Six giants of the French supermarket and mass retail sector – Auchan, Casino, Carrefour, Conforama, Ikea and Leroy Merlin – have signed a deal to significantly increase river transport along the Rhone-Saone axis. Over the next two years, the six firms will shift around 81,600 tonnes of merchandise from road to river transport. This represents a 50 percent increase in river transport for the six, as well as a cut in CO2 emissions of 1,469 tonnes. Of the six, Auchan and Conforama have been pioneers in the field.

Leandre Boulez, Director General for import-export at Auchan, said: “We have been using river transport since 1995 for imported merchandise arriving at Fos, Le Havre and Anvers. For the past three years, it has accounted for two-thirds of our volume and it is stable. The costs are more or less identical to other modes of transport, and, with good planning, the time taken is scarcely any longer.” The initiative is part of a wider push to develop the Rhone river, which will receive 216 million euros in earmarked government funds through state-regional budgets for 2007-2013.

The port of Marseilles has forged strong links with the port of Lyons, which has become the biggest French port in the interior, with 59,000 containers using the rivier in 2007, up exponentially from 2,000 containers in 2000.

via Les Echos

photo courtesy of Flickr

Unveiled in Milan this April, Philippe Starck’s wind turbine is priced at 300-400 euros, looks like a cake beater, and is available in six different sizes. Attractive, affordable, and yard-ready, Starck claims that it can provide between 10-60 percent of a household’s energy needs.

via Ob Designer

courtesy of tofo59 via Flickr

What: a new Belgian study conducted over 18 months by Dirk Adang at the Catholic University of Louvain

How: Four groups of rats were studied – three were exposed to internationally acceptable levels of GSM electromagnetic fields (ie an average of 27 volts per metre), two hours a day, seven days a week.

Results: Exposed groups of rats had a mortality rate of 60 percent, compared with 29 percent for the non-exposed group.

Conclusions:

•  Out of a total of 124 rats, only 19 were autopsied. Of those, 16 or 17 died of tumors (neck, knee etc)
•  high mortality rate could be due to the assault on the immune system resulting from GSM exposure. Blood samples taken every three months showed an increase in white globules among the exposed rats.

Many Parisians are adapting to the spiraling cost of food, gas and housing with resourcefulness and creativity. Le Nouvel Obs Paris has a great round-up of all the latest trends in sustainable living which have evolved in response to the purchasing power deficit.

1.   House sharing – no longer restricted to rent-sharing among students and single young professionals, the trend has spread to familie  and often encompasses the communal house purchase. The trend is documented in a film to be released in July, called “Mes Amis, mes amours”, based on a novel by Marc Levy.

2.   Office-sharing – Consultants, free-lance artistic types, coaches etc are increasingly turning to space-sharing schemes like La Cantine, Bureaux Equipes and Multiburo.

3.   Networked shopping – In Paris and two suburbs, a fast-expanding group of some 300 families source their meat through an ex-Parisian based in the Mayenne who buys in bulk direct from breeders and redistributes through informal drop-off points in Paris. This kind of network often starts out among friends and then quickly spreads through word of mouth.

4.   Car-sharing - Caisse Commune, Mobizen and Okigo. 

5.   Car-pooling - 123envoiture. 

6.   Appliance repair shops – Business prospects look good for the diehards who retained their skills. Sovdam, 192-194 rue La Fayette, 75010. Mintode 19 rue de Pajol 75018. Aspi-Clinic 43, rue du Colisée 75008.

7. Used-clothing swaps – “Viens dans mon dressing” is a quarterly rendez-vous among fashionistas who get together to swap the treasures they have tired of. Myspace.com/viensdansmondressing or info@wishyouwill.biz.

“Soirées troc” are run by fashion bloggers out of private homes. See Charly, Mots De Mode and Caroline Daily.

8.  Cash-free economy – The SEL of Paris was first set up in 1996 as a neighbourhood association to enable the exchange of goods and services and promote solidarity. Each geographical unit is known as a “piaf” and the exchanges are organized through an accounting system which allows you to accumulate credits and debts up to a certain threshold. 

via Le SEL de Paris and  Le Nouvel Obs Paris

R is for rationing – a dirty word that everyone is avoiding, but which looms nonetheless as the unspoken sub-text of all public discourse on the current scarcity of resources – food, fossil fuels and water. It’s also referred to as demand management, if you like institutional gobbledygook.

Growing up in Hong Kong, I remember water rationing. The water was trucked over from China and the British army distributed it to households once a week. When resources are rationed, behaviour modification follows suit. Seen in that light, it might not be such a bad thing.

This month’s issue of La Decroissance has an interesting commentary on the subject: “What if rationing, fortuitously, instead of being a constraint which is imposed or even voluntarily agreed upon, became the opportunity to invent another type of society which is more respectful of nature and humans?” It points out that rationing already exists in a number of countries: water in Algeria and Jordan, electricity in Brazil, South Africa and Niger where big cities are plunged into darkness 12 hours a day and Cuba, where many essentials like rice, bread and soap are rationed.

Denis Baupin, deputy mayor of Paris and a member of the Green Party, has called for the creation of a kind of rationing card for fruit and vegetables which will allow low-income households to buy 40 euros worth of organic fruit and vegetables per month.

Yves Cochet, another Green deputy in Paris, said in a recent interview with Le Monde: “Politicians are afraid to address the subject of economizing energy, of saying ‘We have to tighten our belts’.” Energy descent is not articulated as a goal in the European Union objectives for climate change. Right now, the objectives are: by 2020, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent, renewable energies to account for 20 pct of production, and a 20 percent increase in energy efficiency.

via La Decroissance and Le Monde

Part of a wider movement to promote coherence in green building standards, France is pushing to ensure that its own standard, the HQE, becomes the norm in Europe. Haute Qualité Environnementale is an approach which uses 14 criteria for reducing consumption of natural resources and discharge of pollutants, as well as enhancing the comfort and health dimension of buildings. It focuses on the design and construction phases of renovation as well as new building projects. Certification is underwritten by the Paris-based Association pour la Haute Qualité Environnementale.

Alain Maugard, President of the Scientific and Technical Building Centre (CSTB), is lobbying for a Europe-wide adoption of the HQE standard. In an interview with Les Echos earlier this month, he noted that France’s HQE was among the world’s most advanced certification procedures.

 “Right now there is competition globally among the different certification “brands”. You have the North American label LEED, which is used in Canada and the USA….  the Japanese reference CASBEE, which seeks to be the leader in Asia, particularly in China, and the BREEAM (U.K.)”.

“What we are trying to do is to forge alliances with the UK and our other European colleagues, notably German, in order to define a certification which would permit convergence of all the technical references covering initiatives of environmental quality which respects local culture.”

In April, the CSTB of France and its UK counterpart the Building Research Establishment (BRE) announced the launch of a new organization called the Sustainable Building Alliance which aims to speed up the international adoption of sustainable building practices through the promotion of shared methods of building performance assessment and rating. Some 20 odd countries have expressed interest in taking part, and some of them are meeting in Stuttgart, Germany this week for discussions. The alliance is modelled on the concept of airline alliances and hopes to pursue an approach of providing transparency between building assessment rating systems, while recognizing the need for regional and national differences to be reflected within such systems.

via Les Echos

At a time when U.S. car manufacturers like Ford and General Motors are cutting production of large SUV’s and closing down truck and SUV plants across North America, France’s Renault has just rolled out a brand new iteration of the genre called the Koleos. Greenpeace was quick to denounce the vehicle as a “weapon of mass destruction of climate”. The NGO points out in a press release that this car – Renault’s first offering in the S.U.V. category – comes at a particularly unfortunate time in the current context of rising petrol prices - and notes that the average CO2 emissions of this vehicle is 209 grams/kilometer.

“The Koleos is the perfect example of what not to do,” said Anne Valette, head of the climate campaign at Greenpeace France. France and Germany struck a deal on June 9 to back the European Union’s ambition to limit CO2 emissions of all new cars to 120 g/km by 2012. 

Here’s an interesting letter from a reader published in this month’s issue of La Decroissance: hats off to the gentleman in question for walking the talk!

“I’m 52 years old and on April 11^th I resigned from the multinational Michelin of my own free will. I was involved in the manufacturing of a part of the tyres for automobile racing, including Formula 1, which generates huge amounts of waste. For a firm which supports sustainable development, is it vital for humanity to take a car, to go around in circles on a circuit, to waste petrol and raw materials to come first and to gain a few seconds? My naturalist philosophy and my sense of morals have stopped me from continuing to be complicit in the destruction of life on Earth. 

I am proud, happy to have taken this decision, I am a free man, I am responsible for my decision. I love profoundly my Puy de Dome, the birds, life in all its forms, I will confront my destiny. I know the end of my story. Philippe Avel, Blanzat (Puy-de-Dome)”

George Monbiot in his book “Heat” puts it best: “The speed and acceleration of our cars is a form of profligacy at which all future generations will goggle.”

A collective workspace called La Ruche (”beehive” in French) has just opened its doors to host social entrepreneurs in the heart of the Canal Saint Martin in Paris. Home to some 20-odd entrepreneurs on a membership basis at present, the attractively renovated open space will ultimately welcome 60 entrepreneurs when renovation is completed in the autumn, as well as provide space for events on social innovation and a Bistro Equitable open to the public serving fair-trade produce.

But what is a social entrepreneur? I had no idea there were so many definitions. Some say it’s an entrepreneur who is driven in equal part by desire for social change and profit. Others call it charity’s Web 2.0. Author Paul Hawken says it “refers to activists who use entrepreneurial methods to address systemic social problems”. The Skoll Foundation defines it as “society’s change agent: a pioneer of innovation that benefits humanity”. Wikipedia says: “A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to make social change”.

Definitions aside, there is no doubt that this is a fast-growing sector whose influence on the for-profit world far outweighs the scant attention it receives in the media. As La Ruche co-founder Charlotte Hochman puts it: “This is a shop window for what’s coming next.” Not surprisingly, La Ruche has been nurtured from the outset by two of France’s leading business schools, Essec and Insead. Similar workspaces in other countries include the Hub in London and Toronto’s Centre for Social Innovation.

How does it work? Like a gym membership. You rent full-time or part-time access to the space and services. “It’s more a place to meet than anything else,” Hochman told me, adding that demand for the space has already outstripped availability. Right now there are 20 odd entrepreneurs working on projects ranging from a recruitment agency dedicated to cultural diversity, a business which is developing alternatives to detergent and one which focuses on balancing the work and personal sphere from an organisation’s point of view. When the renovation is completed this autumn, there will be a total capacity of around 60 entrepreneurs.

The founders are setting up a steering committee to filter selection for the next round, using selection criteria such as a project’s potential social impact, its financial autonomy as well as a balance between eco-innovation and social innovation. Half of the 1400-square-metre space will be for entrepreneurs, and the other half will be used to organise events around social innovation, as well as a fairtrade café-bistrot and common spaces for social entrepreneurs.

Hochman says “demand for a place for social innovation is huge in France” and notes that she has already received requests to open similar spaces in the provinces.

Here’s a video from Bill Drayton, one of the pioneers of the social entrepreneurship movement and the founder of Ashoka. Arnaud Mourot, who is director of Ashoka France, is also president and a co-founder of La Ruche.

Apur, the City Planning Agency of Paris, has released a detailed study of greenhouse gas emissions in Paris based on different heating systems used in the residences and buildings across the French capital. 

The two-year study looked at the Parisian housing stock (96,000 buildings) and established a diagnosis of energy performance and greenhouse gas emissions caused by heating. The energy consumption of primary residences in Paris is 247 kWh/m2/year of which 167 kWh/m2/year goes on heating.  In total, carbon emissions per inhabitant are 338 kg per year for heating in Paris.

The 16th arrondissement is the biggest offender in Paris when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions per resident. This is partly because the predominant late 19th century Haussmann era buildings were initially fitted with collective coal-fired heating systems and today these buildings are heated with oil-fired systems, which produce the most greenhouse gases. In addition, most apartments in the 16th are bigger than average. 

“It is clear that we should encourage the building managers of the 16th to connect their collective heating systems to the network of the CPCU (Compagnie parisienne de chauffage urbain) which is fuelled by household waste incinerators,” André-Marie Bourlon, deputy director of Apur, told Le Figaro. Furthermore, under the Parisian Plan on Climate Change adopted last October, this network will shift to burning biomass in the coming years. Under the Plan Climat for Paris, greenhouse gas emissions will be cut by 30 percent between now and 2020, and 75 percent by 2050 compared with 2004.

In Paris, pre-Haussmann era buildings emit fewer greenhouse gases than those built during the 20th century, which use a lot of concrete and glass - materials which favour heat loss. The older buildings are usually heated individually by gas or electricity, allowing residents to control their own consumption. For instance, many single residents of studios in older buildings tend to turn off the heating during the night.

The study recommends a range of measures: insulation, in particular the replacement of windows (using low emission double glazing); the use of biomass in the Parisian municipal heating system, and education of municipal heating customers through the individualisation of charges.

via Le Figaro

The Sainte-Genevieve Library in the Latin Quarter in Paris has just become the fifth library in the French capital to shut down its wi-fi because of health concerns. The library’s director took the decision in response to complaints from an employee who claimed to be suffering from “violent symptoms” which he attributed to prolonged over-exposure to the electromagnetic fields.

Le Parisien reported this week that the library has convened an extraordinary health and safety committeet to study the issue in conjunction with the Ministry for Higher Education and Research. Four other libraries, including the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, took the same decision last autumn of similar concerns and they still have not switched their wi-fi network back on. 

Robin des Toits is a French NGO which focuses on the potential health risks of wireless technology.

This issue is gathering momentum in Europe (Germany, Austria and Belgium have all advised schools against installing wi-fi networks). BBB Panorama in Britain ran a controversial documentary in Feburary this year looking at the health risks for wi-fi networks in schools.

via Le Parisien