23/10/2015
Sabancı University School of Management and Istanbul Policy Center hosted the World Conference on Transportation Research Society - Special Interest Group: E1 Transport System Analysis and Economic Evaluation (WCTRS SIG E1 Workshop) on October 5 and 6, 2015. The two-day event at the Karaköy Minerva Palas featured prominent names from academic and business communities as speakers.
This year's topic was “Sustainability As a New Breakthrough in Transport System Benchmarking: The Climate Change Framework." The workshop brought together academics working on transport systems and climate change with business representatives.
Opening remarks were delivered by Sabancı University President Professor A. Nihat Berker, Istanbul Policy Center Director Professor Fuat Keyman and School of Management Dean Professor Füsun Ülengin. Professor Nihat Berker emphasized the importance of the transport sector in a global world and noted the connection between the development of this sector and sustainability and climate change. Professor Keyman spoke on the climate, energy, environment and sustainability efforts within the Istanbul Policy Center. Professor Füsun Ülengin said that climate change scenarios were based on a global average temperature increase of 2 centigrade and that the transport sector accounted for 11% of this increase. She said that climate change and sustainability had to be considered when planning transport investments and that a roadmap showing the interactivity among the variables in this area would be prepared as an outcome of this workshop.
The first speaker on the first day of the workshop was Eckhard Szimba from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Szimba spoke on the transport policies of the EU. Ashish Verma from the Indian Institute of Science explained city transport policies in Bangalore and presented solution recommendations developed from a different perspective. Aseem Kinra from the Copenhagen Business School discussed the breakthrough in the national logistics sector from the perspective of the global supply chain. Yves Crozet from the Laboratoire d'économie des Transports spoke on the changes and challenges brought by sustainability on the transport sector. Sabancı University School of Management faculty member Çağrı Haksöz spoke on risk intelligence and supply chain in the Silk Road. Sabancı University School of Management faculty member Tevhide Altekin discussed socially-responsible logistics in sustainable supply chains.
The second day of the workshop began with an industry session led by Unilever Turkey Vice President of Food Marketing, Mustafa Seçkin. Mustafa Seçkin spoke about Unilever’s sustainability project for tea growers in the Black Sea Region through its Lipton brand. Afterwards, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology’s Werner Rothengatter spoke on the design of synchronized sustainable supply chains. Rosario Macario from the Universidade de Lisboa explained the road from a non-sustainable environment to a sustainable one.
A brainstorming session on causality was followed by a panel discussion with Sabancı University Istanbul Policy Center members Ümit Şahin and Ethemcan Turhan. The moderator of the panel was Ömer Madra. Ömer Madra gave examples of natural disasters caused by climate change worldwide.
The closing speech of the event was delivered by Sabancı University School of Management Dean Professor Füsun Ülengin.
