St. Gallen, 16 March 2012. Against the backdrop of the multiple crises of the past years - financial, food and energy - the World Resources Forum announced today an expansion of its activities. On top of the successful bi-annual events in Davos, Switzerland, the Forum will start organizing conferences and smaller sized meetings in all regions of the world. An independent association has been set up to this end, supported by governments, industry and NGO’s.

The new World Resources Forum (WRF) Association was inaugurated today at the town hall in St. Gallen, Switzerland, in the presence of representatives of its founding members BAFU/FOEN (the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment), Empa (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology), HP (Hewlett-Packard) and the city of St. Gallen.

St. Gallen, March 2012. The World Resources Forum 2009 was organized as a two site-conference, simultaneously connecting two countries (Switzerland and Japan). A recently published scientific article concludes that the use of advanced videoconferencing technology was a tool to reduce intercontinental conference travel and thus travel-related GHG emissions.

The results of WRF2009 show that reductions of 37% and 50% in travel-related GHG emissions were attained as compared to the single-site alternatives, although more people took part than in any of these alternatives.

Zurich, January 2012 The final report of the YES youth group about their participation in the World Resources Forum, held in Davos, September 2011, has been published. The report includes an overview of the activities, the background and structure of the course, and an evaluation by these young people who came to Davos to learn about natural resource management. The YES participants organised the sustainability cafe and a session on resource challenges.