At Lands End

Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler prototypes Integration of Building Energy Analysis with Green Building Studio

Check out this awesome prototype of selecting a building in AIM and displaying its Energy Utilization Intensity, Annual Energy Cost, and Annual Carbon Emissions using Autodesk Green Building Studio in concert wit AIM.

More on the Building Performance Analysis blog!

You Get. We Give.

Team up with Autodesk and Engineers Without Borders USA to improve the lives of people around the world. When you sign up for a free Autodesk® 360 account, Autodesk will give US$1 to Engineers Without Borders USA. Autodesk is committed to giving up to $30,000, so sign up soon, and get your colleagues to sign up as well, to ensure we maximize Autodesk’s contribution.

You get. We give. Everyone wins.

You get Autodesk 360—a cloud-based platform that gives you access to storage, a collaboration workspace, and cloud services to help you dramatically improve the way you design, visualize, simulate, and share your work with others anytime, anywhere.

Autodesk gives to Engineers Without Borders USA—a non-profit humanitarian organization dedicated to partnering with developing communities around the world. EWB-USA works to build a world in which all communities have the capacity to meet their basic human needs, addressing challenges including water purifications and delivery, sanitation, transportation and infrastructure projects, and sustainable and renewable energy systems.

Sign-up Now (please use this link): http://youget-wegive.com/?var=var-036

Infrastructure Modeler helps plan Otsuchi-town tsunami recovery

I was very excited to find that one of my colleagues worked with Autodesk partners to use Infrastructure Modeler to help with the Japanese 2011 tsunami recovery effort in Otsuchi Japan.  For a graphic description of some of the devastation that happened in Otsuchi, take a look at this blog from a northern Californian who visited to help with the relief effort.

Infrastructure Modeler was used to help show how high different parts of the town would have to be filled in and reconstructed to safeguard against future earthquake and tsunami events.  Approximately 50% of the town was destroyed by a surge that crested tsunami blocking walls and swept inland by at least 2 km.

Autodesk staff worked with Engineers from the Iwate Digital Engineer Training Center to help build 3D models that could demonstrate the recovery plans in a visual medium that was understandable by town officials and citizens.

Read the translated PDF success story here

Infrastructure Modeler screen shot showing planning details within a 3D model of the Otsuchi area 

Infrastructure Modeler screen shot showing planning details in another view of the Otsuchi model 

The devastation to the lives and property of the town of Otsuchi is terrible and we're really glad that Infrastructure Modeler can help the town plan for a safer future.

Blast injuries in Congo preventable through urban planning?

If you heard about the blast in Congo, here's something to consider. High density, unconstrained growth in developing countries can have disastrous consequences when citizens are packed in near hazardous sites.  In this case, an arms depot that was in empty space a few years ago is now surrounded by poor quality, high density housing. 

This article offers a more indepth perspective on the need for urban design in the developing world.  Interesting read.

It's the responsibility of governments to not only build sustainably and efficiently, but also to avoid placing citizens in harm's way.  It's the responsibility of service providers, vendors, and those who support governments to educate them about the tools that can help!

New infographic from CDP on the importance of Cities in the fight against climate change

Did you know that 92% of cities report that they are at risk due to climate change?

Check out this great new graphic from the Carbon Disclosure Project Cities program.  CDP Cities is the first global program attempting to capture self-reported information on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change from the cities where you live and work!

Find out more information at the CDP Cities website.

 

Webinar: Top Ten Tips for Responding to CDP Cities: From the Experts

CDP Cities webinar

Top Ten Tips for Responding to CDP Cities: From the Experts
Join the CDP Cities team and responding organizations to learn tips and tricks for responding to CDP. This webinar will highlight the strategies that some of the companies and cities which respond to CDP use to construct their responses and build support internally and externally. There will also be an opportunity for participating cities to ask questions and trade ideas on reporting.

Featuring

• Ben Thompson, Sustainable Business Program Manager, Sustainability Living Lab, Autodesk
• Jonathan Dickinson, Senior Policy Advisor, New York City

This webinar will take place via Webex on
Wednesday 1st February at the following times:
0800 Los Angeles / 1100 New York / 1300 Buenos Aires / 1600 London
If you are interested in attending this free webinar, please register here.

Carbon Disclosure Project
40 Bowling Green Lane
London EC1R 0NE
United Kingdom

www.cdproject.net

T: +44 (0)20 7970 5660 | +44 (0)20 7970 5675

CDP Cities provides a platform for city governments to report their greenhouse gas emissions and other climate change related information to the public. Last year, 48 global cities—including
29 of the largest cities in the world—made use of CDP’s platform. CDP’s platform is open to any city government, regardless of size.

40 Bowling Green Lane, London EC1R 0NE, United Kingdom | Registered Charity no. 1122330

 

 

Carbon Disclosure Project Wins Zayed Future Energy Prize

"You have to measure it to manage it to measure it."

That was the message declared loudly by Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, to attendees at the C40 Cities Summit in Sao Paulo last June.  Following 2010, a year that saw the biggest estimated carbon dioxide emissions jump ever, many other voices around the globe also proclaimed this message as leaders and citizens became increasingly concerned about our society's inability to address environmentally responsible growth and infrastructure management.  Cities and organizations are seeing the impacts of climate change, but without a global source for reliable data on carbon emissions, the leading human-caused contributor to climate change, it is difficult, if not impossible, to measure the effects of efforts to reduce carbon emissions. 

The Carbon Disclosure Project has been showing the way by demonstrating the power of measuring carbon emissions information as a measure of risk to corporations for over 10 years.  CDP currently receives reported carbon emissions from 3700+ corporations around the globe that collectively hold $71 trillion in assets.

Last year, in partnership with Autodesk and others, CDP launched a program for monitoring carbon emissions reported by cities.  We're hoping to see the Cities program achieve the same scale of success that has been achieved by the investor program.  (Note that the 2012 information request is open... encourage the cities where you live and work to participate!!)

As I've had the fortune to be working closely with CDP Cities over the last 2 years, I'm pleased to report that CDP has won the prestigious Zayed Future Energy Prize in recognition of the organization's contributions to addressing climate change.  This prize brings CDP well deserved recognition in addition to a monetary reward that will go far to support the non-profit organization's growth.

Congratulations to all the great folks at CDP who made this happen!

How can you help?  CDP Cities is actively seeking information from more cities for the 2012 report.  The 2012 information request is open and CDP can use your help to encourage the cities where you work and live to report carbon emissions to this growing body of invaluable data that can help us chart the best solutions for management and growth to help reduce and protect against climate change!

2nd Annual Carbon Disclosure Project Cities Questionnaire Launched!

As many of you know, one of the sustainability-oriented programs that Autodesk partners with is the Carbon Disclosure Project Cities Program.  Last year we saw fantastic interest from the C40 cities and affiliates, with some important additional volunteer cities contributing carbon emissions data plus information about climate change-related strategies, risks, and opportunities.  

This year, at a time when we've just hit 7 billion people on the planet, CDP is expanding their questionnaire to the 150 most populous cities.  Additional cities are welcome to report their carbon emissions data and will benefit from seeing their name and information displayed and summarized right alongside data from the largest cities in the world.

What can you do?  You can:

• Encourage your city to report data to the CDP Cities 2012 program

• Spread the word on twitter, LinkedIn and other social media sites

• Read the 2011 report and tell us what factoids you'd like to hear about in the 2012 report that comes out next spring

Some statistics for you...

• 7 billion people exhale approximately 7 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide per day
• It would take almost 222 years to read the name of every person alive today at a rate of one per second
• If we were to line people up on all 46,000 miles of US highways, the US highway system would be covered by a line of people end-to-end and 28 people across (assuming people are no thicker than a foot...)
• If every person was an average American, we would consume 7010 million cubic yards of water per day
• If every person was an average African, we would consume 201 million cubic yards of water per day
• There are approximately 534 million US tons of humans on the planet
• If we all stood on top of each other (like Yertle's poor minions) we would stretch to reach 1x10^-6 light years.  That's approximately 8% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun.  Nuts.
• Those alive today will collectively experience almost 500 billion years of human experience. 
• If every person consumed bottled water at the rate of US consumers, all 7 billion of us would consume 1.1 trillion (10¹²!) bottles of water per year equalling almost 14 million tons of plastic (estimating with 16 ounce bottles that each weigh approx. 12 grams when empty).

(If anyone finds any errors in my calculations, let me know...)

 

Carbon Disclosure Project webinar: Business case for C reporting

The Carbon Disclosure Project, a non-governmental organization that we sponsor and partner with on a cities-focused Carbon reporting platform, is hosting a webinar discussing the case for disclosing Carbon emissions for Cities and Companies.

Speakers

Sarah Nicholls, LEED Green Associate, Corporate Consultant, Jones Lang LaSalle
Jen Hawes-Hewitt, Manager, Global Strategy - Intelligent Cities, Accenture
Mark Bennett, Green Business Officer, Dublin City Council

This webinar will take place via Webex on Thursday 20th October at the following times:
0800 London / 0900 Europe / 1600 Tokyo and
1600 London / 1100 New York / 0800 San Francisco

Please RSVP and attend if you are interested.

Simple Line-of-Sight Selections in Infrastructure Modeler

The selection tools in Autodesk Infrastructure Modeler allow you to highlight and select assets in a variety of ways.  One of the tools that is available to the user is a visual line of sight selection tool.  Visual line of sight is possible in two ways:

• Selection on the view by using the Window Select tool

• Selection by using the Select All Visible menu tool

As in my last post, I'm going to make sure that the tip today get's the most use possible and refer you to a new page I created on the Infrastructure Modeler WIKIHelp:

Click here to view the steps on how to perform view selection

But you can see in this image that from a particular vantage point within a large area, I was able to easily generate two different selection sets based on a users point of view and a simple asset change to the city: