• Introduction
• What is this book about?
• Challenging the GDP
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Currently used indicators
• The chosen components
• The Index of Sustainability
• Challenging the GDP - Conclusion
• Waste management - an important issue of modern life
• Abstract
• Waste Management - An Introduction
• Waste Management and Sustainable Development
• Waste Management Policies - Developed and developing countries
• Electronic Waste
• Conclusion on waste management governance & policies
• TheCityFarm - Prototype of a real green and sustainable business
• Abstract
• Company Creation
• History of Aquaponics
• Product Description
• Green Product Portfolio
• Marketing of CityFarm
• CityFarm Complex
• Human Resources
• Distribution Channels
• Suppliers
• Conclusion
• Freiburg and Dontang - Eco-city approaches
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Example of Dongtan, China
• Example of Freiburg, Germany
• Creating ecological cities vs. adapting existing ones
• Ecological Cities Conclusion
• Course Description
• Short Course Description
• Schedule
• Assessment
• Participants
• References
• Book Glossary
• Video-clip references
• Authors

Conclusion

Working on that project made us realized the difficulty to implement eco-city all over the world. In fact, in spite of strong commitment of governments and municipalities, these projects are not really easy to realize because of lack of money, organization… We have taken two major examples that seem to be the more significant: first of all a Chinese city whose the aim was very ambitious and that aimed to be the first green eco-city in the world. Secondly, a German city that became the green capital of Germany and the European city of the year 2010 for sustainable urban development.

Dongtan, the world's first carbon-neutral city built internationally was to have been built on Chongming Island, near Shanghai, in the Yangtze River Delta. The first phase, comprising a city of 25,000 people, was due to have opened for the Shanghai Expo in 2010. By 2030 it was intended to house 500,000 residents. We'll see through the Global politics, the actions, and finally the limits, how Dongtan manage to become a real Eco-city and if the project is feasible.

First, concerning the Global politics, the company "Shanghai Industrial Investment Corporation" and the British company ARUP were in charge of the Dongtan project. The project was supposed to be ready for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, but in 2007, the construction hadn´t begin yet. Finally, the project wasn´t ready for 2010 and the project is currently frozen. Today, all references to it have been removed from both the Shanghai Expo's website as well as Arup's.

Then, several Actions have been undertake to become the first true Eco-city:

• Eco mobility: In order to respect its philosophy of "green city", Dongtan will use modes of transport which limit the pollution. The city is designed to propose only green mobility and only zero-carbon vehicles will be allowed to drive inside the city.
• Green spaces: The principal aims of the city are to protect and enhance the biodiversity, Avoid any physical degradation of the island through the Eco-city's activities, Create cleaner, safer and greener neighborhoods.
• The housing environment: The intention is to reduce the ecological footprint of Dongtan to 2.2 ha per person by means of a combination of behavior change and energy efficiency.
• Energy control: The main energy system at Dongtan should have been powered by solar panels, wind turbines and the burning of biomass, which collectively should have been produced 100% of electricity for the city.
• Finally, the Dongtan project knows several limits.

In five years, practically nothing constructive has happened; the original timetable for the first phase of construction was expected to be completed by the Shanghai Expo in 2010. Although the initial project was to create a sustainable city, the planning was done with little awareness of how local people lived. And concerning the project financing it was not clear who was supposed to pay for the city. Moreover, the criticisms focus on the site selection, the ecological footprint, the lack of industrial sites, the targeted population and the fact that the project is just a project showcase.

Dongtan was a really good project but was not realized because of too many difficulties and limits. The aim was to build a green city and to be the world´s first city carbon- neutral. But this project was too ambitious and nothing has been done since the beginning of the project in 2005. The project was given up and not more expected to be built soon.

As regards Freiburg, the policy of the town is mainly oriented towards environment issues, renewable energies and sustainable development. Two districts of the city have already been transformed to match the green objectives of the city and the municipality. Today the city of Freiburg is internationally known as a green city and it became the green capital of Germany.

Freiburg is a city of 205 000 people located in the south west of Germany, clothe to French and Switzerland border. Freiburg is internationally known as a "green city" and with their green party mayor, its policy is orientated to environment and sustainable development.

We divided the actions in five parts:

• Concerning the eco mobility, the city got a traffic management plan. Its goal is to improve mobility, reduce traffic and benefit the environment. The citizens use public transport like tramway, rail and buses, bicycle is the most used transport and traffic calming is important too.
• The citizens are well engaged in sustainability development from a long time. For example, there was a strong protestation against a nuclear plant plan which failed.
• The presence of the Black Forest plays an important role for sustainable forest management, green spaces and parks.
• Vauban and Rieselfeld have been created in order to respect environment and nature and the solar energy is the main renewable resource in Freiburg.
• However, this model of eco-city can not be adapted all around the world because Freiburg is a unique case. Money is much important to change infrastructures of a city in a sustainable way and the role of the citizens is essential.

In a third and last part, we have tried to compare these two green cities. Building a whole eco-city is probably unrealistic and is only directed for well-of people so it will be more easy to follow the example of Freiburg to create an "eco-city". But the main thing to do is to change citizen mentalities for environment and it will take time.

Thanks to these two examples, we wanted to underline the fact that most of people have in mind the growing problem of the environment and want to make things change. But in reality is not easy and it is going to take a long time to change and make things greener.