Proceedings of EnviroInfo and ICT for Sustainability 2015

“Knowledge is power”
Sir Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626), Religious Meditations, Of Heresis, 1597

“Science is organised knowledge. Wisdom is organised life”
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804)

The 29th International Conference on Informatics for Environmental Protection and the third International Conference on ICT for Sustainability, EnviroInfo & ICT4S 2015, will take place as a joint conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on September 7-9 2015 and will be hosted by the University of Copenhagen and the European Environment Agency.

EnviroInfo is a series of conferences under the umbrella of the German Computer Society (GI) and its Special Interest group Environmental Informatics, Informatics for Environmental Protection, Sustainability and Risk Management, which has a longstanding tradition of discussing fundamental aspects in the field of Environmental Informatics.

ICT4S is a series of research conferences bringing together leading researchers, developers and government and industry representatives, dedicated to exploring and proposing how Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can be used as a tool to reach sustainability goals.

EnviroInfo is about discussing concepts, methods and tools to process, analyse, and interpret environmental information and support the discourse of environmental issues. Over the years, EnviroInfo has gathered communities from European countries and aims to foster scientific progress by bringing together research and practice.

ICT for sustainability is about utilising the transformational power of ICT for making our world more sustainable: saving energy and material resources by creating more value from less physical input, increasing quality of life for ever more people, without compromising future generations’ ability to meet their needs.

The theme of EnviroInfo & ICT4S 2015 was “Building the knowledge base for environmental action and sustainability”. The joint conference was designed to facilitate ‘within-the-domain’, as well as to create a space for developing synergies between the two communities.

Altogether 125 research and applied papers (including extended abstracts) from 42 countries were submitted, of which 81 papers from 30 countries were accepted for oral presentation. The papers were single reviewed by at least two reviewers.

In the Conference Proceedings, you will find 41 full research papers published by Atlantis Press. Furthermore, 26 applied papers and 14 extended abstracts of applied papers were published in the Adjunct Proceedings, together with abstracts of 26 poster submissions and 11 workshop descriptions.

The conference aims at renewing and vitalizing the concept of scientific conferences with the help of a partly new design, tiled ”ConverStations”, sessions which allow more time than usual for interaction of the highly competent participants. The facilitator Peter Woodward was responsible for the design and implementation of this. All research and applied papers in the two proceedings have therefore been arranged in the three ConverStation sessions. Whilst two sessions, titled Parallel Sessions, feature the extended abstracts of applied papers presented in plenary format.

In total, 12 papers were nominated for the Best paper, where 6 were nominated from each of the two communities. These were presented in ConverStation format, spread out across the three ConverStation sessions. The awards for Best papers and Student prizes were given on the last day of the conference.

In connection with the conference, a number of workshops were held before, during, and after the main conference. The workshop review process and program was made possible by the conference organisers and the success of the workshops was ensured by the workshop organisers.

The conference had not been possible without the contributions from 43 members of the program committee from EnviroInfo representing 13 countries, and the 52 members of the program committee from ICT4S representing 14 countries, ensuring a conference of high scientific standard.

An important part of any conference is the keynote speakers. This time was no exception. Contributions from (in order of appearance):

- Katherine Richardson, Professor at University of Copenhagen
- Mattias Höjer, Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology
- Bonnie Nardi, Professor at School of Information and Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine
- Hans Bruyninckx, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency
- Katja Rosenbohm, European Environment Agency
- Hans Wendschlag, EMEA Program Manager Social & Environmental Responsibility, Hewlett-Packard
- Joseph Kava, Vice President - Data Centers, Google, California

Special thanks to Tania Nielsen who has acted as key person for all organisational matters, including contact point for speakers and participants and for the publication of the Conference Proceedings and Adjunct Proceedings. Thanks to Daniel Vare who has supported the submissions process for ICT4S. Thanks to Sanja Novakovikj, who has acted as the primary contact point for publication of the conference program and book of abstracts.

Last but not least, we would like to thank the conference sponsors for their financial support and – no conference without them - all paper and poster authors, workshop organisers, helping hands, and participants for their work, enthusiasm and participation!

Copenhagen, September 2015

Vivian Kvist Johannsen
Stefan Jensen
Volker Wohlgemuth
Chris Preist
Elina Eriksson

Chair Persons and Proceedings Editors of EnviroInfo & ICT4S 2015