Curbing resource consumption using team-based feedback

This paper details a team-based feedback approach for reducing resource consumption. The approach uses paper printing within office environments as a case study. It communicates the print usage of each participant’s team rather than the participant’s individual print usage. Feedback is provided weekly via emails and contains normative information, along with eco-metrics and team-based comparative statistics. The approach was empirically evaluated to study the effectiveness of the feedback method. The experiment comprised of 16 people belonging to 4 teams with data on their print usage gathered over 58 weeks, using the first 30-35 weeks as a baseline. The study showed a significant reduction in individual printing with an average of 28%. The experiment confirms the underlying hypothesis that participants are persuaded to reduce their print usage in order to improve the overall printing behaviour of their teams. The research provides clear pathways for future research to qualitatively investigate our findings

Future marine zooplankton research - a perspective

During the Second Marine Zooplankton Colloquium (MZC2) 3 issues were added to those developed 11 yr ago during the First Marine Zooplankton Colloquium (MZC1). First, we focused on hot spots, i.e., locations where zooplankton occur in higher than regular abundance and/or operate at higher rates. We should be able to determine the processes leading to such aggregations and rates, and quantify their persistence. Second, information on the level of individual species, even of highly abundant ones, is limited. Concerted efforts should be undertaken with highly abundant to dominant species or genera (e.g., Oithona spp., Calanus spp., Oikopleura spp., Euphausia superba) to determine what governs their abundance and its variability. Third, zooplankton clearly influence biogeochemical cycling in the ocean, but our knowledge of the underlying processes remains fragmentary. Therefore a thorough assessment of variables that still need to be quantified is required to obtain an understanding of zooplankton contributions to biogeochemical cycling. Combining studies on the 7 issues from MZC1 with the 3 from MZC2 should eventually lead to a comprehensive understanding of (1) the mechanisms governing the abundance and existence of dominant zooplankton taxa, and (2) the control of biodiversity and biocomplexity, for example, in the tropical ocean where diversity is high. These recommendations come from an assemblage of chemical, physical and biological oceanographers with experience in major interdisciplinary studies, including modeling. These recommendations are intended to stimulate efforts within the oceanographic community to facilitate the development of predictive capabilities for major biological processes in the ocean