It is a great honor for me to serve as the President of ISAER. I started studying Emergy as a Master's student in 1998, and I have stuck with it over the past two decades. I do feel very lucky for encountering Emergy, not only because it is a study area on the rise, but also because of the warm family associated with it. Thanks to our pioneer committees and members, both the emergy theory and its applications have developed and extended dramatically in the past decade. However, I do agree with Simone Bastianoni that, emergy is still far from reaching its real capacity to analyze systems, synthesize information, and give people a macroscopic view of the world. Under the background of the ideas of Global Sustainable Development and Carbon Neutrality, I believe there is much we can do together to further extend and improve the Emergy theory and its use. Continuing the good work done by Pier Paolo, the main focus of my presidency will be on further strengthening the education, communication of emergy theory and studies, besides developing standardization and the emergy database.
Education:
- Books: I will propose that we continue to support the writing of Emergy books for graduate and undergraduate student education, which was started by Pier Paolo. Considering the Chinese emergy group is big, an emergy book in Chinese is especially suggested to be written too. Other forms of emergy books, even comic books will be encouraged to increase the diversity of emergy education.
- Workshops: I will support the Emergy Workshops, especially the summer workshop should be supported and strengthened. Until the global epidemic gets better, the workshops can be given through the internet, and once in-person meetings are possible, it could be held in different countries (such as China, Italy, USA, Brazil and Japan) in different years. Besides teaching the theory and general application of the methods, a specific research topic is encouraged for each workshop. All participants are welcome to take part in that research, and which will, in turn, become a part of the emergy database, or a publication after the workshop.
- Lectures: I believe that a Series of Emergy lectures can be given online by invited speakers. The lectures will be open to the public given online, and later on, the videos of the lectures will be put on the ISAER website for members to check out.
Communication:
- Publications: I will propose that new emergy publications (e.g., papers, books, reports, databases, etc.) can be shown on the website, and a WeChat Official Account of ISAER, etc., might be established. All members are encouraged to contribute to this issue by handing in relative recommendation papers for the communication committee of ISAER to check, select and push out. An Annual “Best Emergy Publication” could be voted by ISAER members and announced at the end of the calendar year. Certificates will be awarded to the winners by ISAER.
- Conferences: I will propose that the biennial emergy conferences be continued, but not limited to the University of Florida. I will propose that Emergy sessions be held at more academic conferences to further generalize emergy study and facilitate academic crossover and integration.
- Newsletter: It has already been arranged that the newsletter started by Simone will be continued. Newsletters will continue to be sent via email to ISAER members telling of current and future events. In these emails, a call for news and current events could be a constant reminder for members to send in information for the next newsletter.
Standardization and Database:
- I will propose that further Emergy database construction be specifically supported. The database is composed of but not limited to UEVs and emergy to money ratios. The Emergy database is available on the website of ISAER and open to all visitors for free, not just to members.
- I will propose that recommendations for the standardization of emergy studies should be established and officially released for further improving the credibility and comparability of emergy studies.
I believe a better understanding, development, and application of emergy at all levels of society will be achieved through the above work. It is not an easy job to achieve the above goals, but I do believe we can make it happen together through our close cooperation. Thank you all for the support that you will provide to reach these goals.
Hongfang Lu
May 8, 2021