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There is this political meme spreading all over the world: “Go green = rescue the economy, create jobs and save the planet!”. Politicians and CEOs alike have a high demand for simple messages like this, especially in times of economic recession. It is no surprise, that lobbyism and political gutlessness is diluting some measurements. But don’t lose faith in the green turnaround, – thanks to the new “State of Green Business” report you have reasons for optimism. There are some nice facts and forecasts in Joel Makover’s (GreenBiz.com) report. Here are just some of them.
Green design
Just have look at the steep curve with certification as an indicator ( State of Green Business, p59 ). More stuff: greenerdesign.com
Chart from "State of Green Business Report" 2009 (stateofgreenbusiness.com)
Green investments
- Venture capital investment in green technologies soared to a record $7.6 billion
- There were about 350 “funding events” in 2008 ( State of Green Business, p28 )
Chart from "State of Green Business Report" 2009 (stateofgreenbusiness.com)
Claudia Langer, Utopia conference (source: konsumguerilla.net)
To be green or not to be
First part of my coverage of the Utopia conference was about necessity and possibility of the coming transformation. This global transformation is politically, economically and technologically. How we shape things, connect material flows, structure systems, control communication, this is all about technology and design. Prof. Braungart reminded us about the “next industrial revolution”, he and William McDonough really did this for quite a while (The Atlantic 1998) and successfully.
Efficiency potentials and radical new mobility concepts
As I said before there is no consensus about goals and means. One good example is the seemingly polarity of Braungart’s paradigmatic radicality on he one hand and the optimization strategy of Dr. Lovins (Rocky Mountain Institute) on the other. Both approaches will coexist even when a holistic approach and some disruptive innovation is always more impressive than the “optimization of the old” (see also my post “Dont’ worry …“). But sometimes the sum of many tiny steps could mean revolutionary consequences, too. Take mobility based on fossil fuels. The cars of today are completely stupid in their basic design, Dr. Lovins calculated that only 0.3% of the total energy invested in driving actually moves the physical mass of the driver. Obviously there is huge potential to eco-optimize mobility systems. So maybe car driving will not be illegal in 2018, because cars have very different features then, e.g. are made of very light materials.
An other way to “save the car” was demonstrated by Rolf Schumann of Better Place, a company which could mean a new way to realize personal mobility. Think about sustainable mobility and using a smart infrastructure to cope with the problem of batteries. Better place is acting like an operator selling kilometers not cars, like a mobile carrier is selling minutes to you (Better Place how-it-works).
These are the times for visionary leadership
I want to end with another lesson. As a researcher and speaker I am frequently stressing the potential of the social web, participation, collaboration and “collective intelligence”. This “social thing” always has to be balanced with the respect of individual genius and leadership. I suppose Claudia Langer as the initiating founder of Utopia shows the decisive role of personality.
"We have no killer app, but a killer motivation"
500 changemakers meeting
Yesterday Utopia, the biggest online community for strategic consumption in Germany, celebrated the first birthday, holding a conference in Berlin. At first sight the issues were quite clear:
- sustainability, eco efficiency, green investment, new products, processes, innovative materials …
- the role/responsibility of the political system
- the role/responsibility of big economical players, last but not least
- the role/responsibility of “we, the people”, you and me, for the necessary transformation.
But transformation from here to where? What are the goals and by which means should we try to reach them? Are there different goals and means for different world regions, even countries? The speakers would not be in consent about answers to that questions. But debate and inspiration, yes irritation, is it, why we meet at conferences like this one. Take the example of Prof. Michael Braungart (Cradle to Cradle, you should know). His points sometimes sounded really polemical in a good sense, e.g. attacking (for some years) the core concepts of “efficiency” or “sustainability”, so whitespread in the green discourse. Read the rest of this entry »
Early switchers at earth2tech.com
Fears and hopes
Guess you know Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (youtube). When the wall came down in Berlin some 19 years ago it happened that this easy swinging a cappella sound was the somehow perfect soundtrack for the ambiguity in the mood of the reunified Germans. Ambiguity of fears and hopes – and what followed really was political “change management XXL” – with the inevitable pains of transformation.
Now, this is end of October 2008 and I feel a certain resemblance to the situation of 1989. In these days a lot of commentators suppose that the financial crisis is just the beginning of a longer lasting downturn of the global economy.
One last look back
Futurists and scenario planning people are prepared for the discontinuities of complex systems. This time the wild card was to expect. Warnings date back to 2006 (nypost.com) and even 2004 (abajournal.com). By the way recession cycles of market economy are observed since its beginnings. And Talebs book about the improbable “black swan” has been written in 2007. But who wants to hear bad news? We have to. That’s why we are implementing early warning systems and pay experts, even futurists.
Looking forward – Opportunities in times of transformation
This is the time of cutbacks and layoffs, but that is only the one side. At O’Reilly’s Web2Expo Europe some days ago I heard Robin Daniels (Salesforce.com / Cloud Computing: Freedom to Focus on Innovation”). One of the messages was: “Don’t optimize, but innovate!”. So don’t worry to much, Read the rest of this entry »
Daniel G. Nocera, MIT - Photo Donna Coveney
FACT: Daniel Nocera (MIT) developed a new catalyst for the storage of solar power. The catalyst is much cheaper than the precious metal platinum.
Chemist Daniel Nocera, head of the M.I.T.’s Solar Revolution Project, has found a substitute for platinum (>USD 1,700/ounce). The components of the catalyst are the cobalte (USD 2.25) and phoshor (USD 0.05). Concerning the components this means a cost effectiveness factor of around 1,000. The discovery is seen as breakthrough.
CONTEXT: The advance is a key discovery in the context of efforts to create artificial photosynthesis.
Researchers have made a major advance in inorganic chemistry that could lead to a cheap way to store energy from the sun. Technology Review
RELEVANCE: Efficient local solar systems (“solar at home” – with no storage problem) change the game.
- There is an increased competitiveness of solar power and an impact for conventional energy generation and infrastructures
- Technology to store energy is relevant beyond solar energy generation, e.g. volatile wind power
- Winners: The more autonomous “solar prosumer” (esp. in sun rich zones).
- Loosers: Fossil based energy companies
- Comeback of the hydrogen vision as a realistic scenario is possible – even with the hydrogen car getting the energy from the rooftop
- Solar society* before 2020 in some regions of the world
(* “solar society” i.e. with a solar energy share >> 50%? – I have no definition up to now)
RELATED POSTS
SOURCES
- MIT News Office: ‘Major discovery’ from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution
- Technology Review: Solar-Power Breakthrough
- Scientific American: Hydrogen Power on the Cheap–Or at Least, Cheaper
Update 2008-08-03
- Picture + hyperlink MIT News Office
Some personal remarks
Today it gets a bit personal and subjective, sorry for that. Ok, it is quite inevitable that on the occasion of G8 some “selected” men come together, men which have met the selection criteria of a political system, as it is today in the early 21st century, sometimes a strange fabric of political, of media and economic power. Great opportunity to see the elected leaders Bush, Berlusconi and Sarkozy at one place and analyzing their different “semiotics of power”. When I watch the scene, their “tv faces”, their postures then there seems to be some contrast to the severity of the situation ahead (maybe I am somehow biased as a futurist and analyst).
Picture 1: Global Solar Market 2005-2020, McKinsey Quarterly, The economics of solar power, June 2008; picture 2: DESERTEC Concept, TREC
SIGNAL: NEW SOLAR POWER REPORT
The economics of solar power, June 2008 (McKinsey Quarterly)
“By 2020, hundreds of billions of dollars of investment capital will probably boost global solar-generating capacity 20 to 40 times higher than its current level.”
FORECAST: Gartner Says More than 1 Billion PCs In Use Worldwide and Headed to 2 Billion Units by 2014 Two billion PCs sounds a lot, but think about the billions of embedded chips, the consumer electronics and the mobile devices esp. the mobile phones.
FORECAST: IDC’s new whitepaper offers updated growth projections and new findings expected to impact business and society based on new data and analysis that indicate:
- At 281 billion gigabytes (281 exabytes), the digital universe in 2007 was 10% bigger than originally estimated
- With a compound annual growth rate of almost 60%, the digital universe is growing faster and is projected to be nearly 1.8 zettabytes (1,800 exabytes) in 2011, a 10-fold increase over the next five years
- Your “Digital Shadow” – that is, all the digital information generated about the average person on a daily basis – now surpasses the amount of digital information individuals actively create themselves
- … eWaste … Electronic waste is accumulating at more than 1 billion units a year (emc.com)
Amazing data, not to mention the standard and new sources of spam and distraction, email, im, microblogging etc.
RELEVANCE: There is a physical ecological aspect of the exploding it universe – energy consumption of the billions of devices and mountains of electronic waste, mostly containing some toxic components.
There is a social / cultural / psychological ecological aspect too. The stream of data and growing speed and complexity.
It is time to think more seriously about this avalanche of technology and the resulting environmental and “psycho-ecological” effects. Ecology in IT is ment as a holistic term and means more than “greener chips”.
