The Invest in Iceland Agency, founded in 1995, is run by the Trade Council of Iceland and the Ministry of Industry. The Agency’s team provides free of charge information and expert confidential service on all aspects of investments.See publications on Iceland the ultimate location for data-centers and other interesting publications: http://www.invest.is/publications/

Björk Guðmundssdóttir united the active forces of nature conservation in Iceland, to challenge the Minister of Tourism, Össur Skarphéðinsson, for the Tourism Convention.

A challenge for the Minister of Tourism to make an effort in nature conservation

Nature conservation interwined with tourism is a powerful way to market Iceland as an interesting destination for travellers.
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Article By Dofri Hermannsson

“First the young ladies go and then the men follow them” is often said when describing reduced population on the countryside. This is of course a simplification, young people of both sexes quest for further education, employment and culture variety in the city. But this assertion describes a certain difference between the sexes that sociologists around the world have pointed out in their researches. Let them speak for themselves:
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If we manage to create twenty companies with staff of 50, similar to Össur, Marel, CCP, and Actavis in the next 7 years, we will have created considerable more value, a stronger economy, in addition to having established less debt without sacrifice. The large scale industry’s offer to make Iceland one of the largest aluminium plants in the world, is of the same cloth as when the banks became 10 times bigger than Iceland. It is the desire for a strong leader, the protection of a superpower, a noble mogul or giant corporation that people can point to because they don’t dare to stand on their own two feet.

Andri Snær Magnason, author of the best-seller book Dreamland analyses Iceland’s economic situation and the “final solution” called The Aluminium factory

In these turbulent times interested parties use the opportunity to offer us “solutions” and relief. This time around it involves “alleviating all restrictions” and putting public energy companies up as 300 – 400 milliard collateral for two to three new aluminium plants. This is what is on the drawing board when the total debt of OR and LV (the central public energy institutions) are already at a dizzying 550 milliards – mostly because of Alcoa and Norðurál (Century Aluminum). This is why the banks always preached large-scale industry policies – more debt – more joy. It’s down to the price of aluminium to repay these loans, but aluminium prices are plummeting and a level of overproduction has already been reached. The nation believes that the magic term EXPORT EARNINGS is money that will end up in the nation’s pocket. (more…)

Sigurður Jóhannesson, one of leading economist of Iceland, member of the Economy Institution of the University, asks if the heavy industry has prevented miscellaneous and profitable economy in Iceland

Nothing happened in the project financing plan for power plants. The explanation could be seen in the morning paper, Morgunbladid 6. august 2001. There the chief financial officer of Landsvirkjun says for example: “… if Landsvirkjun was going to build their projects on [project financing] it would mean that the energy prices would be so high that we would not be competitive for heavy industry … [But] we should use sources of energy to sell electricity to heavy industry, we can not see, at the moment, according to present situation, what else is going to secure a decent economic growth for the years to come.” Some still spoke of new procedures. Friðrik Már Baldursson, later a prof. of energy, said in a lecture held at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Iceland 2001, e.g.: “It has been said that project financing is inoperable because of higher interest. With same reasoning you could say that the state should also lower the interest costs of heavy industry [with collaterals] … The main thing is that a risk includes a cost, that one can evaluate in prices, and a efficient result is only possible if this price, this cost, is taken into account.” Friðrik also recommended that damage made to the environment should be evaluated with a conditional values. Due to disputes over the profitability of the power plant at Kárahnjúkar, a committee of specialists reviewed the profitability and gave a report in early 2003. (more…)

The Náttúra Song by Björk is now out and available from here right now! And iTunes!.  All proceeds from the track will go towards the Nattura Campaig run from this site.

The single is now available and we have also setup donation page for the Náttúra Campaign.

The single was composed specifically to encourage active support for the Náttúra campaign, which aims at collating and providing sustainable and eco-friendly options suitable for Iceland, and generating alternative ways to utilize it’s natural resources. People will be able to submit their ideas on the website for sustainable green workplaces for Icelanders.
According to Björk, “It is now more important than ever before to emphasize a respect for nature…I believe that profits, technological advances and working together with nature can all go hand in hand. None need to be sacrificed at the expense of the others.”

The new single is written and produced by Björk and features Radiohead’s Thom Yorke on backing vocals, Brian Chippendale (Lighting Bolt) on drums, Matthew Herbert on synth/bass, and Mark Bell on additional electronic beats. Opening with a huge elemental swirl, “Náttúra” then fires up an incendiary and fierce tribal rhythm. The song sees Björk firmly on the march in celebration of her homeland, in hopes that Icelanders harness its energy in a sustainable way.

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The highlight of a Road to Copenhagen conference today, the 6th of November, 2008 in Brussels, was a press conference helt by UNRIC (United Nations Regional Information Centre). In the panel where Margot Wallström, European Commission First Vice President, Afsane Bassir-Pour, director of UNRIC, Gro Harlem Brundtland former Prime Minister of Norway and mother of the concept of Sustainable Developement, Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, Vice President of the Club of Madrid, and Bjork. She was introduced as initiative of Nattura.info and the first engaged member of the civil society to join the CoolPlanet 2009 campaign and the Road to Copenhagen. With kind permission we publish Björk’s speech right away in its whole:

After touring for 18 months I was excited to  return home 10 weeks ago to good, solid Iceland and enjoy a little bit of  stability. I had done a concert there earlier this year to raise awareness  about local environmental issues – especially sustainable alternatives to aluminium  smelters -  10 per cent of the nation attended the concert ; but I still felt it  wasn’t enough. (more…)

After touring for 18 months I was excited to  return home 8 weeks ago to good, solid Iceland and enjoy a little bit of  stability. I had done a concert there earlier this year to raise awareness  about local environmental issues – especially alternatives to aluminium  smelters – and 10 per cent of the nation came to it; but I still felt it  wasn’t enough.

So when I got home I decided to contact people all over  the island who had attempted to start new companies and bring in new ways of  working, but had not succeeded. For a long time Iceland’s main income had been  fishing, but when that become uneconomic, people started looking for other  ways to earn a living. The conservatives in power thought that harnessing  Iceland’s natural energy and selling it to huge companies such as Alcoa and  Rio Tinto would solve the problem.

Now we have three aluminum smelters,  some of the biggest in Europe; and in the space of the next three years they  want to build two more. A lot of Icelanders are against this. They would  rather continue to develop smaller companies that they own themselves and keep  the money they earn. Many battles have been fought in Iceland on these  issues.

In one of these battles  the Minister for the Environment forced Alcoa to include the impacts of energy  exploiting in their Environmental Impact Assessment. The smelter would need  energy from a handful of new geothermal power plants and possibly also some  dams. This would damage pristine wilderness, hot springs and lava fields. To  take this much energy from the geothermal fields is not even sustainable.

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From A Turnup of an ideological system

Sigurður Jóhannesson, one of leading economist of Iceland, member of the Economy Institution of the University, asks if the heavy industry has prevented miscellaneous and profitable economy in Iceland.

Senior officials in energy affairs say that it is the moral duty of Icelanders to harness hydro power for heavy industry. In Iceland people are used to believe what they are told. In such environment it can be useful to look at what foreign institutes of finances have to say about this. They have the advantage over Icelandic institutes of being independent of the Icelandic government. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has, in recent years, had some concerns in their reports on Iceland, that the support of heavy industry in the form of official collaterals for power plants and tax rebate, prevent the development of knowledge industry in the country. At that time, OECD said it would have been better to let a private company build the power plant at Kárahnjúkar. That way the taxpayers had been rid of the risk of that project “and we could have tested the profitability of the power plant on the free market”. (more…)

Viðar Hreinsson, chair-man of the Reykjavík Academy writes on the necessary of building the future of the Icelandic society on living integration of culture, nature, eco-friendly technology, around the country.

One of the main characteristic of the changes with the expansion of the creative class, is the tendency to open up all boundaries of what has been preconceived. Main value of the class being individualism, ambition or productive targeting, diversity and open mind, it can not be denied that these changes increase wage differential.

Richard Florida is an american professor of urban studies, and a Ph.D. from the University of Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburg, where he taught for awhile but teaches now at the George Mason University in Fairfax. He has new ideas of the role of the creative class in economical uprising. His main work on this being The Rise of the Creative Class, published in 2002 – a bestseller. (more…)