European Commission

Indicator No. 1 – Local contribution to global climate change.

Expert: Mr. Chris Bremmer, Head of Market Group, TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Chris Bremmer is Manger of the Business Line “Sustainable Cities” at TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research. He holds an MSc in Geosciences with 21 years experience of environmental and geoscience studies for industry and National and European governments. He is currently responsible for TNO’s programme ‘Sustainable Cities’ which includes national and international strategic studies and innovation projects related to emissions and air quality monitoring, water technology, Life-cycle assessments and climate adaptation and mitigation, focusing on the Built Environment.

Indicator No. 2 – Local transport.

Expert: Dr. Henrik Gudmundsson, Senior Researcher, Department of Transport, Technical University of Denmark.

Henrik Gudmundsson has been a Senior Researcher in Sustainable Transport at the Technical University of Denmark since 2006. He is educated as Environmental planner and has a PhD in Business Economics from Copenhagen Business School. His main area of research is sustainable transport policy analysis, including the use of knowledge and indicators in the design, implementation and monitoring of transport policies and plans. Henrik is the National Principle Contact Point (PCP) on transport indicators in Denmark for the European Environment Agency (EEA), and a member of the scientific advisory board for the Swedish government’s Transport Analysis agency. Henrik is currently involved in five major research projects, two of which are funded by the 7th Framework Program of the European Union. He is a member the Committees on ‘Performance Measurement’ and ‘Transportation and Sustainability’ of the US Transportation Research Board. Before assuming his current position Henrik has been involved in State of the Environment Reporting for Denmark at the National Environmental Research Institute (1993- 2006) and prior to that he was a Head of Section in the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (1988-2003)

Indicator No. 3 – Green Urban areas Incorporating Sustainable land use.

Expert: Ms Ir. Hedwig van Delden, Director, Research Institute for Knowledge Systems (RIKS), Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Hedwig van Delden is the General Director of the Research Institute for Knowledge Systems (RIKS) in Maastricht, the Netherlands. After graduating from the University of Twente as a Civil Engineer in Water Engineering and Management, she started working at RIKS as a Policy Analyst and in the following years gradually rose to the position of General Director. Over the years she has taken on many roles ranging from Researcher to Project Manager and Project Leader working on integrating models and modeling tools from a broad range of fields such as land use change, hydrology, economics and transport.
Her academic work focuses on issues relating to model integration on the conceptual level and process management in integrated modeling system implementations. In this capacity she has authored or co-authored a long list of peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Her most recent conference presentations were at the International Environmental Modelling and Software Societies Fifth Biennial Meeting in Ottawa, Canada and the International Conference on managing the Urban Rural interface in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Indicator No. 4 – Nature and biodiversity.

Expert: Mr Stamatis Chondrogiannis, Expert, Commission on Ecosystem Management, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Greece.

Stamatis Chondrogiannis is an architect and town planner. He has designed many “green” projects such as schools, museums, theaters as well as private housing and alternative tourism resorts.  In his town planning projects he investigated the relation between built space and nature and the adaptation of big public works, such as roads, harbors and waste treatment installations to their natural environment.  He prepared co-planning programs for the management of environmentally sensitive areas, e.g. the biotopes of the sea turtle and the monk seal in Western Greece.
He is involved with projects on monuments of cultural and architectural inheritance in Greece, Turkey and Egypt, also concerning their connection with their natural environment, working closely with local and central government authorities as well as with universities, institutes and other organizations.  He carried out programs for Greenpeace and WWF. He is a member of the Commission on Ecosystem Management of IUCN (The International Union for the Conservation of Nature).

Indicator No. 5 – Quality of local ambient air.

Expert: Dr Steen Solvang Jensen is Senior Scientist, PhD at the Department of Environmental Science, Science Group of Air Quality Modelling at Aarhus University in Denmark.

He is a civil engineer with sepcialisation in planning with 22 years experience within traffic planning and urban air quality assessment and management. He has worked as project manager within research, Consultancy and administration, and has acted as an advisor for the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and international development agencies. His main experience is within research and development of integrated modelling systems for air pollution and human exposures for application in decision-support systems in urban air quality management and in air pollution epidemiological studies. These studies include mapping, impact assessment, scenario analysis, and policy options within emission, air quality, human exposures, health and external costs of air pollution as well as environmental impacts of renewable energy systems and technologies (hydrogen, biofuels, biomass).

He has published 27 peer reviewed journal articles; 2 contributions to books; 72 presentations at international conferences and seminars, 46 proceedings and other scientific papers; 51 consultancy reports, 34 popular articles & reports; and 29 popular presentations.

Indicator No. 6 – Noise pollution.

Expert: Mr. J. Luis Bento-Coelho, Professor, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal.

J. Luis Bento Coelho is an Electrical Engineer with a MSc. and a PhD. in Acoustics and is a Fellow of the International Institute of Acoustics and Vibration (IIAV). He is a Professor of Acoustics at Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST), TULisbon, Portugal, where he is the Head of the Group of Acoustics and Noise Control and the Director of the Diploma on Advances Studies on Acoustical Engineering post-graduate course. He is the Immediate Past President of the IIAV, is a member of the Expert Panel on Noise (EpoN) of the European Environmental Agency and a member of the EU-CNOSSOS Technical Committee. He is a Chartered Acoustical Engineer with a large experience on environmental noise, transportation noise and urban acoustics. He has been involved with noise mapping and action plans, being responsible for projects in large cities in Portugal and in Brazil, and for many transport infra-structures. He has published more than 200 technical and scientific papers, is the author of a chapter in the “Handbook of Acoustics & Vibration Control” (John Wiley & Sons, 2007) and is the co-author of a number of recent international technical reports.

Indicator No. 7 – Waste Production and management.

Expert: Mr. Larry O’Toole, Director, Waste and Energy Division, RPS Consulting Engineers, Dublin, Ireland.

Larry O’Toole is Director of the Waste and Energy Division at RPS Consulting Engineers. He is a Chartered Civil Engineer with 24 years experience of civil and environmental engineering and waste strategy and planning in Ireland and in the UK. He has been Project Manager for a broad range of waste and energy projects and is currently responsible for a team of engineers, scientists and waste planners providing a wide range of services to both the public and private sectors in UK and Ireland. These include national strategic studies, regional waste plans, siting studies, feasibility, design and procurement of recycling, recovery and disposal facilities and renewable energy projects including wind energy, anaerobic digestion and biofuels.
He is a chartered member of Engineers Ireland and was invited to presented on “Integrated Waste Management and Climate Change” at International Conference on Cities and Climate Change, New Delhi, India, Feb 2011.

Indicator No. 8 – Water consumption.

Expert: Mr. Giovanni Bidoglio, Head of Rural, Water and Ecosystem Resources Unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Italy.

Giovanni Bidoglio is Head of Unit at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission where he provides science-based support to the implementation of EU Directives and Action Plans related to water resources, nature, regional and agricultural policies, and he interfaces research networks with EU policy making. His research interests include the sustainable management of water and ecosystem resources, assessing of impacts of agri-environmental and rural development measures, mapping of ecosystem services, modelling of bio-geochemical fate and hydrological processes of pollutants, environmental risk assessment and environmental monitoring. His previous work included research on soil and groundwater protection and greenhouse gas emissions from natural ecosystems. He is member of various advisory boards and has published widely in the scientific press.

Indicator No. 9 – Waste water treatment.

Expert: Ms Eduarda Beja Neves, Principal Researcher, Hydraulic and Environment Department, National Laboratory of Civil Engineering, Lisbon, Portugal.

Eduarda Beja Neves is Senior Researcher at the Environment and Water Department of the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering in Lisbon, Portugal (since 2003). She graduated in Chemical Engineering (1976) and specialized in Sanitary Engineering (1977). From 1986 to 1990, she got her PhD at Purdue University Civil Engineering School (environment department) (USA). From1995 to 1999 she was Associate Professor at the Civil Engineering Department of Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon where she graduated. Her research interests include water quality, water and wastewater treatment, performance indicators for urban waste services and, more recently, strategic environmental assessment, and water governance (in a changing world). She is author and co-author of a significant number of a broad range of publications including Technical Reports, Communications and Papers (to national and international meetings), Articles in books and in journals, Books, and Technical Advices.
She is Member and current Vice-President of the Water Resources Portuguese Association (APRH), she is Member of the Sanitary and Environmental Engineering Portuguese Association (APESB), and Member of the Engineers Professional Association, both under the Chemical Engineering and the Environmental Engineering Colleges.

Indicator No. 10 – Eco-innovation and sustainable employment.

Expert: Mr. Lars Mortensen, Head of Group, Sustainable Consumption & Production and Waste, European Environment Agency, Denmark.

Lars Fogh Mortensen has since 2006 been heading the work of the European Environment Agency (EEA) on sustainable consumption and production, including resource use and waste. His current responsibilities include providing analytical inputs to the EU road map on resource efficiency, the review of the EU action plan on sustainable consumption and production (including eco-innovation), various EU waste directives and to the EU and UN policy processes on green economy towards Rio+20. Previously, his responsibilities in the EEA included integrated environmental assessments, policy effectiveness evaluations and sustainable consumption. He is a trained economist from the University of Copenhagen and has over 15 years of experience on analytical and policy aspects of sustainable development from various international organisations. Prior to joining the EEA in 2003, Lars has worked at the OECD Environment Directorate, the secretariat of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, the Danish Ministry of Environment and the European Topic Centre on Waste and Material Flows.
Lars has written and co-written a large number of reports and articles on various aspects of sustainable development. Highlights include the 2010 EEA assessment on consumption and the environment; the 2005 EEA report on household consumption and the environment; the 2001 OECD environmental outlook; the 2001 OECD environment strategy; the 1998 UN report on measuring sustainable consumption and production; and the 1995 UN report on indicators of sustainable development. He regularly makes keynotes and presentations on various aspects of sustainable development sustainable consumption and production, and he currently sits in various European and global advisory boards and panels.

Indicator No. 11 – Environmental management of the local authority.

Expert: Ms Maria Berrini, Director, Ambiente Italia, Milan, Italy.

Born in Milan in 1956, she graduated in architecture at Politecnico di Milano. From 1981 she worked as a consultant, previously with Cooperativa Ecologia and then with Ambiente Italia of which she is President since the foundation. She coordinated dozens of European projects and hundreds of professional activities on local sustainability and environmental planning, spatial assessment, urban indicators, integrated environmental management. She has been for ten years the Italian member of the “Urban Environment Experts” Group of the European Commission and speaker in all conferences organized by the European Sustainable Cities Campaign. Since 2008 she is a member of the evaluation panel for the European Green Capital Award. In 2009 she was elected to the Board of Architects of Milan. Since 2011 she is a member of the Expert Group for the Reference Framework for Sustainable Cities and has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Green Building Council Italy. She cared the exhibition and the catalogue “Green Life, build sustainable cities” (2010 La Triennale, Milan), co-author of  “European Common Indicators“ (DGENV 2003); “Ensuring quality of life in Europe’s cities and towns” (EEA, 2009) and “Measuring urban sustainability” (CE –DGENV, 2010).

Indicator No. 12 – Energy performance.

Expert: Mr. Per Berg, Professor in Landscape planning with a special focus on Sustainable Community Development at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala.

Per G. Berg is professor in Landscape Planning with a special focus on Sustainable Community Development in Urban and Rural settings. He has been Research Director for local community studies in 11 cities in the Baltic Sea region for 20 years and is at present investigating functional densification in Swedish townscapes in three cities. He has recently taken the initiative to study Sustainable Cities in a Research consortium including 12 European cities from north-Eastern St Petersburg to Southern Milan as a lead partner in a FP7 EU application currently under full evaluation. The Research of sustainable cities and local communities is done theoretically drawing from the cutting-edge policy documents of the UN Habitat agenda, in practical case studies and in leading a practical implementation project in Uppsala Sweden. With a background in Biology and Chemistry he has for 30 years had a particular interest in renewable energy issues.
Per G. Berg is member of the ICE Engineering Sustainability Journal and Journal of Environmental Quality Editorial Advisory Board and currently organiser of the 4th international landscape architecture conference in St. Petersburg in June 2011.

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