Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the future to be developed over a former military area. The subsequent year, in
1995, the City Council recognized the Forum Vauban, as a subject partner to the
table for the participatory design of the new district. The project development and
implementation lasted year sand involved individuals, committees, companies,
political
parties
and
resulted
in
a
huge
variety
of
initiatives
and
concrete
achievements.
Returning to the main analysis, an idea or a principle can be actively shared
through the Fair Trade Groups
4
(FTO) (Saroldi
2001
; Montagnini and Reggiani
2010
; Rossi and Brunori
2011
), increasingly popular organizations of consumers.
Such organizations are now extended to other spheres business, as will be
explained with regard to smart energy, buying groups tout-court, ''that may not
have ethical implications, but are just a tool, but it is also important the reference
to the importance of social and human relations or the connection with the envi-
ronment or with the traditions of farming and food''.
The criteria that guide the selection of suppliers (although different from group
to group) generally are (Saroldi
2008
): product quality, dignity of labour, respect
for the environment. In general, the groups (Valera
2005
) also pose great attention
to local products, organic foods or equivalent and packing. Secondarily, but
equally fundamental, is the reference to the importance of social and human
relations or the connection with the environment or with the farming and food
traditions.
In the constitutional document of the FTO, the basic principles are environ-
mentally friendship, solidarity, equity and sharing. The structure of the FTO is
highly flexible and articulated.
In the wide panorama of FTO there are very different associations leading to
different interpretations. Organising procurement and internal communications is
equally variable, for example, related to the number or type of participants, place,
or the choices of the Organisation. Often purchasing goods FTO use software
created specifically to manage the collective orders (FTO management software).
The purchasing FTO in general is a set of consumers who purchase a particular
type of goods (usually food, but not only) directly from the manufacturer without
going through intermediation, such as shops or wholesalers that drive up the final
price of the product.
The ADDRESS
5
Project (Active Distribution network with full integration of
Demand and distributed energy RESourceS) outlined in Petroni (
2011
) is a large
scale European project in Framework Program 7 in the area ''Energy'' for the
development of active electrical energy distribution grids. The project started in
2008 and lasted 4 years, ending in may 2013.
Coordinated by ENEL,
6
the Italian electricity distributor, the ADDRESS Pro-
ject was carried out by 25 partners of 11 European countries: universities, research
4
Constitutional document FTO in Italy—
http://www.retegas.org/
.
In Europe the association of
some Fair Trade Groups can be found at
www.urgenci.net
.
5
6
