The WWF had the life cycle assessment specialist ESU-services calculate the greenhouse gas emissions of seven different eating styles. The results show: The more plant-based instead of animal-based products, the better for the climate. A protein junkie with his high consumption of meat, dairy products and eggs causes the equivalent of 2,350 kg of CO2 per year. This corresponds to around 11,700 car kilometers (for comparison: according to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, the Swiss population drives an average of almost 10,000 kilometers per capita and year by car). The vegan, on the other hand, who eats exclusively vegetable proteins, causes just half that amount (5,600 car kilometers) with 1,124 kg of CO2.

Animal products should be exception
"Anyone who enriches their menu with vegetarian dishes and enjoys meat and dairy products as something special is doing a lot of good for the environment," says Christoph Meili, life cycle assessment expert at WWF Switzerland. This is also borne out by the results of the flexitarian, whose consumption is in line with the recommendation of the Swiss Society for Nutrition (for meat eaters, two to three times a week is sufficient from a health point of view). He manages to cause only 1,495 kg of CO2 with the food he consumes.

Increase awareness
On average, animal proteins are responsible for half of the environmental pollution caused by food. The less of them, the better for the climate. "Many Swiss people are not aware of the greater impact of animal products." This is also evidenced by FOEN's 2015 representative survey, in which respondents incorrectly rated reduced meat consumption as the least effective. "For the reduction of our ecological footprint, it is crucial that consumers become more aware of environmentally friendly products," Meili emphasizes.

The study examined the food groups beverages, fats and oils, vegetable proteins, animal proteins, cereal products, meat and fish, vegetables and fruits. The transport, distribution and packaging of the foods were also taken into account. Not included in the analysis were home transportation, cooking and refrigeration in the home, and any health and medical aspects.

To the complete study

The ZbW Board has elected Andreas Schubiger, current Deputy Director, as the new Director of the ZbW. Andreas Schubiger will assume overall responsibility as of January 1, 2017.

The SVEB congratulates Andreas Schubiger on his new challenge. As a proven (further) training expert, Andreas Schubiger closely accompanies the area of training of trainers at SVEB. On the one hand, he has been President of the Commission for Quality Assurance since 2009 and is thus responsible for all three levels of the AdA modular system. On the other hand, he is a member of the Swiss Commission for the Training of Trainers.
http://www.alice.ch

ICTSwitzerland turned over about CHF 1.4 million last year and is sitting on cash and cash equivalents of CHF 700,000.

ICT Vocational Training Switzerland, launched by ICTSwitzerland six years ago, is a positive innovation story. As Managing Director Jörg Aebischer pointed out at the association's delegates' meeting this year, the number of apprenticeships has increased by 37 percent since 2007. ICT vocational training has established itself in the federal vocational training commission in a relatively short time.

ICTSwitzerland has succeeded in staging the vocational championship as a big show at Zurich's main station and in raising the necessary money for it. Therefore, the association can be said to have some influence on education. Alain Gut, who heads the association's Education Commission, says that the implementation of Curriculum 21 in the cantons will be closely monitored.

There is now an urgent need for an e-learning platform for teacher professional development, Gut said.

Noser's successor

Ruedi Noser's successor as president of ICTSwitzerland will not have an easy time maintaining the status quo - because the once loose association was only able to establish itself as an umbrella organization under Noser. Noser and his people also succeeded well in keeping the budget together.

ICTSwitzerland turned over about CHF 1.4 million last year and is sitting on cash and cash equivalents of CHF 700,000.

The association has given the first major push to vocational training, launched some important topics (education, digitalization, Ü45, Switzerland as ICT export country), and internationalized the Swiss industry, see CeBIT 2016 in Hannover with Switzerland as guest country.

The FOEN's Environment Research Concept 2017-2020 contains four research priorities and 21 research areas.

The aim of FOEN's environmental research is to lay a foundation for effective and efficient environmental and resource policy in Switzerland. It also aims to help identify environmental problems at an early stage and develop technologies that protect the environment and conserve resources.

Four focal points

The FOEN identifies four priority topics for the next four years

• Strengthening a resource-efficient economy
• Limiting and managing climate change
• Preserving biodiversity as a basis for life
• Strengthen the enforcement of environmental legislation and intensify environmental monitoring

Specific research areas include the green economy, environmental communication and education, contaminated sites and air, soil, water, natural resource management, and chemical and biosafety. Priority research topics are identified in all areas.

The complete concept is available on the Website of the FOEN available for download.

Successful SAP implementations are characterized by good project planning at a high level of quality and by a focus on fast and cost-effective implementations close to the SAP standard. Projects are evaluated using ten quality principles recommended by SAP, the observance of which promises better results when implementing standard software. The aim is to achieve project results that generate business value and meet the requirement for short implementation cycles until the benefits are realized. With the awards, SAP recognizes customers who have gained attention through excellence in SAP projects. At the same time, they encourage the emergence of a community of thought leaders and strengthen collaboration with customers and partners.

In 2016, SAP Switzerland presented Quality Awards in three categories. The "Business Transformation" category covers large projects with more than 500 users, a project duration of more than 6 months, and an effort of more than 900 person-days. The "Fast Delivery" category covers small and medium-sized projects with fewer than 600 users, a project duration of no more than 7 months and a project effort of fewer than 1,000 person-days. The "Innovation" category honors projects of various sizes in the areas of SAP HANA technology, business network solutions (such as Ariba, Concur or Fieldglass), cloud and mobility.

This year, SAP Switzerland was able to honor nine projects from eight companies operating in Switzerland whose projects particularly met the award requirements.

This year's winners of the SAP Quality Awards in the "Business Transformation" category are:

Gold: Insel Gruppe AG.

The merger of Inselspital with the hospitals of Spital Netz Bern AG to form the largest hospital in Switzerland also represented a major challenge on the IT side. Six hospitals and a nursing home were integrated into an ERP system that replaced more than 30 legacy systems. The jury particularly appreciated the professional project management in a politically difficult environment as well as the strong focus on change management, communication and motivation of the project team. Innflow AG was the main implementation partner.

Silver: SBB AG

For the implementation of a new enterprise-wide planning system based on SAP BPC 10.1. and SAP BW 7.4., advised by BearingPoint. SBB expects the new system to provide better and significantly faster planning, which should also be reflected in lower costs.

Bronze: ABB Group

For the HR Group Tools Release 3 program, which rolled out a global HR standard for 135,000 users based on SAP HR, SAP BW and e-Recruiting. This largest such project forms the basis for a globally uniform system that guarantees ABB a high quality of master data and global processes.

The winners of the SAP Quality Awards 2016 in the category "Fast Delivery" are:

Gold: DT Swiss AG

For the implementation of SAP CRM based on a "project accelerator" RDS (Rapid Deployment Solution). The jury was impressed by a very lean project that will help the Biel-based company achieve greater efficiency, transparency and customer proximity in its global business in less than 4 months. Also recognized was the approach of using the consulting partner Swisscom primarily as a coach for the internal project staff, thus laying the foundation for future independence.

Silver: Just Switzerland AG

For the introduction of a new tablet-based sales processing system that radically revamped the previous paper forms process and brought the company significant cost savings in addition to a massively reduced sales lead time. The project was supported by oneresource AG.

Bronze went to F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.

For the introduction of a global "Master Data Governance" system based on SAP MDG. The associated worldwide harmonization of master data leads to improved data quality and significantly more efficient data maintenance. The project was successfully implemented in just seven months with the support of SAP Consulting.

The award winners in the "Innovation" category are:

Gold: Interroll (Switzerland) AG

For the migration of its entire SAP systems to SAP HANA with a simultaneous switch to the cloud. In doing so, the leading manufacturer of products for internal logistics has created a technical platform with which it is ideally prepared for the challenges associated with digital transformation. This strategic foresight and the payback in just one year were key arguments for the jury - in addition to the highly professional project management, which had already earned the company an SAP Gold Award in 2014. The project was advised by SAP Consulting.

Silver: Novo Business Consultants

For the migration of its SAP financial systems to SAP S/4HANA Finance. The SAP consulting firm was one of the first customers of SAP Switzerland ever to decide to take this step in order to build up know-how in the SAP S/4HANA area at an early stage and to be able to advise its customers competently accordingly. The implementation was carried out in close contact with SAP.

Bronze: A second award was received by SBB AG

For a RailClean facility management project in which the main processes, which had previously been largely IT-free, were digitized. The deployment control of the cleaning crews, which now takes place via mobile devices, leads to a significant increase in efficiency. In addition, the transport company expects to gain a strategic advantage in the facility management market. This innovative project was supported by the consultants of Q_Perior AG.

The Gold winners from Switzerland will automatically participate in the SAP Quality Award Europe. The winners of the Quality Awards at European level will be determined in the 1st quarter of 2017.

http://www.sap.ch

 

In November 2012, the EU project TREASORES (Transparent Electrodes for Large Area Large Scale Production of Organic Optoelectronic Devices) was launched with the aim of noticeably reducing the production costs of organic components such as solar cells and LED panels. The project was funded with 9 million euros from the European Union and another 6 million euros from the partners' own resources. It yielded seven patents, a dozen scientific publications and significant contributions to international standardization organizations.

Flexible electrodes and novel barrier films
As the most important result, the project has developed production processes for different types of transparent electrodes and barrier materials for the next generation of flexible optoelectronics and, in a second step, scaled them up for industrial production. Three of these electrodes on flexible substrates - based on either carbon nanotubes, metal fibers or thin silver films - are already in commercial production or are expected to hit the market this year. The next generation of light sources and solar cells will be manufactured using roll-to-roll fabrication, for which the new electrodes are particularly well suited. A roll with OLED light sources and project logo was produced by such a roll-to-roll process at the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology in Dresden FEP on a thin silver electrode developed by Rowo Coating GmbH as part of the project.

Flexible light sources - pretty and inexpensive at the same time
Such process technologies will significantly reduce the prices of light sources and solar cells in the future, but require flexible and transparent electrodes and waterproof barriers, which were also developed within the TREASORES project. The project electrodes are already as efficient and transparent as electrodes of the current technology (based on indium doped tin oxide, ITO), in some cases they are even superior to these electrodes. However, they can be produced more cheaply and do not rely on the import of increasingly rare indium.
Tomasz Wanski from Fraunhofer FEP confirms that the new electrodes have achieved extremely homogeneous light sources even on larger surfaces with an efficiency of 25 lumens per watt - just as good as equivalent components of previous OLED technology, which are produced on individual films using a slower production process. In the course of the project, new test methods for the bending strength of electrodes were also developed at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK - this test could lead to a new standard in this field.

Special films protect the electronics from oxygen
Another success of the project was the production, testing and upscaling of the production of new transparent barrier films - meaning plastic films that prevent oxygen and water vapor from penetrating and destroying organic components. The company succeeded in producing efficient and cost-effective barriers, which are expected to be further developed and marketed by the Swiss company Amcor Flexibles Kreuzlingen. Such non-permeable barriers are essential to achieve the long lifetime of organic solar cells and light sources needed for commercial success.

As confirmed with a life cycle analysis (LCA) performed in the project, solar cells are only commercially and environmentally viable if both efficiency and lifetime are sufficiently high. By combining the production of barriers and electrodes instead of using two separate plastic substrates for them, production costs can be further reduced and the devices made thinner and more flexible.Optoelectronic devices have active layers of only a few hundred nanometers - less than 1 percent of the diameter of a human hair - and even small surface defects or invisible dust particles can reduce device efficiency or lead to inhomogeneous luminous area and short lifetime.

Knowhow of 15 partners from five European nations
The TREASORES project combined the expertise of nine companies and six technology institutes from five countries and was led by Frank Nüesch of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa). "I look forward to seeing the first commercial products from the project on the market this year," says Nüesch.
Michael Niggemann, CTO of the solar cell manufacturer Eight19 in Cambridge is also enthusiastic: "The TREASORES project was a success for Eight19, as it made important contributions to reducing the production costs of our solar cells. We have thus taken a decisive step towards the commercialization of organic solar cells -based on a technology developed in Europe."

The research project was financially supported by the Seventh Framework Program of the European Union, contract number 314068.

SRF Tagesschau: Switzerland fears disadvantages from TTIP

Swiss trade will have to adopt what the EU and the US negotiate among themselves, he said.

An export decline of 12 to 15 percent is expected, said Kaspar Engeli, Director of Trade Switzerland, at a press briefing in Zurich on March 9. This is because two-thirds of Swiss foreign trade takes place in the TTIP area.

According to studies, Trade Switzerland expects import and consumption prices to rise if Switzerland were to withdraw from the free trade agreement. This would directly affect the individual citizen. Taking all direct and indirect effects together, Handel Schweiz calculates seven percent less income for individual citizens.

That's roughly equivalent to the 13th month's pay, Engeli said.

Smaller farms concerned

Accordingly, Handel Schweiz sees participation in TTIP as a great opportunity. Even if the actual agricultural agreement is still vaguely formulated with regard to fertilizer measures or food standards, farms could benefit, said the director of Swiss Trade. Today (40 percent U.S. tariff on dairy products), Swiss agricultural products such as yogurt are very expensive in the U.S. because of the high import duties.

Accordingly, they would only be sold in a premium segment.

With a free trade agreement, Swiss agricultural products would be affordable for a much larger audience. Nevertheless, smaller commercial and farming enterprises also show concern about internationally "imposed" working conditions and the domestic sustainability market.

Medical technology sees advantages

Swiss implants and prostheses are already export hits. In 2015, the medical sector exported CHF 2 billion worth of measuring devices and technology such as hearing aids. Although some industry participants already have very low or abolished tariffs, a mutual TTIP agreement is likely to save around 2.4 percent of the tariffs. This would correspond to around CHF 50 million. In addition, non-tariff trade barriers in the research and development sector would also be eliminated.

Generally speaking, however, Swiss trade will have to adopt what the EU and the US negotiate among themselves. Now, says Jean-Marc Probst, president of Trade Switzerland, it's a matter of "getting fit to be able to implement the standards that have been negotiated." (mm)

Innovative strength and digitization strategies are very popular with Swiss companies. Swiss companies have gained the competitive edge primarily because of their clear digital strategy, which is implemented consistently and quickly, according to 79 percent of respondents. And the top managers of Swiss corporations also receive a fair amount of recognition in the survey: 64 percent of the Swiss interviewed said that their boss had a good understanding of digital technologies and business strategies.

"I have the feeling that the young generation of top managers in Switzerland understands the digital world better than in other countries. The topic is omnipresent and it seems that there is a real spirit of optimism, especially in Switzerland, which is often perceived as conservative," says Zurich-based Prophet partner Jan Döring, assessing the results of the survey.

Factor "Switzerland"?
82 percent of the Swiss respondents believe that there is a "Swiss factor" in the Swiss digital economy that stands for quality and innovation. And 83 percent of the interviewees answered that increasing digitization is a great opportunity for Swiss companies and also for them personally.

According to strategy consultant Döring, the core drivers in Switzerland are the fundamentally high drive for innovation and the widespread understanding among top management, compared to other countries, that a digital transformation is something natural and timely and therefore needs to be strongly driven forward in companies: "Switzerland definitely has the opportunity to build on the current hype and develop a real digital value proposition for the country."

Under the following Link you will find the survey results on the topic of "Innovative strength of Swiss companies".

 

The Solar Agency Switzerland will again award the prestigious Swiss Solar Prize in 2016. The application period for the 26th edition runs from now until April 15, 2016.

Applications for the award are open in the following categories:

1. People (natural / legal persons, companies, enterprises, etc.) & Institutions (municipalities, public institutions, cantons)
2. Building: New buildings, renovations and PlusEnergyBuildings (Norman Foster Solar Award & PEB Solar Award)
3. Attachments: Thermal solar collectors, photovoltaic & biomass systems, environmental heat.

Eligible are persons and institutions that are exceptionally committed to the promotion of renewable energies - in particular solar, wood and biomass energy. In other categories, awards are given to energy-efficient residential or commercial buildings and facilities for the generation of renewable energy.
Buildings and facilities that have been or will be put into operation between Jan. 1, 2015 and April 15, 2016 are eligible to register.
The 26th Swiss Solar Award Ceremony will take place on October 18, 2016 at the OLMA in St. Gallen.
Qualifying for the Swiss Solar Prize also means being nominated for the
European Solar Prize.

Registration is free of charge. Registration forms, detailed conditions of participation and the Solar Prize regulations can be found on www.solaragentur.ch. The deadline for registration is April 15, 2016 (date of postmark).

Swiss energy companies and the gas industry recommend a 12-point program to make better use of the flexibility of electricity consumers by 2020. This can be more beneficial to the national economy than investing in new power plants or expanding electricity grids.

Experts in Germany and abroad consider flexibility to be the key and success factor for the future energy system. Utilizing the flexibility of electricity consumers in the form of load shifting as well as decentralized electricity generation and storage would be more beneficial to the national economy than building new power plants and expanding the electricity grids.

Leading Swiss energy companies have published a joint study with the participation of the gas industry, investigated the potential and use of flexibility of Swiss electricity consumers in more detail and gained positive findings: There is a large technical potential for flexibility among electricity consumers in Switzerland. They are also willing to make this potential available. The possible applications for end-user flexibility investigated in the study showed that there are no technical obstacles. Today, these are rather to be found in the current energy policy/regulation as well as in the market design.

The contributors to the study recommend a 12-point program to reduce the existing barriers. This should create the necessary transparency, increase market efficiency, ensure non-discrimination and integrate the flexibility of Swiss electricity consumers into the energy system. This will benefit electricity consumers, the energy industry and technology providers, and is a prerequisite for innovation and growth.

The following companies participated in the study: Elektrizitätswerk des Kantons Schaffhausen, Swisscom Energy Solutions, Swissgrid and the Swiss Gas Industry Association VSG.

Who would have thought five years ago that it would be possible today to receive and reply to emails just by using a smartwatch? Tobias Häckermann, Sherpany.

Sherpany took an in-depth look at what 2016 will bring. The findings: In 2016, technology will become even smarter, because a lot has happened on the market in terms of the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data or social media. By connecting more and more tools, the IoT in particular will make it possible to communicate with each other in a whole new way.

The collaboration of companies or within a team will fundamentally change and improve. The future is now and we wear it on our wrist more often than not! "Who would have thought five years ago that it would be possible today to receive and answer emails just by using a smartwatch?" asks Tobias Häckermann, an expert on digital lifestyles.

Smart systems

Interconnected technologies will require platforms that adapt to their IT programs. Based on our personal, physical and mental states, the smartwatch will soon show us the right time to make important decisions.

Technological change has left its "revolutionary phase" behind and has now become a fundamental part of everyday life. It contributes significantly to faster individual and collective decision making. Technology enables the members of a team to make joint decisions when it comes to extremely important issues. Everyone is "in the same boat" even if they are not physically sitting at the same table.

Culture change through digitization

Businesses in general are currently undergoing major transformations that are characterized by digital disruption. Pat Chapman-Pincher, an expert on global technology trends, explains: "Sadly, few in positions of power have yet to comprehend or even grasp the potential impact of technology on individual businesses or the wider economy.

The bottom line is that going digital means introducing and using smart technologies. Companies must start by gathering as much reliable information about new technologies as possible. They need to get those people on board who have the necessary digital know-how and experience. Digital transformation offers an invaluable alternative to traditional workflows and, along the way, frees up more time for finding and planning strategic decisions.

This year is the "smart" year.

Companies that have not yet taken advantage of smart technologies and want to keep their competitive edge today need to jump on the bandwagon now. 2016 will most certainly NOT be the year of the dawdlers and dreamers. As we move towards accelerating technological growth, only those who stay one step ahead will be able to retain their market share.

By 2020, 50 billion drives will already be connected to the Internet.

Technology connects and makes things happen in seconds. There's no reason why you shouldn't choose this intelligent path. Because it's not just about all the innovations that technology brings, it's about the benefits for absolutely all work processes - every day.

More articles about the Internet of Things and digitality can be found at http://www.sherpany.com

Global enterprise messaging service provider Retarus has compiled five tips that companies should consider when migrating to Office 365:

1. Optimizing spam and virus protection: Comprehensive spam and virus protection is particularly important when exchanging sensitive data by e-mail. When using cloud-based email solutions, companies should therefore carefully check whether the standard security features are actually sufficient for their requirements or whether additional functions need to be added. Supplementary cloud-based email security solutions, for example, offer additional protection by combining several virus scanners with intelligent spam and phishing filters.
2. Correct implementation of security and compliance requirements: Many companies that use Office 365 do not see their security and compliance requirements fulfilled one hundred percent. According to Gartner, around 40 percent of companies using Office 365 will therefore be using additional third-party solutions by 2018. Special gateway-based email security services, for example, seamlessly combine email encryption and archiving. The email is not decrypted on the user's client, but centrally by the email security solution. The e-mail is then stored in the archive and re-encrypted there. This means that the archived information remains readable even after ten years and without the respective private keys.
3. "Power to the user": The more heterogeneous the requirements of employees are, the greater their need to retain control over their business communications. Email security solutions from the cloud complement Office 365 not only with additional email security, but also with a wide range of email management functionalities. This can give users the freedom to make many settings themselves, for example, as part of quarantine management: Users receive an overview of filtered e-mails by e-mail. If, for example, a relevant newsletter was mistakenly intercepted, they can manage their individual block and exception lists themselves.
4. Migration effort: There are many tasks to plan for when migrating to Office 365. These include temporary hybrid operation, archiving all email correspondence, recoding existing email formats, and migrating calendar entries and special applications such as room booking systems and vacation substitutions. To reduce this effort, companies should rely on service providers that specialize in cloud-based communications solutions. These not only offer innovative storage options for archiving old data and special solutions such as user-based routing for hybrid operation, but also provide companies with advice throughout the migration process.
5. Fax support: With Exchange Online and Skype for Business (formerly Lync), Microsoft already offers extensive communication solutions for e-mail, telephony, audio and video conferencing, and instant messaging. Fax functionalities, on the other hand, are not provided by Microsoft itself. With the help of Cloud Fax Services, companies can ensure reliable fax communication even in IP environments. These enable smooth fax reception even if - as is the case with Skype for Business - no fax support is offered via the SIP trunk.

"We are currently observing an increasing demand for supplementary functions for Office 365," says Roger Moser, Country Manager at retarus (Schweiz) AG. "Regardless of whether it's banks, the manufacturing industry or the healthcare sector, companies in all industries are encountering scenarios, particularly with regard to security, compliance and usability, that can be solved most efficiently via third-party providers."

This press release and suitable photo material can be downloaded at www.retarus.ch can be retrieved.