Sustainable Business

Greetings from the ACS Victorian Branch 2009 Conference where Rob Gell BSc (Hons) FRGS FEIANZ, a coastal geomorphologist , is talking on "Sustainable Business". He mentioned the "tragedy of the commons" and discussed climate change science. This was useful sobering material for a usually hype-filled ICT industry.

The indicators are slowly lining-up. The way we have been doing business for the last fifty years seems to have served us well but there is now a sense that "business as usual" may not achieve the outcomes we would wish in the future.
The concept of sustainability is now part of everyday dialogue, but what does a sustainable future really mean? How far beyond "business as usual" will we need to move in order to leave a planetary inheritance we would be truly proud of?

Dr Robert Argent, Bureau of Meteorology and Vice-Chair, IFIP WG5.11, Computers and Environment is then talking on "Mixing Water and Computers: The Australian Water Resources Information System":

In 2007 the Bureau of Meteorology was charged with collecting, holding, managing, interpreting and disseminating Australia's water information. These functions require the Bureau to ingest water levels, volumes, ownership, trades, uses, quality and restrictions from over 250 organisations across the country; to harmonise and check these data; to augment, analyse and report, and then to deliver data and value-added information to the Australian public. To achieve this, the Australian Water Resources Information System (AWRIS) is being developed as a world-first system for end-to-end management of our water data. This presentation will cover AWRIS development to date, and highlight business and IT design and development challenges and solutions.

Later in the day I am talking on "Learning to lower costs and carbon emissions with ICT".