Our first attempt at a full-function "electronic environment" site in support of an international conference, sponsored by the OECD in Vancouver Canada in early 1996. Today, two full Web technology generations later, it can still serve as a comprehensive checklist and model for those ready to build on the lessons of the past to construct their own sites for these purposes. Also useful as a repository of information and views on the meeting and its important topic.

A collaborative international undertaking in the form of an open, global 'virtual conference' organized over the months of August and September 1997 under the leadership of Eric Britton (EcoPlan) and Robert Ayres (INSEAD). The conference was co-sponsored and funded in part by the United Nations University (UNU) and its Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS), the Programme, Preparation and Monitoring Unit (Directorate XIII/B/1) of the European Commission , the European Telework Development Initiative, the OECD Environment Directorate, and the Ministère de l'Environnement (France). The Conference was also supported by the Teles Group (Germany), and The Center@Hamline (USA). (The main source of financial backing for the conference was EcoPlan International.)

The first half of the conference's agenda in the pilot stage over the month of August aimed to use these new means to try to provide expert counsel to the UNU and the IAS concerning their eventual future activities in this important science policy area over the next several years. The second part attempted to use this experience as a trial to probe the potential for making innovative use of the "new media" (i.e., computer-mediated communications) to create an expanded shared knowledge base and a yet stronger community of interest on this and similar important technology and society policy issues. The objective was to see if we could make use of these technologies to group forces, in order to guide government and the other major actors concerned toward more informed, more broadly supported, and more effective policies and actions. As is appropriate given its concerns, the conference was organized as a travel-free, no-fee, resource-sparing, low-emissions, and, we certainly hoped, convivial, undertaking. [For access to the 1997 conference's Web site click here.]

This virtual conference -- the second in the Zero Emissions series -- represented a modest attempt to see what might be done to make use of the World Wide Web and some associated tools and technologies as a test platform to set off an international dialogue and exchange of ideas on the subject of technological change and the concept of "zero emissions". It was, above all, an experiment, and if it was in many ways conducted in an open-ended, learn-as-you-go-along manner, it was nonetheless one with very serious intentions. A first general introduction to the conference and its overall organization will be found here, while a very useful definition of the zero emissions focus is avilable here. You also may find it useful by way of general background to consult the section entitled How This Site Came About, This Way.

The project was organized and managed by EcoPlan, in cooperation and with the sponsorship of the INSEAD Center for the Management of the Environment and Resources, Fontainebleau France, and within the framework of The Commons. It was in fact a typical collaborative exercise of the sort that The Commons was created to encourage and support. The project was also generously supported with technical help from Crawford Systems, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and CyberLynx and the Virtual Learning Network in Coos Bay, Oregon. [A final summary and critical evaluation of the confrence will be found at Summary of Final Evaluation and Report"]