they are cold-blooded animals that do not eat in order to maintain their body temperature. Moreover, some species can be grown in organic by-products, for example, by recovering agricultural waste (not 069
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a secondary element if one considers that all over the world, a third of the agricultural food, 1.2 billion tons, is wasted): this way, insects can convert organic waste into products with high protein content. Insects can also be used as food for pets, livestock, and fish. Aquaculture now provides more than half of the total fish market, a sector that is growing by 6% every year, but the protein sources needed for maintaining it are increasingly expensive. Fishmeal, extracted from fish, is used in aquaculture as food for carp, salmon, tilapia, and catfish, but the overfishing of the oceans is making it a valuable commodity. Of course, plant products, such as soy, can also be used for breeding, but there are some disadvantages: their amino acid profile is not ideal (meat, on the contrary, has the essential amino acids in the correct proportions), they have some compounds that interfere with the absorption of nutrients, and the fiber content is too high. Instead, insects seem to be a sustainable source of good quality protein, particularly the green fly (Chloromyia formosa) and the housefly. But is eating insects safe? The risk that they might transmit diseases to humans is extremely low, because insects, unlike conventional cattle, are very different from humans. The few cases of contamination have occurred from the outside, through germs; for this reason, insects are cultivated under highly hygienic conditions. Are people who are allergic to seafood or mites likely to face similar problems if they eat insects? Laboratory tests have shown that it is possible, but the analysis is still underway. However, even if the allergic potential is confirmed, it will be sufficient to declare it on the labels of products based on insects. The most important problem seems to be knowing how to approach the use of insects as food. Although we know the environmental benefits, the high nutritional value, the low risk in terms of food security, and even if the product has an excellent taste, it is still difficult to convince most of us. In fact, its cultural acceptance has to do with emotions and psychology. But the globalization of eating habits is do-
ing wonders and consumers will adapt; moreover, even a food such as sushi has found its space. For example, as a first step to help the public, our laboratory partnered with the cooking teacher Henk van Gurp in writing the book The Insect Cookbook (Columbia University Press, winner of the 2014 Green Book Award in San Francisco). In addition to recipes for snacks, appetizers, main courses, and desserts, there are further investigations and interviews with influential people such as Kofi Annan, RenĂŠ Redzepi (chef of the best restaurant in the world, Noma in Copenhagen), and the economist Herman Wijffels (former Dutch representative of the World Bank). Insects provide a real service for humanity. Considering them a possible food source for people and fodder for animals is the new frontier, and an unstoppable trend has been triggered over the past decade. The Netherlands, for example, has always had a very innovative agricultural sector and the production of insects is a new field of agriculture and the fodder industry. It is a model for a major new development, which has already been adopted in several other countries, including the United States and South Africa. Insects are a valuable source of protein for the rapidly growing world population, one that we in the West have neglected for so long!
The protein content of insects is comparable to that of common meat, but they contain more unsaturated fatty acids, and provide more iron, which is an important fact given that a quarter of the world population suffers from anemia
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There are more than 2,000 species of insects being eaten all over the world: beetles, caterpillars, wasps, bees, ants, crickets, locusts, grasshoppers, termites, flies, and dragonflies
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EATING EXPERIENCES INVOLVING OUR FIVE SENSES interview with Andoni Luis Aduriz and Charles Spence Starred Chef and Professor of Experimental Psychology by Michele Fossi Journalist
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Eating is not at all an everyday matter. What we do almost automatically three times a day is actually able to activate links and connections that we can’t even imagine and which are the basis of sensory experiences studied by gastro-physics and thanks to the use of technology, offered by some renowned restaurants. There are times when you are literally left speechless.
In one of the most popular dishes at the famous 3-star restaurant The Fat Duck in Bray, in Britain, there is a shellfish-based emulsion called “The sound of the sea”. What makes this creation by the starred chef Heston Blumenthal so special, more than its unusual sand color, is the curious gadget that accompanies it: a hightech shell which has two head-sets tuned to a soothing symphony of waves crashing on the rocks and the cries of gulls. “‘The sound of the sea’ gives us a taste of how digital technologies, in a not too distant future, will help us have more multi-sensory dining experiences than in the past, and therefore also more complete, more profound.” This authoritative voice is that of Professor Charles Spence, the author of The Perfect Meal: The Multisensory Science of Food and Dining, Professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University and Director of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory, a research center specializing in the experimental study of the effects of sensory stimuli, particularly those related to food, on the psyche. The result of a lengthy collaboration between the scien-
tist and the famous British chef, this dish later became the subject of a study which unequivocally demonstrated that people tend to appreciate fish-based dishes more if tasting it is accompanied by music that recalls the sea, rather than some melody. “We have shown that music affects the brain on two different levels: on the one hand, it causes the person to perceive the dish as even tastier, and on the other, it increases our attention to the flavors. The result is so powerful that it is not uncommon for restaurant customers to burst into emotional tears.” Until recently, technology was confined to the kitchen of the modernist chefs – just think of the chemical laboratory instrumentation that Ferran Adrià, the father of molecular gastronomy, and his many imitators, has made famous, but the novelty today is that it is also on the dinner table. “In recent years, we have witnessed a growing number of examples of technological developments that have affected, and even profoundly changed, our experience of food at a meal, directly during its fruition.” Think of classy restaurants like 073
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Paco Roncero’s Sublimotion in Ibiza or Paul Pairet’s Ultraviolet in Shanghai, where he has long been offering real ‘gastro-sensory’ shows based on projections on the walls, music, and digital dishes. “In order to catalyze the technological revolution of the dinner table, in recent years, great strides have been made in ‘gastro-physics’, a new scientific discipline specialized in the study of the dynamics of sensory perception related to eating and drinking. Who we eat with, the composition of the dishes, the color of the plates and the food, its texture, the sound it produces when we put it in our mouth, the background noise in the room, and even the weight of the cutlery: these are just a few examples of the many parameters that, through the senses of hearing, touch, and sight, affect our perception of food and thanks to the discoveries of gastro-physics, with which a chef today can experiment with knowledge of the matter, as if it were a new ingredient,” Spence explains. For example, recent studies revealed that ordering first at the restaurant, or using heavy cutlery unconsciously leads us to better appreciate the food we eat; and that high frequencies in music enhance the sweetness of wine, while the low notes enhance the bitterness. It was also found that listening to Puccini’s aria Nessun dorma enhances the intensity of the taste of coffee. “The interaction between taste and hearing is definitely one of the most studied synesthesia at present,” says the scholar, who in 2008 was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for Nutrition thanks to Sonic crisp, an app programmed to amplify the crunch of potato chips and other crunchy foods through headphones. “The airline British Airways will soon launch a musical app designed by a team of gastro-physicists to enhance the flavors of the meals on board for its long-haul flights. Krug Champagne is also working on a similar project. I predict that more and more food companies will develop apps designed to musically accompany the consumption of their products, so as to enhance the targeting of the desired sensory qualities, and weaken others.” “Now more than ever, we are seeing the collaboration between scientists and gastronomes, united by the desire to decipher the mind of those who eat,” says Andoni Luis Aduriz, chef of Mugaritz, in the Basque Country, the third best restaurant in the world according to The World’s 50 Best Restaurants ranking. A former stu074
dent of Ferran Adrià, Aduriz is considered one of the chefs in the world who is the most receptive to the discoveries in the field of gastro-physics. “We are witnessing the birth of a new ‘techno-psychological gastronomy’ which, by building on discoveries in the field of food perception, including at the emotional and memory level, and through a significant deployment of technological tools, aims to provide not just mere ‘dishes’, but real “experiences”. “However, it would be wrong to believe that the phenomenon will remain confined for a long time to a few pioneering starred restaurants,” predicts the Basque chef. “I am sure that within a few years we will see this trend ‘seep’ into cheaper restaurants and, through smartphones and digital gadgets designed for home use, reach tables in homes. In short, I have no trouble imagining that we will eat on chameleon-like digital crockery for gastronomic use, able to automatically change its background color in accordance with the food, so as to enhance the flavors. Who knows, maybe our own tablets will be equipped with special fork-scratch-proof screens.” Aduriz predicts that technology at the table will help us not only to better appreciate food or make its consumption memorable, but also to eat more healthily. “Today we know for example that wine tastes sweeter if drunk in an ambience with red lighting. In the near future, the colors of a table screen or a digital plate, the sounds of a food app, and who knows what other gadgets that can influence our sense of touch and smell, will help us to ‘sensorially season’ food and drinks in order to reduce the need for sugar and fats, and to eat a more moderate quantity.” A very enlightening example in this regard, described in the interesting book Eat, Cook, Grow: Mixing Human-Computer Interactions with Human-Food Interactions (MIT Press, 2014), is the prototype of an ‘anti-binge spoon’ developed by Philips Research in the Netherlands, that has sensors to warn you with a beeping sound when you eat too fast. I’d bet that, after a few days, many will fling it against the wall; other more patient people will find this smart spoon to be a valuable aid for moderating amounts of food at meals. “Of course, setting the table at home
with technological instruments has its downside,” warns the chef. “Paradoxically, you are likely to become distracted, a bit like when you have dinner with the television on. So I predict that in the coming years, once the wish to play with technologies considered new and disruptive has faded, these machines will still be ubiquitous, but they will progressively become more discreet, almost invisible.” The trend of technology at the dinner table, points out the chef in conclusion, should not be seen in opposition to the other great gastronomic ‘school of thought’ that has characterized the last ten years: the return to local organic food that is fair from the ethical standpoint, advocated by Slow Food. “In a gastronomically complex and multifaceted society such as ours, where no one finds it strange to eat ‘Grandma’s recipe’ at lunch and sushi in the evening, we will never be forced to choose between ‘traditional cuisine’ and ‘modernist gastronomy’. The two trends are bound to develop in parallel in the coming decades, and find new, interesting intersections: technology at the table will surely help us to enjoy even the most traditional recipes. Aside from some algae and more insects, at least according to the predictions by nutrition experts, it is likely that in daily life – whether there is technology or not at the dinner table – we will more or less be eating the same dishes that we eat today. The truth is that we tend to imagine the future much more like science fiction than it then turns out to be: just think that in the nineteenth century, after the discovery of the synthesis of vitamin C, illustrious thinkers predicted that by the year 2000 we would be nourishing ourselves only with pills!”
In a gastronomically complex and multifaceted society such as ours, we will never be forced to choose between ‘traditional cuisine’ and ‘modernist gastronomy’
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TOUCH COOKING DIALOGUES Since 2007, every two years, the world’s cookery experts have gathered in San Sebastián for Diálogos de Cocina, a meeting between chefs in which, in spite of the premises, cooking is only the starting point for a dialogue that ranges from art history to communication and new technologies. The theme for the 2015 meeting, which took place in March, was the avant-garde.
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REVOLUTION IN THE CITIES Interview with Peter Ladner Member of the Board for the food policy of the City of Vancouver by Emanuela Donetti Journalist
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Health, food safety, production: cities are the answer to many of the problems of today and tomorrow, because they have a huge agricultural potential. Not only are there roofs, flower beds, parks, and avenues that have become available for growing our vegetables, but it is thanks to the collaboration that this practice requires that we are creating social and generational bridges. And making urban spaces more beautiful. The title of his book is The Urban Food Revolution. That in itself is a clear position. But it is even clearer if we take into account the book’s subtitle: Changing the Way We Feed Cities. Peter Ladner is a university professor, a former City Council member for the food policy of the city of Vancouver, and Vice President of The Natural Step Canada, who has always cultivated – an appropriate term – a passion for urban farming. This passion has led him to reflect on nutrition in general, on how those living in cities eat, on where they buy food, and where this food comes from; thus following the whole food chain all the way. In 2010, he made sure that all the neighborhood communities in Vancouver could independently produce vegetables and fruits in green areas owned by the city, and in 2012, the same policy was used by the city of London for the Olympics in 2012. But can food really change the face of our urban areas, starting with our suburbs and our slums? Seeing as it is predicted that by 2050, 90% of the world population will live in cities, no-one understands the meaning of the future of the Expo 2015 motto Food for All better than Peter Ladner. How will we feed ourselves? And above all, how can food be truly revolutionary for cities? “Food safety, public health, and production. These are the three major issues that will transform the interaction between the cities, citizens, and food. With regard to the issue of food safety, hitherto little considered but very important, the question is: where does the food we buy and what we eat, and what we find in our supermarkets come from? Things
are very different depending on which part of the world one lives in: the rules are different, and so are the methods of cultivation and breeding. So in order to be sure of what we are eating, we need to reduce the supply chain. And take control of what we put on our tables. How? By learning – or re-learning – to grow our own vegetables, and by taking a new interest in food, and in its production.” The second theme that is dear to Ladner – and for which new attention toward food is the solution to most of the issues related to the daily well-being of everyone – is public health: “In North America, the United States, and Canada, the percentage of children under the age of 12 suffering from type one diabetes has reached 30%. This means that in these countries, about one child in every three has to deal daily with a chronic disease of the metabolic system that is potentially disabling. This has an influence not only on the conditions of Western families, but also on the schools, on time management, and on national health expenditure. Diabetes is directly linked to the quality and variety of food, and to the knowledge of the effects that some foods have on the human metabolism. We need more information, at all levels. There are many chronic diseases that have a direct relationship with what we eat and our lifestyle. The theme of food must be introduced in the schools, and it is necessary for public authorities to be involved more.” The last of the issues for which food can revolutionize the city, according to Ladner, lies in its production, catering, and trade: “The people who produce food themselves will certainly not stop buying
When it comes to interaction between food and city, no-one ever loses anything: it’s a game where everybody wins
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Each city must recognize the social role that food has, and devote every possible area to food production: public gardens and parks, flower beds, boulevards, and schoolyards
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it, or going to restaurants” – he explains, dispelling the myth of self-production and frugality as a death sentence of the economic system on which urban life has been based until now – “simply, those people will be more careful about what they put in their shopping cart, or on their plate. And concerned with its origin, and its production. This is also demonstrated by the increased consideration for brands, such as ‘organic’ ones in supermarkets, and the higher turnouts at zerokilometer markets or farmers’ markets. Restaurants are paying greater attention to specifying where their turkey, eggs, and vegetables come from, and in exhibiting brands that demonstrate their commitment and involvement in the issue.” So the food revolution starts with the choices each of us make, now that the political and economic system around us is adjusting and giving us the tools to be able to choose in our favor: “This is a game that involves everyone, and that for once, makes everyone become the protagonists in the creation of beauty. Because seeing citizens, schools, and authorities working together to create an urban garden, leads to seeing a better and more beautiful city. Because working in a vegetable garden is not just going outside for a run or a walk. It is a way to meet people. It is a way to share stories, experiences, and recipes, a way of bringing together generations and cultures. Each city must recognize the social role that food has, and devote every possible area to food production: public gardens and parks, flower beds, boulevards, and schoolyards. Imagine if every apartment building cultivated the greens its inhabitants needed on the rooftops or on balconies. Cities need to change the rules so as to allow anyone to produce their own food: children can see it grow in gardens in the yards in front of their school, and the elderly should be allowed to pass on skills and experience to the younger generations. We must find space for the markets at zero distance, to ensure quality by encouraging them. Food has a great connection with who we are, because it is what we are made of.” Expo 2015 therefore is the time for spreading these reflections globally, but it is important that they also have an impact on Italian cities, where the risk is that of adapting to international trends, making us lose the great wealth of our tradition and our food culture. Because as Ladner says, “When it comes to interaction between food and city, no-one ever loses anything: it’s a game where everybody wins.”
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SOCIAL FARMING by Cristina Gallotti
From being the protagonist of the economic and social life of Italy to becoming the survivor of a time that was: right after the second world war, farming immediately began a long phase of decline. It is only recently that it has been liberated from the idea of a world in itself, one that is culturally closed off and therefore disadvantaged and undesirable. In recent years, also because of the crisis in the labor market, the ‘back to the land’ movement has been involving diverse, and perhaps even unexpected, segments of the population that are promoting farming as an informed choice. So land seems to have returned, if not to the center, at least, alongside human life, and this feature of helping and guidance is enhanced by a phenomenon such as social farming. For some years now in Europe and also in Italy, common practice has aimed at using vulnerable groups of the population (people with mental or physical disabilities and recovering addicts) in rural environments where farming and the raising of livestock take place. In Italy there are social farms in Campania, Lazio, Marche, Sicily, and Veneto, while abroad, the Social Farming Across Borders project operates in Ireland and Northern Ireland and collects the experiences of the participants on its YouTube channel. The FAO also promotes this initiative, with special attention given to the attention given to women’s work. There are many positive results: in addition to the benefits of being outdoors, the relationship with the owners of the farms, which are usually family-run, is a stimulus for the participants. And there is a positive effect on the local community, thanks to open days for getting to know about this reality better, perhaps even by tasting a freshly picked fruit or cake made with organic jam. Finally, another important category to whom social farming is being addressed is that of children: to all effects, the agri-kindergartens created on farms are actual kindergartens, but they also allow city children to see animals in their natural context, and fruits or vegetables that have not already been picked and packaged. Starting in childhood, this education about the countryside allows for a rethinking, right from the beginning, of the relationship between mankind and the land.
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THE 10 FRONTIERS OF INNOVATION IN AGRICULTURE by Nicola Ferrero Journalist illustrations by Undesign
In London, salad greens are being grown in tunnels under the ground, roof gardens have now been surpassed by vertical gardens, and soon we will no longer see farmers craning to scan the sky: instead they will be looking at their smartphone to check the data from satellites and drones. These are stories of agricultural technology, one of the cards to play in order to prepare for an efficient, productive, and sustainable future.
Soil matters Last year, were the tomatoes ugly and not at all tasty? And the lettuce did not even sprout, did it? Did the sage and rosemary wither and die after a few weeks of life? Perhaps your soil was not suitable for those type of crops, perhaps you watered it too much or not enough, or the problem was the amount of light. Edyn, a system that allows you to monitor the soil (and not only that) was created to solve all these problems, related to both small gardens and large plots. It is a kind of sensor that you plant in the ground that you want to control: it is powered by photovoltaic cells and its job is to acquire data on the moisture and the soil composition, the level of solar radiation and the amount of water present. After having gathered this information via an app that you need to install on your smartphone, Edyn will be able to tell you which plants will grow the best on that type of land and what is 080
the best time for sowing. Its work does not end with the planting, though: Edyn will warn you if the soil moisture drops below the threshold levels, it will indicate which ecological fertilizer to use and it can even suggest what places are best for planting so as to get the most effective lighting. There is also the Edyn Water Valve which, when connected to your irrigation system, allows you to manage it better and without any wastage. If the sensor detects rain (or if the forecasts that the app automatically checks predict rain), the valve locks, thus avoiding an unnecessary drenching of your soil. edyn.com
PreDiVine, in vigna veritas The project “PreDiVine” (the acronym stands for Predicting Diseases of Vine), is based on close monitoring by sensors of a well-specified area. This time it does not concern fields, but rather, vineyards. The project is a startup begun in 2012 by Dolphin Engineering and carried on by Mauro Prevostini and Antonio Vincenzo Taddeo, two computer scientists who decided to develop their idea for the project “Smart Vineyard”, founded by the Swiss Commission for Technology
and Innovation. This system is based on a number of sensors connected wirelessly that work with predictive algorithms that can monitor the micro-climate of a vineyard, with the aim of precisely predicting diseases (or weeds) that may affect the vines. The system, to be precise, provides forecasts regarding the Neartic leafhopper (Scaphoideus titanus), and downey mildew (Plasmopara viticola and oidio). The advantages of such monitoring are obvious: winegrowers can know in advance when and where the parasites may appear and this allows them to allocate their resources (both human and monetary) more effectively and efficiently. Moreover, it has a net impact on the environment, because the pesticides are used only in case of the risk of disease and not indiscriminately, and all this can only increase the quality of grapes. dolphin-engineering.ch
Freight Farms, the hydroponic container Brad McNamara and Jon Friedman, the two young men who created this project in 2010, were working for a manufacturer of terrace greenhouses when they came up with a bizarre idea: why not use containers (yes, those containers for shipping) to create a sealed, hyper-controlled and controllable environment, equipped with a series of apparatus that allow for hydroponic cultivation inside them? No sooner said than done, they created their Leafy Green Machine: a kind of module that comes to your home already equipped with all the machinery necessary to start growing vegetables straight away. The container is insulated, has a series of sensors that control the temperature, the degree of humidity and the level of CO2, and is equipped with a series of places for cultivating vegetables using the hydroponic scheme (all types of salad greens, aromatic plants, or plants of the Brassicaceae family, such as cabbage, mustard, rapeseed, and turnip). It is also equipped with an area for germination,
which can accommodate up to 2,500 seedlings, and one for their growth, formed by vertical towers which can contain up to 4,500 plants. The irrigation system is automated and as always, the whole thing just needs a smartphone. It is recommended for restaurants that want to have their own production without having to depend on the climate and without polluting (vegetables at zero meters – how’s that for zero distance!), for schools or colleges that want to produce vegetables for their cafeteria in a sustainable manner, as well as for ordinary citizens who want a greenhouse that’s a bit special. The price? Write to us for more information. freightfarms.com 081
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Underground vegetables The idea, in itself, is simple: creating crops to produce food in a sustainable way, without any CO2 emissions and without depending on oil or its derivatives. Are you thinking of urban gardens? Or of some form of farmers networking to organize low impact markets? You are on the wrong track. The idea that came to two Londoners, Rich Ballard and Steven Dring, was far more radical: to set up hydroponic cultivation, that uses only LED lighting, 30 meters below ground level. The project may seem absurd at first sight, but it has its own profound logic and also several positive aspects: a reduction of CO2 emissions (the vegetables produced are intended solely for London, so the problem of food miles does not arise, and the lighting with LEDs is one of the most sustainable kinds available); the use of 70% less water than the quantity used in traditional cultivation; the exploitation of an abandoned area, and the ability to cultivate without using more land. They found an old World War II bomb shelter (which has the great advantage of maintaining a constant temperature of 16° throughout the whole year), close to the Clapham North tube station in South London, which they have rented for 25 years. About 18 months ago, they began their adventure on an area of one hectare, now being cultivated with radish sprouts, peas, and red leaf mustard greens. The quality is such that the chef Michel Roux (his restaurant, Le Gavroche, has two Michelin stars) has given his support and is actively involved in the project. zerocarbonfood.co.uk 082
Africa tech Agricultural technology has been undergoing a boom in industrialized and technological Western society. However, we forget that large areas of the planet do not have the economic and technical means that allow farmers, with a simple click, to get weather information, set their irrigation system, check the soil moisture, and find out which fertilizer (strictly organic) would be best for their tomatoes. In Africa, a series of initiatives are emerging to reduce the digital divide and provide support for local farmers. In Ghana, for example, the company Prepeez, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, the WAAPP (West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program) and the World Bank has developed a system whereby a series of technicians, using smartphones, do research on existing databases, control the food prices on the market every day, follow the weather forecasts, and spread all this infor-
mation to its customers, the owners of old mobile phones, mostly by using text messages or phone calls. The Nigerian government, in collaboration with Cellulant Ltd, is trying to implement the distribution of seeds and fertilizers through electronic vouchers in order to reduce inefficiencies. In Ruanda, Esoko has developed a platform that brings together farmers, NGOs, and institutions. This also involves the use of a smartphone app and a website, but many services are provided via text messages. One of the most popular is the one that monitors the market prices and sends alerts depending on the price fluctuations. prepeez.com esoko.com
Indoor Basil What would happen to our planet if the predictions that there will be an increase in the world population of three billion more people by 2050 came true? We would need an area of farmland as large as Brazil but the soil of our planet has been hyper-exploited, abused and polluted and, in large part, covered with concrete. This is why MIT in Boston started the “CityFARM Project�, in order to thoroughly investigate and try to make accessible and available to everyone what appears to be the best solution to this double problem: vertical farming, or the vertical cultivation of vegetables. We are talking about indoor cultivation, where the lighting is provided by LEDs (supported by natural light when possible) and which uses hydroponics (or even aeropon-
ics, in which nutrients are sprayed over the plants). The benefits seem to be numerous: less water used, no chemical fertilizers and pesticides, no soil or dependence on weather or the seasons, and a drastic reduction of CO2 emissions (no farm machinery involved). Dickson Despommier, the author of The Vertical Farm (2010) and champion of this battle, is convinced. However, the costs are still high and it is difficult to predict the public’s acceptance of vegetables that might be considered a sort of frankenfood. Meanwhile, Philips and General Electric are developing specific new lamps and businesses are beginning to grow: there are 24 in the United States alone, among which FarmedHere, operating in an old warehouse of almost 3,000 square meters in Illinois, stands out. Its basil and rocket lettuce are already being sold in over 400 stores in Chicago, including the Whole Foods chain. vertical-farming.net verticalfarm.com 083
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Freezing wastage
Data from the field The table on which a lot of the technology market is being played has to do with the collection of data, processing it, and making it available to clients. FarmLogs is the most complete embodiment of this that can be found in agriculture today, designed for the typical American farmer who has to deal with very large plots of land. The factor that makes it unique is that all the data is collected through drones, satellites, and other sensors used in agriculture: FarmLogs sifts through Google maps, the databases of meteorological institutes, the documents of the land registry, and all the sources already available, without having to install expensive equipment. And its service is to filter all the data and provide customers with what they need: soil analyses and photos taken by satellites, yields per hectare compared to previous seasons, monitoring of precipitation, mapping of crops, and an inventory system that allows you to follow the path from seed to sale. All this on your smartphone. Just by using the GPS, the Advantage version can trace the activities carried out on a field and use the data for future comparisons. In a year after its launch, 10 million dollars have been collected: is this the future of intensive farming? farmlogs.com 084
According to an FAO study, 40% of the food produced in developing nations cannot reach any kind of market because of the poor management of the crop, and the lack of infrastructures and farming skills. A major problem, especially in countries with high temperatures, regards the scarce or inexistent cold chain. So, how can the needs, especially of small producers, be met? With extensive plans for education and teaching and technology. The Institute of Mechanical Engineers has estimated that a quarter of the wastage could be avoided thanks to efficient refrigeration systems. In India, Promethean Power Systems uses solar energy to cool milk, while the University of Georgia has developed a project that uses the biogas produced from manure to power a cooling system. The CoolBot is a little box that allows you to turn any home air conditioner into a powerful source of cold, by lowering the temperature to -35°, thereby transforming any environment into a refrigerating room. And in conclusion, Dearman Engine Company is developing a piston engine exploiting the so-called “liquid air” without producing any emissions, which greatly increases the degree of sustainability for the production of air conditioning and professional refrigeration systems. coolectrica.com storeitcold.com
Pocket Laboratory
Arduino, the farmer Arduino, the small electronic card equipped with a micro-controller that anyone can build at home according to the terms of the Creative Commons license, has come up with an agricultural version. Do you remember Farmville, the game where you had to manage a virtual farm? Here, thanks to Arduino, the whole thing immediately becomes more realistic. The proof is the project “Horto domi”. Thanks to a card implanted near the vegetable garden, it is possible to manage the irrigation, lighting, and heating of a small greenhouse. How? With simple sensors and timers connected to the card and an Internet application. If the sensor detects an increase or decrease in temperature, Arduino starts, or turns off, the air conditioner. If the sensor detects a value of soil moisture that is too low, Arduino starts the water pump, and so on. It has the same utility for animal breeding. Another agricultural application has been suggested by the “Global Village Construction Set” project, which aims to produce the 50 most important industrial machines by using open source technologies, thereby enabling great savings for farmers. Some examples? An open source 3D printer costs 1,765 dollars whereas a normal one costs 4,449 dollars; a tractor manufactured by John Deere costs 44,487 dollars, while the same open source model can be purchased with a saving of 79.63% on the final cost.
After traveling around a lot, this start-up has finally arrived in Italy: DNAPhone is a kit for carrying out chemical-biological agricultural analyses. It consists of two parts, hardware and software. The hardware part, simply put, is a box containing the optical and electronic components necessary for an analysis. The interface between this portable laboratory and the user is provided by a smartphone and the installed software. The app allows you to control the analysis, and save data and share it via a cloud or corporate server. An example of one of its uses is controlling the levels of sugar in fruit, because it allows you to decide the best time for harvesting. DNAPhone can also be used in an educational context, i.e. by students attending agricultural colleges, high schools, and universities whose courses involve laboratory activities (biological or chemical). This application is designed to help students understand the logic and operations behind a biochemical analysis. In this version, DNAPhone uses open source systems, such as the Raspberry PI, card-sized single-board computers. dnaphone.it
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WARM waste by Chiara Priante Journalist
Use organic waste to produce energy? Nothing could be easier and, above all, nothing could be more widespread. Italy ranks in third place worldwide for biogas energy plants: this is an important choice at a time when fossil fuels for energy production are scarce and the population is destined to keep increasing.
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If properly exploited, biomass could come to represent 60% of the consumption of renewable energy by 2030
Among the first to think of it were the Trappist monks of the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Tamié, who live in a building dating from the year 1000 in the midst of the Savoy meadows. That is where they have always produced cheese, and the Cistercian monks decided to create a biogas plant that used the waste from its production. On the site of the abbey, along with texts on how to welcome their brothers and the need for charity, a slideshow with a green phosphorescent background pops up: between business plans and flowcharts, it tells you where the serum, the waste from processing cheese, ends up. And, among the photos of monks wearing their white robes topped with a black scapular, there is the proud announcement that, thanks to the power plant, heating is provided for 60 people. Of course, today there are many stories like this. And it is likely that in the coming years, we will be
hearing of biomass a lot more. Just look at the latest report of the International Renewable Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization that acts as a consultant to 133 countries around the world and the European Union, which is making the transition to renewables. In a period of crisis, the study is a gust of optimism: if properly exploited, biomass could come to represent 60% of the consumption of renewable energy by 2030. This would lead to deriving a fifth of the energy that the planet needs from it. Yet, insiders aside, not much is known about this renewable source. According to the transposition decree 28/2011 of the EU Directive 2009/28/EC, the famous document promoting the use of renewable energy, biomass is “the biodegradable fraction of products, waste and residues of biological origin from agriculture, forestry, and related industries, including fisheries
and aquaculture, as well as the biodegradable fraction of industrial and municipal waste”. Therefore, biomass is what ends up in the power plants: waste from agriculture, timber, the food industry, forest residues, and animal waste. Some are fueling the plants with crops grown for that purpose, but the latter way is less convincing: it utilizes land for such cultivation, while the strength of this energy is the fact that no land or water is needed and thereby it does not create a conflict with farming. Instead, it uses the waste produced. In Newcastle in Britain, the residues of the production of a Nestlé company ended up in a chocolate factory, and which could inspire a new film by Tim Burton: 200 tons of cocoa waste produce gases, which are then transformed into energy. This serves to cover 8% of the amount useful to the factory. The story of Disney World in Buena Vista 087
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also seems like a cartoon plot: 120,000 tons of food waste from the hotels and restaurants of the largest theme park complex produce electricity. Today there are plants using solid biomass (wood, wood chips, straw), liquid biomass, and biogas from anaerobic digestion (using manure, organic waste, and corn). Biomass power plants operate by combustion. At temperatures of over 800 degrees, heat is produced which provides the heating or creates steam; in this way, thanks to a turbine, electrical energy is obtained. In biogas power plants on the other hand, there is a process of fermentation-digestion-methane: through anaerobic digestion, in the absence of air and bacteria, gas/methane is produced and digested. The biogas fuels cogeneration plants with internal combustion engines to produce electricity and heat. For this reason, in the year of the Expo, with the world thinking about population growth and the limited availability of fossil fuels (which pollute and carry risks of climate change), biomass is often being referred to as the way to go. The positive effect on the environment includes not only the use of waste, but also the amount of carbon content which, already part of the natural cycle, does not increase the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Moreover, unlike other renewable sources, biomass has the advantage of being stored: there is continuity of electricity supply, with the possibility of interruption, as in fossil-fuel power plants. Today, Italy ranks second in the European market for biogas plants. It is third worldwide, after Germany and China, and thanks to 1,300 biogas plants and investments of 4.5 billion euros, this sector has created 12,000 jobs. Althesys, a Milan-based company specializing in strategic consulting and research in environment and energy, has calculated that by 2020 the sector could have an economic value of 3.2 billion euros for Italy. By 2030, there should be about 2,300 agricultural biogas plants in Italy: electrical power would double, thanks to 088
Today, Italy is second in the European market for biogas plants. It is third worldwide, after Germany and China
In the year of the Expo, with the world thinking about population growth and the limited availability of fossil fuels, biomass is often being referred to as the way to go
the development of bio-methane. I recall assertions by Mario Giampietro, a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, who stressed that to cover one hundred percent of our energy consumption, an area three times the arable land in Italy would be needed. Besides, Italy produces no surplus of food, but rather, imports cereals from abroad. Following this consideration, one would think that biomass could be the answer. But we still have to work on the power plants: today biomass is dried before use and the treatments require expenditures of unrecoverable energy. Transport costs are high. A part of the path has been achieved: compared to other power plants, these plants do not need sophisticated technologies and they are more affordable. But work still has to be done on the technology, where the challenge of the hybrid plants also lies. Enel Green Power is building Cornia 2, the first biomass-geothermal hybrid power plant in the world, in Castelnuovo Val of Cecina: here biomass from agriculture and other related activities within a 70 km range contribute to heating more than double the geothermal vapors, increasing the capacity of electricity production. Thus, two renewables instead of one. And the environmental impact is close to zero, with a saving of 17,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually. Thus, the union of two renewables creates new scenarios for the production of energy.
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| science at the toy store
A Red Prawn fairy tale by Davide Coero Borga Journalist
A basket of bread, a poisoned apple, a gingerbread house, a bar of Willy Wonka’s chocolate, and the ever-hated soup. At the Red Prawn Inn, eating is a fabulous fairy tale.
I wonder if at least ‘Eyes-Of-Ice’ Cracco remembers. And who knows if the Master Chefs on TV or provincial restaurateurs, aspiring to be celebrated and included in the precious guides of Italian gastronomy, know it. That the Red Prawn Inn is the tavern in Collodi’s Pinocchio. And the Cat and the Fox go there, without any appetite, with the naive puppet without strings. The poor Cat, feeling seriously unwell with a stomach ache, can only eat thirty mullet in tomato sauce and four portions of tripe alla parmigiana. Poorly seasoned tripe at that, but just barely edible if you add butter and grated cheese in abundance. The Fox, who was ordered by the doctor to follow a very strict diet, has to make do with a simple hare served with fattened pullets and young cockerels. The special dish of “partridges, rabbits, frogs, lizards, and heavenly grapes” can do little to satiate the Fox. He has such nausea that he cannot put anything in his mouth. Luckily, at least Pinocchio pays tribute to the Red Prawns’ many-starred cook by ordering a morsel of walnut and a bit of bread that he nibbles and leaves on his plate, while his thoughts are focused on the field where he buried his gold pieces, as advised by the two rascals. Food, the central theme of the Milan Expo, is not a simple topic to tell
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children about. And the world of fairy tales seems to reflect quite well the anxieties, fears, passions, and adventures that fill a child’s belly. A burning issue: soup No, no, no. I don’t want any soup! Says Augustus as he stamps his feet in a story in Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffman, the nineteenth-century author of a collection of nursery rhymes that warn children about disobeying mom and dad’s recommendations. Whoever throws a tantrum and refuses to eat their daily dose of soup becomes thinner and thinner until they disappear. It only takes a few days of fasting to become almost transparent and unable to stand. Augustus is a goner, “whose bowl became his tombstone, and yet so lively and so graceful he was.” You seem to hear the mournful notes of the legendary Bobby Prince expanding in the air: “Vegetables, vegetables you’ve got to eat your vegetables, do you hear me? Are you listening to me or not? You have to finish your vegetables!” As if to say that soup seems to be a problem destined never to go away. In the Gingerbread House Those who, on the other hand, would gladly eat the soup, and lickety-split, are poor Hänsel and Gretel, the protagonists of the Grimms’ fairy tale. The unhappy children of
a tragically widowed woodcutter, whose work is no longer able to support a family, he is persuaded by his new companion (a perfect icon of a long line of terrible stepmothers) to abandon his beloved Hänsel and Gretel in the heart of the forest, hoping that they will know how to fend for themselves. “No, wife,” said the man, “I cannot do that; I cannot find it in my heart to take my children into the forest and to leave them there alone; the wild animals would soon come and devour them.” “O you fool,” said she, “then we will all four starve; you had better get the coffins ready.” Here is a brief summary for those who do not know much about grim medieval stories: the little children wander freely in the forest when they stumble upon a gingerbread house with a roof made of cookies and windows of sugar. So they start gobbling it up. But – there’s always a but – here comes the evil witch. Apparently tired of everyday fare in the form of dessert, the old woman decides to cook the children, and finally, have a meat course. Little Hänsel is locked away to be fattened up like a pig, and Gretel is instructed to set up the stove. In the end, however, the Witch is pushed into the fire by the clever siblings. Starving to death. Literally. This Grimms’ fairy tale is a photograph of a time when food short-
ages and widespread malnutrition made infanticide a common practice. Hänsel and Gretel do not condemn their father for the dramatic choice which he is forced by circumstances to make; on the contrary, they become the architects of a redemption of their family which can bring them a better future, thanks to the assets stolen from the witch-ogre. Quick recipe of fantasy The kitchen of the imagination is always open. The wolf of Little Red Riding Hood swallows grandmothers in one bite (good for you dear old ladies, who in adventures of that kind, end up without a scratch thanks to the capable hands of hunters who can fillet a wolf like a lake trout), whereas the little girl dressed in red risks her neck to go through the forest and take her sick relative a basket of fresh bread. Life is sweeter with a little chocolate. Especially when it’s chocolate made by Willy Wonka, the histrionic and quirky owner of The Chocolate Factory in the book by Roald Dahl. The life of Charlie Bucket – living with his parents and grandparents in a wooden shack, condemned to extreme poverty, and a set menu of cabbage soup – is set to be revolutionized in a chocolate-flavored adventure. And even eating disorders, which doctors and psychologists are now forced to deal with in order to take care of protecting the health of youngsters and teenagers, are described allegorically in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Cakes and mushrooms in Wonderland dramatically stretch, swell, and shrink the body of the child Alice, in a relationship with the dinner table that is not at all healthy. Here then is why it becomes important to speak well and increasingly better about food, nutrition, and a healthy diet. The fantasy world is a reflection of what happens in reality and it is a collection of good and bad practices at the dinner table. Snow White who falls victim to a spell for taking a bite of the poisoned apple seems to want us to remember what Mom said: do not accept candy from strangers! But now that the shopping list to fill the pantry is in our hands, how do we do that?
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Where do the kWh go? by Emanuela Colombo and Mariano Morazzo UNESCO Chair in “Energy for Sustainable Development”, Politecnico di Milano Enel Foundation
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When we think about energy, it’s easy to imagine that, all over the world, a single click is enough to get light, just as we do at home. But this is not always the case: today a considerable part of the world’s population still does not have access to energy. It’s therefore necessary to find solutions. Enel, in collaboration with the Politecnico di Milano, is working in this direction, developing a theoretical model to understand the impact of energy-related cooperation projects and guide future interventions.
The availability of reliable, clean, and safe energy at an affordable cost is strongly linked to development, and this link is profoundly influencing the way in which energy cooperation projects are identified and designed. Although access to energy represents a basic right and a development pillar, nowadays still 1.3 billion people have no access to electricity, 2.7 billion rely on traditional biomass for domestic use and about 1 billion people do not have access to a reliable electricity grid. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), such numbers are not expected to change significantly in the near future, unless a structured intervention coordinated by the international stakeholders’ community. RESEARCH RATIONALE Within sustainable access to energy field, evaluation models and methods are used to assess the long-term impact of the cooperation interventions, to synthesize results and consequently direct future strategies. According to the globally recognized five criteria developed by DAC-OECD (Development Assistance Committee – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the evaluation requires two phases. Firstly, an internal evaluation of the project performances, which runs
In access to energy field, evaluation models and methods are used to assess the long-term impact of cooperation interventions, to synthesize the findings and consequently direct future strategies
IMPACTS
EXTERNAL EVALUATION Development based / people oriented
outcomes
INTERNAL EVALUATION Result based / project oriented
outputs
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Fig. 1. The DAC-OECD Results Chain
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along the Results Chain (fig. 1), needs to be carried out. Secondly, it is essential to perform an external evaluation of the project impact on the target community development. In this second phase, the focus shifts from the project itself to the local context and to the benefits for the target communities. The objectives and the temporal boundaries of the two evaluations are different and require different approaches and tools. THE INTEGRATED MODEL The UNESCO Chair of the Politecnico di Milano and Enel Foundation, supported by Enel Group’s long experience in the area of social responsibility, are developing a two-phase integrated evaluation model (fig. 1) for energy cooperation projects. Within the first phase, the first four DACOECD criteria effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, and sustainability of the project are calculated though a common metric. Among the various proposals from the scientific literature, exergy, intended as the maximum work extractable from a specific system to bring it into balance with the reference environment, assumes a key role and allows proposing an alternative to traditional economic metrics. Exergetic analyses, and in particular some recent extensions of these methodologies, can include, in addition to energy resources and raw materials, the effects of economic and environmental externalities. Therefore, exergy can become a ‘proxy’ of the primary resources total consumption during the project (fig. 2). The application of this first analysis to several projects could allow, in the future, the creation of a benchmark useful for comparing the results of different projects – especially in terms of resources consumption – and identifying the best strategies based on each result category (education, health, agriculture, entrepreneurship development, etc.). The unique and homogeneous measurement unit (in megajoules) of the project’s incoming and outgoing flows and the separation of primary inputs (which are transformed into energy outputs) from secondary inputs (which turn into other outputs), allows the evaluation of the four criteria effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, and sustainability through dimensionless indices, as shown in figure 094
BUDGET FOR THE ACTION human resources
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Fig. 3a, 3b Primary and Secondary Inputs, Energy and other Outputs
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A benchmark of the evaluation reports of different projects could be created in the future. This would be useful to compare the results and identify the best strategies for each category
normalize and weigh such indicators. According to scientific literature, indicators must be verifiable, calculated on a quantitative, qualitative and temporal basis and they should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Available, Relevant, and Time-bound). However, projects implemented in different contexts, characterized by different economic availability and capacity of the main actors, may require different sets of indicators. For instance, the Natural Capital defines the dimensions through which project’s effects on environment are assessed, such as water, air, land, biodiversity and raw materials. Nevertheless, the dimension water – and its pollution – may be measured through different specific indicators: with a detailed chemical and bacteriological analysis or by distributing among module 1
comprehensive hierarchy
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development
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Fig. 4 The proposed assessment methodology (IEF, Impact Evaluation Framework)
3a. Effectiveness (ω) and relevance (ρ) are, for example, respectively calculated as shown in figure 3b. The second phase is dedicated to the fifth criterion, namely the impact, measured on the effects that the project has on the local heritage assessed in terms of the target community’s five capitals: natural, physical, human, social and financial. The model is an original re-elaboration of the “Sustainable Livelihoods Framework”, used by the Department for International Development (UK) and fostered by Imperial College. A schematization of the proposed methodology for the impact assessment, shown in figure 4, is based on an evaluation hierarchy (module 1) in which the most relevant dimensions for each capital are identified (fig. 5). The definition of the individual indicators within each dimension is specific to each project, even if the methodology proposes the procedures to select,
CAPITAL
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land water air ecosystem & biodiversity raw materials
physical capital
heavy infrastructures light infrastructures smart infrastructures
human capital
education & competences capabilities health status
social capital
collaboration & initiatives equity & inclusiveness
financial capital
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Fig. 5 The hierarchy used at the level of capital and dimension of capital (Module 1)
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households a questionnaire on how the local population perceives and experiences groundwater pollution. Clearly, information required by the two ways to measure water is completely different, such as the cost, time and skills necessary to complete the two processes of measurement of the indicators. Hence, the indicators selection phase (strongly project specific) allows to perform both these extreme approaches (and any intermediate ones). The impact evaluation methodology, by measuring the indicators status before and after the project, allows the identification of those capitals over which the intervention has had an improvement or worsening. The aggregation procedure of indicators is based on a model similar to AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and can, therefore, calculate the contribution for each capital of each dimension. This evaluation methodology may be used for both ex-ante analysis, during the selection process among possible project alternatives, and ex-post analysis, for evaluations of already completed projects.
that can handle all the technical needs of the network, thus ensuring electricity 24 hours a day. The opportunity to apply the evaluation model also to a new project, Powering Education II, is going to be assessed. This project, which will be implemented in Kenya by Enel Green Power with the scientific support of Enel Foundation, will have different kind of impact on the target area. The main project objective, which will be based on the success of the first phase ended in 2013, is the distribution of solar lamps to young students who live in areas not connected to the electricity network, in order to facilitate their studying at home during the evenings. The application of the evaluation model would allow a precise assessment of these electrification interventions on the local community development. Therefore, the model provides a protocol for analyzing how the kilowatt-hours, intended as a tools, are transformed into ‘heritage’ of the local community by promoting its equitable and sustainable development, which represent the true purpose of innovation and sustainability interventions.
The model will be applied to Enel Green Power project Ollague, a site in Atacama desert inhabited by numerous small communities not connected to the national grid
CONCLUDING REMARKS The model has been applied, while still being tested, to some case studies related to cooperation projects and corporate social responsibility, demonstrating the flexibility of the proposed methodology. Indeed, this model guides the specific protocol to be followed (shown schematically in fig. 4) in order to adapt the model to the specific project, rather than defining a priori a set of indicators that would not be suitable for areas with socio-economical and cultural diversities. The model will be applied to Enel Green Power project Ollague, a site in the Atacama desert inhabited by numerous small communities not connected to the national grid. The project, started in April 2014, is innovative in the way in which it combines photovoltaic, mini-wind, and co-generative systems for the production of electricity and hot water. The installed power is 235 kW, with a production capacity of approximately 460 megawatt-hours per year, i.e. the equivalent of the consumption of 150 households. The plant is standalone and includes a system of electrochemical storage of 600 kilowatt-hours 096
natural
1 0,8 0,6 0,4 financial
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Fig. 6: Example of output of the impact assessment methodology (in grey the status of the context without the project’s effects; in orange the state of the art including the intervention).
NEWS Trend and best practices
Megacities Consuming the World’s Resources In partnership with Enel Foundation, Prof. Chris Kennedy, President of the International Society for Industrial Ecology and Senior Fellow of the Global Cities Institute, has lead a team of 28 researchers from 19 countries in conducting the first comprehensive study of the inflows and outflows of energy and materials, for 27 of the world’s megacities. What’s special about this research is that it goes beyond studying politically defined central cities and determines the resource flows for entire metropolitan areas counting over 10 million people. These ‘megacities’ range from Tokyo to Shenzhen, through London, Los Angeles, Il Cairo and Rio de Janeiro. The study, entitled Energy and material flows of megacities, recently published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, shows that many of the megacities are growing rapidly in population, but even faster in energy, and in the strategic resources related to the growth of their GDP. The analysis points out that economies of megacities will continue to grow and the expectation, under current trends, is that their energy use will continue to rapidly increase. From the study important lessons can be learned and best practices can be applied to the key role that utilities and other relevant actors will play in the future cities.
Expo Milan0 2015
“Energy and the integrated management of resources: system thinking for technician and policy makers”
Enel Foundation presents at the Expo the results of the research project Performance measurement systems for cooperation projects in the energy fields developed in collaboration with Politecnico di Milano. The presentation is part of the Conference Energy and the integrated management of resources: system thinking for technicians and policy makers hosted by the European pavilion at Expo 2015, and it represents an opportunity for reflecting on the need to adopt a global approach to integrated resource management, for ensuring fair and sustainable use. Milan, june 25, 2015 097
Water and energy: interdependent necessities by Renata Mele and Christian Zulberti Enel Foundation
Water is a precious and limited resource, which is undergoing a progressive impoverishment in every continent: it is essential not only for human life, but also for the production of energy. And it is the importance of this link that the International Energy Agency has recognized in its World Energy Outlook, stimulating initiatives and research related to energy efficiency and the adoption of other clean energy sources.
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Figure 1. Global water demand (freshwater withdrawals): Baseline Scenario, 2000 and 2050 (Source: OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050, 2012).
KM3 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 2000
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The availability of freshwater of sufficient quality is an important issue on today’s policy agendas, where the relation with energy security is receiving increasing attention (UN Water, 2014; WEF, 2011). Freshwater is a common resource, increasingly considered as a global resource, but with a limited availability strongly dependent on local conditions and variable in time and space. Almost every continent faces water scarcity, stress, or some degree of vulnerability; even countries with a widespread water availability at a national level may face scarcity in particular regions. Water resources can in fact vary significantly from one water basin to the next and can be located far from areas where demand is greatest. The importance of the nexus between water and energy is widely recognized: energy production requires freshwater for the extraction and transport of fossil fuels, as well as for the growth of biomass, and the very process of energy production consumes water, exposing the energy cycle to risks related to the variability and scarcity of this resource. In 2012, the International Energy Agency (IEA) recognized the importance of the relationship between water and energy, and in its annual report, the World Energy Outlook, the IEA estimated that the global water withdrawals for energy production in 2010 accounted for 15% of the world’s total water withdrawals. Of that, water consumption (the volume withdrawn but not returned to its source) is less than 2% of the total water withdrawals but this consumption is expected to significantly grow in the coming years because of the diffusion of systems designed for reducing air pollution, for dust suppression, and installation cooling, which use large amounts of freshwater. The energy-water interdependencies are widely recognized and the topic is already an issue on the policy agenda: 099
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The water footprint (WF) of different entities can be assessed, for example for a product, for a consumer, for a business activity, for a country, or a company
one example is the US Energy-Water Roadmap in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which initiated in the national laboratories of the Department of Energy the line of research dedicated to reducing the water demand in energy production. Energy and water are so interlinked that to ensure the supply of both of them, it is necessary to change the conventional policies and operate with an integrated approach, creating synergies between sectors. An appropriate and recently standardized indicator for water use is the water footprint (WF), an indicator conceptually similar to the carbon footprint that represents the volume of freshwater used to produce a product over the full supply chain, showing water consumption by source and polluted volumes by type of pollution. This indicator takes into account three different components of water use: the blue WF, to measure the consumptive use of surface and groundwater; the green WF, to measure the consumption of rainwater (especially in the agriculture and forestry sectors); the grey WF, to measure the volume of polluted water. The sum 100
of the blue and green WF is the consumptive WF, therefore an indicator that doesn’t include the pollution of water (both in terms of thermal variation and emission of pollutants). The WF of different entities can be assessed, for example for a product, for a consumer, for a business activity, for a country, or a company. (A. Hoekstra, The Water Footprint of Modern Consumer Society, Earthscan-Routledge, 2013). Given the above mentioned water-energy nexus, energy companies have become increasingly aware of their WF and of the necessity to adopt smart practices to ensure a sustainable development. With this in mind and based on the know-how and best practices of the Enel Group, Enel Foundation together with the University of Twente is performing an assessment of the water footprint of energy production on a global level, by comparing the WF of the different energy production technologies. The consumptive WF of energy (electricity and heat), expressed as the total volume of water consumed over the supply chain of energy productions, contributes to the total global consumptive WF and
it is determined by three main factors: the total energy produced (that can be expressed in TJ/y), the energy mix (i.e. the relative contribution of different energy sources, each of them with a different WF), and the specific WF per unit of energy produced (m3/TJ) per energy source. Over the period 2000-2012, global electricity and heat production increased, and all the most commonly used energy scenarios foresee a growth of electricity production in the coming decades. For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects that global demand for electricity will grow faster than the demand for any other forms of final energy, although the growth rate differs between scenarios and depends on government policies related to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy efficiency, and energy security (IEA, 2012). With a foreseen increase in the electricity demand of over 70% between 2010 and 2035, over half in China (38%) and India (13%) alone (IEA, 2012), it can be expected that the total WF for energy production will rise accordingly with increased pressure on scarce freshwater resources. Since the average WF per unit of electricity produced is strongly linked to the production technology, the resulting WF of energy production will depend upon the trade-off between the energy mix, the emissions treatment systems, and the type of cooling technology used in different power plants. As stated in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published in 2014, “the increasing efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change
imply an increasing complexity of interactions, particularly at the intersections among water, energy, land use, and biodiversity.� Significant examples of actions that may have positive impacts on different sectors include improving energy efficiency and moving to cleaner energy sources, with the resulting direct effect of reducing emissions of both health-damaging and climate-altering gases. Although the benefits are being studied, managing the interactions among different sectors is an open issue. Given the limited availability of freshwater and the competitive uses of this resource, one of the crucial questions is whether and in what way the actions to limit the effects of climate change have an impact on the global water footprint. Going back to the implications of the water-energy nexus and considering the technologies available nowadays, a significant decrease in the consumptive Water Footprint of energy production can only be achieved through coordinated actions and innovation in the energy sector. Relevant results can be obtained through improvements in the field of energy efficiency as well as with a profound transformation from the current energy mix to cleaner energy sources. Within this framework, large energy companies that are implementing innovative technologies and best practices for water management play a key role in decreasing their own water footprint and, by setting an example, can lead us on the path towards a sustainable future.
The energy-water interdependencies are widely recognized and the topic is already an issue on the policy agenda and an integral part of the action plan of forward-looking energy players
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Reducing consumption Enel initiatives by Carlo Ferrara Renata Mele and Christian Zulberti Sustainability Enel Enel Foundation Enel Foundation
Improve resource management, reducing water consumption. This is the goal of Enel Group, which is committed to preserving ecosystems and water resources. The processes of energy production require the use of water from water sources mainly for cooling, desulfurization, and abatement of nitrogen oxides and dust produced during combustion processes. The overall requirements are generally covered through the withdrawal of surface freshwater, groundwater, from aqueducts, or by using sources such as sea water and wastewater arising from the selfsame manufacturing processes. Given the importance of water resources for local communities and the relevant ecosystems, it is necessary for the industrial sectors requiring large use of water, to aim at constantly improving the water resources management, undertaking reduction commitments, and openly communicating all the impacts and, consequently, the mitigation measures implemented. Therefore an accurate and reliable measurement of performance (e.g. specific consumption, pollution discharged in waste water) is needed for properly managing water resources, as well as the definition of policies, specific targets, insights and studies to outline possible future scenarios. 102
Considering this framework, the Enel Group set a goal for 2020 to reduce the total specific water consumption by 10% compared to the figures of 2010. For this purpose, specific systems and solutions have been developed for curbing the use of water resources in the industrial processes managed by the Group. In 2014, the overall consumption of water amounted to 185.9 million cubic meters, less than 2013 due to the decrease of thermal and nuclear production. The specific consumption in 2014 was 0.64 l/ kWh, consistent with the values of 2013, and confirming the reduction trend in accordance with the 2020 goal. It is also worth mentioning that 99% of the water used by the group is given back to the original reservoir, and only about 5% (7% in 2013) of the total energy production of the Group used and/or consumed freshwater coming from water-stressed areas. A special case of virtuous water management is the Fusina power plant, in which the water used for the closed-cycle cooling system comes from the urban and industrial water treatment plant of the local municipal company. On the other hand, other
Enel Group set a goal for 2020 to reduce the total specific water consumption by 10% compared to the figures of 2010
requirements, such as the open-cycle cooling, are covered without any actual consumption, through sea or river water taken and returned to the original body of water in the same amount, with unchanged chemical characteristics and minimal changes in terms of temperature (always within the limits set by the regulations in the countries where Enel operates). Moreover, Enel has also equipped the Brindisi and Torrevaldaliga Nord power plants with Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) crystallization systems, achieving a saving of over 600 t/h of water. ZLD is a system that allows a sustainable management of draining liquids of the desulfuration systems in thermal power plants, avoiding the discharge of these liquids into the sea at the end of treatment, in order to comply with the legal limits (Decree 152/2006) and allow to reuse the plant waste in the production process. The system adopts a series of solutions and technologies used to recover water in the desert areas, already applied on the evaporation towers of power plants far from the basins where waste is discharged. In these contexts, the waste liquids are pre-treated
and crystallized, and therefore produce distilled water of high quality, excellent for re-use: the salts produced with the crystallization can then be easily managed as non-hazardous solid waste. In order to transparently and comprehensively communicate its utilization of water resources and the measures implemented, Enel participates from 2013 in the CDP Water and was the first utility company in the world to implement a further assessment on the use of water resources with the tool Aqua Gauge, (developed by Ceres in collaboration with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development) so as to meet the needs of investors interested in understanding how companies manage their water resources and the risks related to them. Enel also carries out constant monitoring of all its production sites that are located in areas at risk of water scarcity in order to manage water resources in the most efficient way, both through a specific observation of these scarcity situations and with management aimed at maximizing the use of sea water and wastewater. 103
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Davide Coero Borga Emanuela Colombo Elena Comelli Ashley Cooper Barbara Corrao Paolo Costa Rocco Cotroneo Manlio F. Coviello George Coyne Paul Crutzen Brunello Cucinelli Roberto Da Rin Vittorio Da Rold Partha Dasgupta Marta Dassù Andrea De Benedetti Luca De Biase Mario De Caro Giulio De Leo Michele De Lucchi Gabriele Del Grande Domenico De Masi Ron Dembo Gennaro De Michele Andrea Di Benedetto Gianluca Diegoli Dario Di Vico Fabrizio Dragosei Peter Droege Riccardo Duranti Freeman Dyson Magdalena Echeverría Daniel Egnéus John Elkington Richard Ernst Daniel Esty Monica Fabris Carlo Falciola Alessandro Farruggia Antonio Ferrari Francesco Ferrari Paolo Ferrari Paolo Ferri Tim Flach Danielle Fong Stephen Frink Antonio Galdo Attilio Geroni Enrico Giovannini Louis Godart Marcos Gonzàlez Julia Goumen Monique Goyens Aldo Grasso Silvio Greco Maria Patrizia Grieco David Gross Sergei Guriev Julia Guther Giuseppe Guzzetti Jane Henley Søren Hermansen Thomas P. Hughes Jeffrey Inaba Christian Kaiser Sergei A. Karaganov George Kell Parag Khanna Sir David King
Mervyn E. King Tom Kington David Kirkpatrick Houda Ben Jannet Allal Hans Jurgen Köch Charles Landry David Lane Karel Lannoo Cecilia Laschi Manuela Lehnus Johan Lehrer Giovanni Lelli François Lenoir Jean Marc Lévy-Leblond Ignazio Licata Armin Linke Giuseppe Longo Arturo Lorenzoni L. Hunter Lovins Mindy Lubber Remo Lucchi Riccardo Luna Eric J. Lyman Tommaso Maccararo Paolo Magri Kishore Mahbubani Giovanni Malagò Renato Mannheimer Vittorio Marchis Carlo Marroni Peter Marsh Jeremy M. Martin Paolo Martinello Leonardo Martinelli Gregg Maryniak Massimiliano Mascolo Mark Maslin Tonia Mastrobuoni Marco Mathieu Ian McEwan John McNeill Daniela Mecenate Lorena Medel Joel Meyerowitz Stefano Micelli Paddy Mills Giovanni Minoli Marcella Miriello Antonio Moccaldi Renata Molho Maurizio Molinari Carmen Monforte Patrick Moore Luca Morena Javier Moreno Luis Alberto Moreno Leonardo Morlino Dambisa Moyo Geoff Mulgan Richard A. Muller Teresina Muñoz-Nájar Giorgio Napolitano Oriol Nel·lo Edoardo Nesi Ugo Nespolo Vanni Nisticò Nicola Nosengo Helga Nowotny Alexander Ochs
Robert Oerter Riccardo Oldani Alberto Oliverio Sheila Olmstead Vanessa Orco James Osborne Rajendra K. Pachauri Mario Pagliaro Francesco Paresce Luca Parmitano Vittorio Emanuele Parsi Claudio Pasqualetto Corrado Passera Alberto Pastore Darwin Pastorin Federica Pellegrini Gerardo Pelosi Shimon Peres Ignacio J. Pérez-Arriaga Matteo Pericoli Francesco Perrini Emanuele Perugini Carlo Petrini Telmo Pievani Tommaso Pincio Giuliano Pisapia Michelangelo Pistoletto Viviana Poletti Jason Pontin Giovanni Porzio Borja Prado Eulate Ludovico Pratesi Stefania Prestigiacomo Giovanni Previdi Antonio Preziosi Filippo Preziosi Vladimir Putin Alberto Quadrio Curzio Marco Rainò Virginie Raisson Federico Rampini Jorgen Randers Mario Rasetti Carlo Ratti Henri Revol Gabriele Riccardi Marco Ricotti Gianni Riotta Sergio Risaliti Roberto Rizzo Kevin Roberts Lew Robertson Kim Stanley Robinson Sara Romano Alexis Rosenfeld John Ross Marina Rossi Bunker Roy Jeffrey D. Sachs Paul Saffo Gerge Saliba Juan Manuel Santos Giulio Sapelli Tomàs Saraceno Saskia Sassen Antonella Scott Lucia Sgueglia Steven Shapin Clay Shirky
Konstantin Simonov Cameron Sinclair Uberto Siola Francesco Sisci Craig N. Smith Giuseppe Soda Antonio Sofi Donato Speroni Giorgio Squinzi Leena Srivastava Francesco Starace Robert Stavins Bruce Sterling Antonio Tajani Nassim Taleb Ian Tattersall Paola Tavella Viktor Terentiev Chicco Testa Wim Thomas S tephen Tindale Nathalie Tocci Jacopo Tondelli Chiara Tonelli Agostino Toscana Flavio Tosi Mario Tozzi Dmitri Trenin Licia Troisi Ilaria Turba Luis Alberto Urrea Andrea Vaccari Paolo Valentino Marco Valsania Giorgio Vasta Nick Veasey Matteo Vegetti Viktor Vekselberg Jules Verne Umberto Veronesi Alejo Vidal-Quadras George Vidor Daniela Vincenti Marta Vincenzi Alessandra Viola Mathis Wackernagel Gabrielle Walker Elin Williams Changhua Wu Kandeh K. Yumkella Anna Zafesova Stefano Zamagni Antonio Zanardi Landi Edoardo Zanchini Carl Zimmer
Testata registrata presso il tribunale di Torino Autorizzazione n. 76 del 16 luglio 2007 Iscrizione al Roc n. 16116
Printed in May 2015 at the Tipografia Facciotti, Roma
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FOOD IS ENERGY, ENERGY IS FOOD Faced with a distracted administration of resources, we have made sure we change the rules of the game which has been depleting the Earth and subjecting it to an increasing stress which it can no longer support. Over seven billion people are demanding more food and energy in an area that is getting increasingly smaller. But somehow food and energy are both the dilemma and the solution for the present and the future: efficient, intelligent, and reasoned management of both of them is the basis for beginning to rethink our development. Environmentalists, nutritionists, economists, businesses, and citizens have been talking about this for some time. Oxygen tells us about the projects and activities concerning the urban and energy revolution, ranging from the great revolutions of the production systems to small agricultural technologies, which are being spread through education in schools. This is occurring just as nations and governments are together in Milan, on the occasion of the Universal Exposition, to gather ideas and decisions about our future through food and energy. These are the two indispensable and interdependent gears with which to start up a new approach to ourselves and the planet we inhabit.