Emerging “green” technologies
Willy De Backer
Europe Director Global Footprint Network
A vision too far?
Global Footprint Network• Five-year old non-profit research
organisation based in California with offices in Brussels and Zürich
• Work on “ecological footprint accounts” of nations, regions, cities or businesses
23 September 2008
a
One step back: technological innovation
• Technology should be a means to an end: help achieve a high-quality life for more people on the planet
• Should be driven not just by the market but by analysis of the trends and vision of the “preferable future”
• Policy-makers should create the framework for innovation and technology development based on their view of the future
Environmental Technologies?
• All technologies should respect environment and ecological constraints or they are not sustainable
• All technological innovation should take our ecological limits into consideration
The Future
or
Trends – context and drivers
• Environmental collapse– Climate Change – Biodiversity– Over-fishing– Water scarcity– Soil erosion
Trends – context and drivers
• Energy scarcity– Supply/demand crunch (IEA) or
even peak oil, peak gas, peak coal– Shell scenarios: scramble for oil– End of cheap energy
Trends – context and drivers
• Population explosion– From 2 billion to 6 billion to 9
billion to ...?– Urbanisation : more than 50%
living in cities
Trends – context and drivers
• Economic power shift– The end of US economic
dominance?– Power to the BRICS –sovereign
wealth funds– Since 15 October 2008: the end
of “market fundamentalism”
Preferable future: “survivable development”
• Manage transition from the Age of Abundance to the Age of Sufficiency
• Accepts “Ecological Limits” to overcome “uneconomic” growth
• Learn to deal with new scarcities
The eco-industrial revolution• Respects the Planet’s ecological limits
and recognises the economy as a subsystem of the global ecology/energy system
• Redesigns its products, systems and business models copying nature’s functionalities (e.g. waste – closed loop)
Technology Policy for the eco-industrial age
• Technology and innovation will play a key role in this transformation
• Governments will have to set the framework (taxes, incentives, education) for this eco-innovation revolution
Eco-Innovation in business
• Is not: business as usual + extra product line with environmental products or services
• Is: “business as unusual” – business for a one-planet economy
Eco-Innovation at the EU• “Eco-innovation is the creation of
novel and competitively priced goods, processes, systems, and procedures designed to satisfy human needs and provide a better quality of life for everyone with a life-cycle minimal use of natural resources per unit output...”
Or in other words:• Relying on traditional “environmental
technologies” is just not enough• Adapt our economies to the carrying
capacity of our planet
Move to new level of imagination• Product innovation – electric
cars or even new transport modes
• Business Model innovation – car makers become transport service companies; utilities
Receding horizons for technology development
• New techological developments need more energy and more use of finite raw materials (cell phones)
• Higher oil price will make technology development more difficult
Preferable innovations• New metrics of sustainability –
Beyond GDP
• Cradle to cradle product design
• Decentralised, smart Energy Internet
• A new repair industry
• A global institute for the durability of consumer goods
Questionable innovations• Agrofuels• Tar sands• Hydrogen cars• Nuclear Renaissance• Carbon capture and storage• Geo-engineering to combat
climate change
Some good advice
• “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”
Richard Feyman
Conclusion
• Emerging green technologies – a vision too far?
• No, a lack of vision.
Thanks!