all major regions in the world. The European Green CityIndex, for example, ranked Copenhagen, Stockholmand Oslo as the greenest cities in Europe. SanFrancisco leads the list in the US, and Brazil's Curitibais one of the greenest cities in Latin America. In Asia, Singapore achieved high ratings. A ranking for Africa will be presented during the COP17conference in Durban.The top cities and other progressive urban centres inthe Green City Indices show they had the courage toinnovate in the most diverse areas. One of their mostimportant tasks is to save their communities fromtraffic chaos. This is best done by convincing as manypeople as possible to use public, low-emissiontransportation systems and organise individual trafficas carbon-neutral as possible. Today, efficient metro and bus systems in many majorcities reduce individual traffic. Modern hybrid drivesalso ensure a substantial reduction of traffic-relatedemissions. London's municipal transport company, forexample, uses double-decker buses operated withhybrid drives. In these systems, the diesel engine isAbove: With electric carsyou can drive CO2-free,store green electricity andsell any surplus back tothe power grid052SMART CITIES

supplemented by an electric motor that utilisesbraking energy. This Siemens development is now used worldwide in many countries such as Spain, Italy, Turkey, the US and Brazil. Another environmentally friendly solutionis a series-hybrid bus in which the diesel engine onlycharges the batteries that power a high-performanceelectric motor. The batteries also store recuperatedbraking energy. The system reduces fuel consumptionby one-third - and lowers the carbon emissions. The Oslo metro was also equipped with intelligentSiemens technology. Thanks to the low weight of thecoaches, the use of new materials, and sophisticateddrive and braking management that feeds backbraking energy into the grid, this advanced transportsystem uses 30 per cent less energy than itspredecessor and is also 95 per cent recyclable - arecord mark. Another innovation will also soon revolutioniseindividual transportation when quiet electric cars drivethrough urban streets. Electric cars are ideal for citytrips, which seldom exceed 70 kilometres. When theyuse green power, few vehicles are moreenvironmentally friendly: electric motors are three tofour times more efficient than combustion engines. In projects with automobile companies and urbanpower utilities, Siemens is currently testing thecharging infrastructure for electric cars as well as newconcepts for inductive charging completely withoutcables. In addition, Siemens researchers are testinghigh-speed systems that will make it possible to chargecars within just minutes. In the future, electric cars willalso serve as mobile energy storage units that can feedenergy into the power grid when needed and to helpstabilise the grid. Buildings are among the biggest energy consumers in cities. Proof that this need not be the case is offered by the New York Times Building in Manhattan. An automated building managementsystem from Siemens controls air conditioning, water cooling, heating and power generation. It notonly takes into account interior and exteriortemperatures, but also the number of people in thebuilding, the angle of the sun, and the output of thecogeneration and solar power plant. Such anintelligent building system can reduce energyconsumption by up to 40 per cent. Worldwide, thousands of buildings have already beenoptimised with Siemens technology, such as theSantander Bank Call Center in Querétaro, Mexico. And Siemens is setting a good example with its own buildings in Shanghai and the new worldheadquarters being planned in Munich. The latterbuilding complex will be a true lighthouse project forthe company's green business and will highlight themost innovative elements from the SiemensEnvironmental Portfolio.Siemens is the world leader in providing innovativesolutions for transforming cities into smart sustainablecities. The breadth and size of its EnvironmentalPortfolio is also unique, including everything fromenvironment-friendly power generation with wind andsolar power, the world's most efficient combined cyclepower plants and low-loss power transmission overthousands of kilometres, to energy-saving industrialplants, building technologies and transportationsystems, and solutions for clean air and water. With technologies like these, the company generatedover 28 billion Euros in revenue in fiscal 2010 andhelped its customers reduce their carbon dioxideemissions by around 267 billion tonnes - which equalsthe total combined annual emissions of Hong Kong,London, New York, Tokyo, Delhi and Singapore. And the potential for further improvement is by nomeans exhausted. In order to respond even better tochallenges in the rapidly growing cities andinfrastructure markets, the company has bundled all ofits city-relevant business activities - fromtransportation and building technologies to smart grids- in the new Infrastructure & Cities Sector sinceOctober 2011. The Sector is planning three Centres of Competence to demonstrate what is technologically possible and economically feasible for sustainable urbandevelopment. The Centre of Competence (CoC) inLondon is already under construction and the other twocentres are planned for the US and Asia. These centreswill give the company three unique platforms forinteracting with customers and opinion leaders and forstrengthening its global sales and marketing structures. Thanks to these various activities, economic andtechnical structures for urban development have beencreated that were unthinkable just a few years ago.Now it is up to us all - from politics and business to allsocial groups - to remember the appeal made by Livy:It is time to dare something bigger. nABOUT THE AUTHORPeter Löscher has been President of the Managing Board and Chief Executive Officer at Siemens AG since 2007. In 1985, he became a Senior Management Consultant at Kienbaum Consulting Group. In 2000, he became Chairman, President and CEO of Aventis Pharma Ltd, Japan. In 2002, Mr Löscher became President of Amersham Health and then Chief Operating Officer at Amersham plc. In 2004, he joined General Electric as President and CEO of GE Healthcare Bio-Sciences. In 2006, he became President of Global Human Health at Merck & Co, Inc.SMART CITIES053THE GREATESTCHALLENGE OFOUR TIME IS TOTRANSFORM OURURBAN CENTRESINTO SMART, SUSTAINABLECITIES" "