Livia Tirone

AWARD LAUREATES | Livia Tirone


Livia Tirone

Sustainable Construction

The Aldabra Foundation was presented with the 2006 Gold Mercury Environment Award for its work in providing specialised knowledge and financial support to ensure the preservation of the ecosystem and environment of Aldabra. Aldabra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, holding the finest surviving tropical atoll ecosystem and the largest raised coral atoll on earth. Due to its unique ecosystems and the species within, it is ecologically and scientifically valuable. The Foundation recognises this and aims to ensure the preservation of the atoll, as well as to promote scientific research into Aldabra’s pristine marine and terrestrial environments. The Aldabra Foundation’s goal is to secure the ecological wonders of Aldabra for future generations by creating the resources and harnessing the expertise required for this task. The increasing impact of human activity is contributing to the decline of the world’s coral reefs, however Aldabra has thus far escaped much of these stresses. Because of this it provides a natural laboratory for studying tropical marine ecosystems and related environments. The Foundation’s mission is to set up a highly developed research facility on the atoll, which will be capable of supporting world leading scientific research into the environment. This will in turn enable comparative terrestrial and marine analysis to achieve a better understanding of ecological change as well as specific anthropogenic impacts on tropical ecosystems such as overfishing, pollution, global warming and ocean acidification.

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IKEA – Swedwood

AWARD LAUREATES | IKEA – Swedwood


IKEA – Swedwood

Sustainable Production

IKEA is the world’s largest retailer of furniture with around 300 stores in 26 countries and around 130,000 employees, of which 96,000 work in retail, and 15,000 in manufacturing in Swedwood. The IKEA group company Swedwood has grown in line with IKEA’s expansion in recent years to become arguably the world’s largest single manufacturer of wooden furniture. Manufacturing some 100 million furniture pieces every year, IKEA Swedwood operations are part of the everyday life of  people worldwide. IKEA Swedwood takes an active role and has deployed guidelines and policies in the fields of environment, health, safety, risk management and other welfare issues. IKEA Swedwood does not use wood originating from national parks or reserves and does not accept wood from loggings that threaten high conservation values. IKEA Swedwood have FSC™ certification (Forest Stewardship Council®) Mix or FSC™ Controlled Wood for the flow into all our units, as well as FSC™ forestry management certificate on all own leased forests. IKEA Swedwood implement standards for all their log yards, including water management. IKEA Swedwood treat their foremost raw material with the greatest of consideration during the entire manufacturing process, from its source in nature to its final user.

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Elvira Fortunato

AWARD LAUREATES | Elvira Fortunato


Elvira Fortunato

Transistor Pioneer

Elvira Fortunato is a Portuguese scientist from the University of Lisbon. With her team partner Rodrigo Martins, they created the first transistor of paper in the world. Elvira co-led the team that invented a transistor which has the ability to change the colour of any surface: the electrochromic transistor. The device changes the colour to reflect any solid surface where it is applied – paper, glass, ceramic, metal or plastic. In the near future, we will be able to change the colour of our house or our car whenever we choose. The transistors can be applied to surfaces of paper, glass, ceramic (tiles), metal or polymer (plastic, rubber, polyurethane, polystyrene, etc.). This holds great potential for application in all types of displays- computer, TV, mobile phone, PDA – as well as in the static advertising media.

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