By Gunter Pauli
MILAN, Apr 28 2014 (IPS)

The European Union was founded to create conditions for a lasting peace on the old continent, establishing an internal market, integrating agriculture and industry. As new generations emerge that have never experienced war or terrorism in Europe, the concept of quality of life increasingly dominates the debate. Will Europe offer its citizens the future all aspire to?

EU member states represent the world’s largest economic and trading bloc. Hence, they have both the opportunity and the responsibility to evolve from a competitive game, based on economies of scale and ever lower marginal costs, to a quest driven by the private sector to generate more value and more benefits than ever before.

Many consider this impossible and prefer to cling to what they have, resisting change. It requires leadership to shift to the positive, based on science while prepared to take risks guided by a clear vision.

Europe needs to look for opportunities to reconnect the primary and the secondary sectors, and to create the industries of the future with available resources. This is a major challenge for a region that is perceived as void of natural resources.

The present overcapacity in the chemical sector (especially due to investments in China), and the excessive cost of imported naphtha, are eroding the traditional leading role of petroleum-based chemical industries.

The production and distribution of 100 billion plastics bags, nearly all of which contain imported synthetic ingredients, represents a unique opportunity to set the stage for how to improve quality of life, while embarking on a re-industrialisation of Europe, a continent that needs to rethink its role in the world economy.

This opens the door for a new business model that promotes competitiveness and jobs beyond the present logic, beyond the present aspirations.

The value chain of bioplastics is impressive. Replacing one thousand tons of petro-based polymers by locally-sourced natural polymers equals the creation of 60 jobs.

The agricultural sector, provider of the raw materials, either from its waste streams, like straw, low-quality harvests ranging from potatoes to corn, or weeds that invade land laying fallow under EU market-making schemes subsidising farmers not to farm, gets a quarter of the new jobs.

The production of plastics is good for another 25 percent, while the transformation into consumer products represents 15 percent.

Composting, long considered a “green” activity that generates little income or jobs, provides 35 percent of the new employment opportunities. Composting is an immensely strategic process.

Europe is sending millions of tons of organic waste to dumps or incinerators, depriving land of the nutrients urgently needed to replenish topsoil. Farming will inevitably come to a stop once nutrients are depleted. Fertilisers cannot replace the complex web of life that thrives under our feet. Increased urbanisation must go hand in hand with increased composting of organic waste, and its deployment on farmland.

Now when Europe considers the 100 billion bags made from precious poly-ethylene we hardly realise the dramatic impact the substitution of a simple plastic bag can make on society.

Of course, environmentalists will rightly cite the turtle strangled by plastic waste in the Mediterranean. But as an entrepreneur and a citizen, let me point to the incredible opportunity to transform Europe’s leadership in chemistry into leadership in biochemistry.

European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočni has gone out of his way to propose that every country can decide for itself how to regulate and eventually eliminate petrochemical plastic bags.

But I would like to suggest that the Commission can create a level playing field that permits every country to imagine a bright future for its chemical industry, strengthening agriculture, chemistry, energy, and transformation businesses while replenishing topsoil by replacing an expensive imported product.

A locally-produced bag kickstarts new industries, circulates more cash in the regional economy and generates the jobs urgently needed thanks to the value-added created by industry with agricultural produce at the core.

Italy’s law on plastic bags, backed by 94 percent of the population, steers society towards a bio-based economy and at the same time has empowered people to embrace composting and the introduction of biobags as in no other European member to date.

Italy, which has seven outdated petrochemical factories already transformed (or in the process of being transformed), points to a renaissance of this industry unparalleled elsewhere in Europe and the rest of the world.

It is backed by about 1,000 patents and confirms that there is a future for an innovative and knowledge-based industry, and that the industrial vocation of Europe remains firmly on track, while consumers and nature unequivocally benefit from this transition leading to the maintenance and creation of jobs seldom imagined.
(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Gunter Pauli
BERLIN, Jan 28 2013 (IPS)

When my children were born it was a clear commitment: all clothing would have to carry the “organic” seal. It was an expression of a lifestyle, a commitment to the Earth.

Gunter Pauli.

While in the early nineties I still had to search half the world to find certified organic children’s wear, today even mainstream shops carry organic clothing, especially for children.

I still have to pay a premium price like twenty years ago, but the products are easily available since an increasing number of brands pride themselves on offering natural products.

Whereas we have debated the use of biofuels that increase the cost of food, especially when subsidies divert corn from tortillas to gas stations, we have never debated the issue of fibres diverting land from food.

On a recent visit to China I learned that the government of the world’s largest cotton-producing nation decided to phase out cotton. The reasoning follows a clear logic: the land reserved to produce 32 percent of the world’s cotton should not provide a raw material for clothing. Land and its massive water reserve that made cotton viable and competitive should be reserved for producing food. Protein instead of fibres. The Chinese offer an insight into a logic that should prevail in all our production and consumption decisions: why waste water on clothing, when food is the priority?

All cotton, even organic cotton, requires excessive amounts of water. Eliminating chemicals is a great step forward, but is not enough to push society on a pathway towards sustainability.

There should be no doubt that by 2050 the additional two billion people on Earth will need to be dressed. However, the limited resources and the carrying capacity of our Earth need to be aligned with emerging demand.

While biologists have embraced chemicals, and even genetic manipulation to respond to growing needs, a smarter option emerges that goes beyond fiddling with nature through genetic control mechanisms, to searching for solutions within the regenerative resources that biodiversity offers.

After all, cotton originated from the Americas, but 63 percent is farmed in China and India, stressing the water reserves that even the United States does not have anymore. It is not good enough to have genetically modified cotton that requires less water: all water that is sustainably available should be dedicated to providing food security.

The question is: what else is available beyond hemp and kenaf? Time has come to create a portfolio of solutions. China offers once more an interesting strategy.

During the 2008 Olympics, the Chinese military was called in to clear two million tons of algae blooms from water bodies around Qingdao that were threatening the open water games.

This emergency situation provided an insight into the potential of algae. After all, these prolific protists feed on excessive nutrients and require no additional input. On the contrary, these grow in rivers and seas without ever needing fresh water as an input.

The processing is about removing water – not consuming water. It did not take long before motivated Chinese entrepreneurs and policy makers to join forces to create the first alginate-based textile fibre factory.

The conversion of 20 million tons, and the potential for farming beyond the harvesting of blooms, suggests that China could substitute all its fibre needs with these blooms. The cost to remove the bloom is converted into the generation of income without the need for additional land. The economics of new fibres could hardly be better.

A quick tour of the world confirms that Europe, Africa, the islands in the Chinese seas and Indonesia could provide a natural source for fibres that could release 25 percent of the world’s irrigation waters.

We should embrace a broader search and identify all the natural fibres that could meet demand without stressing this thin crust that sustains us. Regions characterised by temperate climates and void of rivers and seashores full of prolific algae growth seem to have forgotten another tremendous potential: nettle (Urtica dioica). Considered a weed around the world, this prolific plant thrives in poor conditions and could be part of the portfolio of fibres that will release water resources and dramatically reduce our dependency on chemicals to dress the world.

Nettles do not compete with food crops. Observing its presence, it does not even need to be planted. Since it is a perennial, once growing it only needs harvesting, no planting or nurturing. It is so easy to grow that it is embarrassingly simple compared to the industrialisation of cotton.

A piece of foul land the size of Belgium and the Netherlands is enough to provide a quarter of the world’s demand for fibres. We not only save the water, we save the chemicals and the seeds while generating jobs for producing a long lasting quality fibre that was the preferred raw material for the European royals in the Middle Ages, and remains the core fibre for men’s clothing in Bhutan and Nepal today.

We can continue to live on a beautiful blue Earth, provided we find out what we have. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Gunter Pauli and - -
BERLIN, Sep 13 2011 (IPS)

As water grows scarcer and scarcer, the pressure to recycle it grows more intense, and though this makes good ecological sense, there is an unfortunate drawback: the drinking water system worldwide is polluted with pharmaceuticals.

Although we do not yet understand the precise effects on human health, animal studies suggest that we are heading towards a new crisis as intake and metabolism drugs, antibiotics, and synthetic hormones for birth control end up in our surface and drinking water. Many of the compounds are so persistent that thousands of tons flow annually into the sea and then accumulate in the fish we eat. When it comes antibiotics, the problem is exponential, since more than 50 percent of the world’s consumption is not for treating people but making it possible to grow cows fat faster, which concentrates the medicine in their flesh. As for fish, we had thought it was the absorption of only heavy metals that was alarming, but the problem is bigger. Pharmaceutical products are known to cause reproductive, mutagenic, and teratogenic effects in water life. Prozac residue causes male mussels to spawn; anti-hypertension drugs impact the reproduction of crayfish and crabs. The infiltration of antibiotics and anti-bacterials increases the resistance of bacteria, which has serious implications for treating infections in the future. Anti-tumor drugs used in chemotherapy are known to have mutagenic and teratogenic effects. And there is increasing evidence of endocrine disruption in wildlife even when exposed only to trace levels of synthetic hormones.

Painkillers, like Ibuprofen, and even nicotine are not removed during the drinking water filtration process. We had thought we had finally addressed the adverse effects of second-hand smoke by prohibiting smoking in public places. Now it seems that we are all smoking anyway -through our drinking water! The City of Antwerp has more cocaine in its water than any other city in the world. Could we even be accused of doing hard drugs simply by hydrating our body?

Conventional water treatment plants are incapable of removing pharmaceuticals. Studies demonstrate that coagulation, sedimentation, and filtration eliminates only 10 to 12 percent of the active ingredients. This portion accumulates in sludge, which is often recycled as a soil additive, exposing our food chain once more to unwanted ingredients. Activated carbon filtration and ozone treatment can remove up to 75 percent, which exposes the population to the remaining 25 percent.

As water continues to be recycled -and re-recycled into closed loops- at the same time as consumption of both prescription and over-the-counter drugs increases, society and the world’s ecosystems are being exposed to a broad cocktail of pharmaceuticals at excessive levels. It would not be surprising if entire sections of the population started suffering from mood swings and shifts in their sexual behavior. Officials in Philadelphia discovered 56 pharmaceuticals in their treated drinking water. Nearly 20 million residents of Southern California are exposed to anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety drugs. San Francisco’s drinking water contains a synthetic and hard-to-break-down sex hormone. Unfortunately, bottled water is filtered drinking water in a wasteful plastic container, and most water bottlers do not test for pharmaceuticals either. Even our home filtration systems only reduce and do not eliminate drugs. Your only salvation is your own well from a watershed you control, which is available to very few indeed.

It is time to revisit health care and the search for effective medicine. Undoubtedly, in the wake of these legitimate concerns, traditional and natural medicine becomes more relevant than ever. The Bhutanese constitution’s guarantee of traditional medicine to all citizens is a visionary provision.

As we are spreading medicine indiscriminately throughout the environment and society, it is urgent to provide new shelf-life guidelines to the pharmaceutical industry. Just as it took decades to realise that plastics do not disintegrate but form massive junk islands in the Pacific Ocean, so it will take time for the authorities to recognise that pharmacological products do not degrade but rather accumulate in bodies of water. But there is an important difference: mood-swing chemicals and chemotherapy residue, unlike plastic, are invisible, which will make it even harder to convince people of the extent of their impact.

The typical response from the economic interests concerned is that there is no scientific proof that humans are affected. The problem is that when definitive proof is made available, it will be too late. There is no remedy except waiting until these molecules degrade. The danger is not a single pharmaceutical product but rather the cocktail of accumulated drugs, which could cause irreparable damage.

In response, it seems that three parallel initiatives are needed. First, instead of only discovering new drugs and inventing new delivery methods, research must devise triggers to disassemble these man-made molecules. Second, water treatment plants and water bottling facilities must be equipped to measure the presence of pharmaceuticals. It is not possible to require every city install a reverse osmosis facility, which can effectively remove 95 percent. Such an end-of-tube solution would dramatically increase the cost of water. Instead of passing the cost on to the taxpayer, the design of the product must change.

A third step would be finally focusing on tackling the root causes of this massive consumption of pills. The time has come to find a healthier, happier, and less stressful way of living. Whereas the first two solutions can be implemented by any responsible government, the third one is a decision we have to make ourselves, before it is too late. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Gunter Pauli, author of the Blue Economy and entrepreneur.

Excerpt:

By Gunter Pauli and - -
BERLIN, Aug 9 2011 (IPS)

For decades the world economy has been on a path towards globalisation. The drive to achieve ever larger economies of scale at ever lower marginal costs pushed manufacturing to standardise, slashing expenses by outsourcing and supply chain management, consolidating suppliers, eliminating unnecessary in-house middle management, pushing for mergers and acquisitions, purging excess to deliver better returns to investors and ever lower prices to customers, thus strengthening their purchasing power and bringing more citizens into the sought-after middle class.

This process of globalisation-driven growth is supposed to have a trickle-down effect, bringing wealth to many while more middle class members rise from rags into riches. But the reality of a globalised economy seems to be that poverty is its only sustainable phenomenon. While one can claim there has been growth and market expansion, the number of people living on less than one dollar a day has never been so high.

Controlling the population explosion has been considered one of the key factors in bringing equitable and social development to everyone on the globe. But population control is simply not enough.

The most critical though least debated action required is changing the business model. Our economic system has long been driven by efficiency without ever considering sufficiency. Greed, not need, has been the muse of the ranks of business. And the gap between the world’s richest and the poorest has never been so large.

The Blue Economy proposes that we respond to basic needs with what we have. The time has come to stop consuming more than the carrying capacity of our earth. We have to introduce innovations and technologies that cascade nutrients, energy, and matter the way ecosystems do, so that we can exit the trap of scarcity and enter the world of sufficiency for all living sentient beings, not only the human species.

Amory Lovins and his energy experts at the Rocky Mountain Institute have proven that modern society reached Peak Oil in 2007, meaning that annual extraction of fossil fuels reached its highest point, subsequently beginning a long decline in reserves. With Peak Oil, reducing consumption and searching for renewables became an absolute necessity.

But the end of the age of unlimited access to fossil fuel brings another “peak” with it: Peak Globalisation. Companies that have undergone a brutal transformation to become the global players will now face a downturn in their underlying growth dynamics. The winners will be the small and medium-sized companies, inspired by millions of entrepreneurs who will respond to basic needs for all with what is locally available. This shift permits the design of a competitive business world where free trade and free direct foreign investment are not the key to economic success. The new business model will provide opportunities for the local risk taker who is capable of creating a broader coalition of economic and social activities with multiple revenues and multiple benefits, going beyond the straightjacket of the core business and core competence mantra of the highly standardised globalised world and its fetish of discounted cash flow analysis.

The shift away from the Harvard Business School model, which forces management to focus on one product and one process at a time, will insure that David will win against Goliath. He will win not because of privileged access to global capital, labour, energy, and mineral markets, but because the drive towards globalisation has left the giants of industry extremely vulnerable. And unlike companies listed in the Fortune 500, few entrepreneurs aspire to replace the giants; rather they are happy with the 2-3 percent market share each can nibble off their formidable opponents. This new paradigm will facilitate the arrival of decentralised production and consumption systems that are now technically and competitively viable in all sectors of the economy. including mining, forestry, agriculture, metals, chemistry, energy, paper and pulp and so many more.

The portfolio of 100 innovations described in The Blue Economy, and their growing successes on the market in all four corners of the world demonstrate that these individual breakthroughs are not isolated cases but are part of a new trend which I call “The End of Globalisation”. While its complete penetration of our social and economic tissue may take another few decades, it is already shaping competitive forces, driven by local needs and local resources. This will shape a new society in which jobs are generated, the best products for health and environment are cheaper, and social capital is created by simply being more productive and competitive. After all, that is what is expected of the homo economic: achieving much more with much less. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Gunter Pauli, author of the Blue Economy and entrepreneur.

Excerpt:

The reality of a globalized economy seems to be that poverty is its only sustainable phenomenon, says entrepreneur Gunter Pauli in this column.

- Claudius

This process of globalization-driven growth is supposed to have a trickle-down effect, bringing wealth to many while more middle class members rise from rags into riches.

But the reality of a globalised economy seems to be that poverty is its only sustainable phenomenon. While one can claim there has been growth and market expansion, the number of people living on less than one dollar a day has never been so high.

Controlling the population explosion has been considered one of the key factors in bringing equitable and social development to everyone on the globe. But population control is simply not enough.

The most critical though least debated action required is changing the business model.

Our economic system has long been driven by efficiency without ever considering sufficiency. Greed, not need, has been the muse of the ranks of business. And the gap between the world's richest and the poorest has never been so large.

The Blue Economy proposes that we respond to basic needs with what we have. The time has come to stop consuming more than the carrying capacity of our earth.

We have to introduce innovations and technologies that cascade nutrients, energy, and matter the way ecosystems do, so that we can exit the trap of scarcity and enter the world of sufficiency for all living sentient beings, not only the human species.

Amory Lovins and his energy experts at the Rocky Mountain Institute have proven that modern society reached Peak Oil in 2007, meaning that annual extraction of fossil fuels reached its highest point, subsequently beginning a long decline in reserves. With Peak Oil, reducing consumption and searching for renewables became an absolute necessity.

But the end of the age of unlimited access to fossil fuel brings another "peak" with it: Peak Globalization. Companies that have undergone a brutal transformation to become the global players will now face a downturn in their underlying growth dynamics.

The winners will be the small and medium-sized companies, inspired by millions of entrepreneurs who will respond to basic needs for all with what is locally available.

This shift permits the design of a competitive business world where free trade and free direct foreign investment are not the key to economic success.

The new business model will provide opportunities for the local risk taker who is capable of creating a broader coalition of economic and social activities with multiple revenues and multiple benefits, going beyond the straightjacket of the core business and core competence mantra of the highly standardized globalized world and its fetish of discounted cash flow analysis.

The shift away from the Harvard Business School model, which forces management to focus on one product and one process at a time, will insure that David will win against Goliath.

He will win not because of privileged access to global capital, labor, energy, and mineral markets, but because the drive towards globalization has left the giants of industry extremely vulnerable.

And unlike companies listed in the Fortune 500, few entrepreneurs aspire to replace the giants; rather they are happy with the 2-3 percent market share each can nibble off their formidable opponents.

This new paradigm will facilitate the arrival of decentralized production and consumption systems that are now technically and competitively viable in all sectors of the economy. including mining, forestry, agriculture, metals, chemistry, energy, paper and pulp and so many more.

The portfolio of 100 innovations described in The Blue Economy, and their growing successes on the market in all four corners of the world demonstrate that these individual breakthroughs are not isolated cases but are part of a new trend which I call "The End of Globalization".

While its complete penetration of our social and economic tissue may take another few decades, it is already shaping competitive forces, driven by local needs and local resources.

This will shape a new society in which jobs are generated, the best products for health and environment are cheaper, and social capital is created by simply being more productive and competitive.

After all, that is what is expected of the homo economic: achieving much more with much less. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

By Gunter Pauli
BERLIN, Apr 27 2011 (IPS)

The technologies exist and are in use today that could make it possible to replace nuclear power with renewable sources while saving money.

Today there are 442 nuclear power stations operating in 30 countries and generating 375 GW of energy. There are 16 nations currently constructing 65 nuclear plants to produce an additional 63 GW. The United States operates the largest number of nuclear energy generators (104), more than France (58) and Japan (48). Some 212 of the plants in operation are more than 30 years old and while there is no absolute science on how long they are safe to operate, German Chancellor Angela Merkel set the stage by ordering all nuclear plants older than 30 years closed indefinitely.

The relative decline of nuclear had been certain well before the Fukushima disaster. In 2010 the European Union operated 143 plants, down from its peak of 177 in 1989. It is said that nuclear plants will be capable of providing base load energy at 5.9 cents per kWh. The real cost, after you factor in all subsidies, depreciation advantages, insurance protection, financing support and waste disposal arrangements, is closer to 25-30 cents kWh. In spite of massive subsidies and legal protection, nuclear produced less energy globally in 2010 than renewables. Now that the Pacific and Indian Oceans are off-limits for new nuclear power projects, the question is how will the world generate renewable and affordable energy?

The Blue Economy proposes that we use what we have and study the competitiveness of innovations without expecting subsidies. A handful of sources of heat and electricity could redraw and improve the present landscape of renewable energies. The three key innovations are: (1) vertical wind turbines placed inside existing high-voltage transmissions masts, (2) redesigning existing municipal waste water treatment (MWWT) plants to combine water treatment with organic municipal solid waste to produce biogas, and (3) combined heat and power generation with double-sided photovoltaic wafers placed inside a recycled container equipped with tracking optics eliminating all moving parts.

If Germany were to complement 500 of its 9,600 MWWT with highly- efficient biogas generators based on the Scandinavian Biogas know-how now operating in Ulsan, Korea, the potential base load supply from gas could reach as much as 5 GW. Biogas is a secure and predictable form of generation -no one doubts that organic waste and waste water will be in permanent supply- and therefore provides stability to the grid.

By installing vertical turbines designed by Wind-it (France) inside one-third of its 150,000 high-voltage transmission masts, Germany could generate up to 5 GW, at a fraction of the cost of nuclear. Plus, if only 100 hectares at 100 of the defunct portions of Germany’s 1900 landfills were covered with combined heat and power generators from Solarus AB (Sweden), generating per hectare 1,830 kWt and 610kWe, the potential energy supply would increase by another 6.1 GWe and 18.3 GWt. This heat can be used to reduce demand for water heating, the largest consumer of household electricity.

The daily demand for electricity in Germany is approximately 70 GWh; nuclear energy represents about 20 percent, or 15 GWh. The calculations above indicate that with only a fraction of the existing infrastructure it is possible to replace all nuclear (5+5+6.1GWh). The cost of production for each of the three alternatives is at or below 2 cents per kWh. The present transfer cost for nuclear to the grid is 5.6 cents per kWh.

The obvious additional benefit is jobs. Germany, which is already a world leader in the export of green technologies, could now even position itself as the world’s largest exporter of green energy. However, the most powerful element in the design of an exit strategy for nuclear is that the price difference -3.6 cents per kWh- for the 15 GW now supplied by nuclear will generate a yearly windfall of 4.7 billion euros. This cash flow, produced by efficiencies of simple technologies, could finance the exit of nuclear over a 10 year period.

Thus today a consensus could emerge whereby energy companies would be provided an exit package based on the value of their assets and paid for discontinuing nuclear energy. While the forced closure of the oldest plants has already knocked 25 percent off their value and present uncertainties are likely to cause a further decline in share value, it would not be difficult for financial engineers to come up with a solution that permits the exit from nuclear through a win-win strategy, broadening the benefits for all and reducing risks.

Germany could become the world’s financial hub, financing the exit of nuclear based on cash and consensus. This is the ultimate objective of the Blue Economy: to respond to the basic needs of all with what we have, offer the necessary products and services that are good for your health and the environment at a lower cost, while building up social capital. It seems like this can be achieved, and quicker than we ever thought. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Gunter Pauli, author of the Blue Economy and entrepreneur.

Excerpt:

By Gunter Pauli
THIMPHU, Dec 7 2010 (IPS)

A decade ago the Queen of Bhutan Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, visited the ZERI pavilion at the World Expo in Hannover, the largest bamboo building in modern times, constructed with a German building permit. The pavilion demonstrated new emerging business models proven to work in Colombia, Brazil, Namibia, and Sweden. As the driving force behind these innovative development models, I was invited by the Queen to come to Bhutan.

I came and was enchanted with the country and its people. I was impressed with the visionary approach of Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the country’s fourth king, who not only brought democracy to his Himalayan kingdom but who stated early in his reign that happiness is more important than growth. That vision is now known to the world as Gross National Happiness (GNH). Without a doubt, a nation that enshrines forest protection in its constitution and establishes every citizen’s right to traditional medicine embraces a different type of development. On top of that, the government banned the sale of cigarettes and the use of plastic bags. However, the pressure to grow is high, unemployment poses a new challenge, and access to satellite television and the internet entices many to emulate a consumption model and desire junk food, which was recently subjected to a special tax.

After crossing the country from West to East on four extended visits enriched by dialogues with government, the private sector, and civil society, I submitted a portfolio of possible initiatives “to grow and be happy”. Based on my experience in creating initiatives that respond to people’s needs with what they have, I designed businesses that go beyond cutting costs and instead generate more value, especially for remote rural communities. And one of the core values is happiness.

A portfolio of six top projects emerged, each based on a benchmark somewhere in the world, inspired by pioneers who have demonstrated competitiveness while having the capacity to reach out to the unreached. These opportunities offer a platform for entrepreneurship, job generation, and investments, provided the government creates the policies to make this happen. Working sessions with the prime minister and his colleagues led to the formulation of government resolutions to set the stage for implementing this GNH portfolio backed up by an independent GNH Fund. The prime minister’s goal is that Bhutan will revert to 100 percent organic farming, forever. As a first step to achieve that goal, he wishes to decree that all food served in restaurants and hotels must be certified organic. This guarantees higher income to farmers.

The second policy option may even do better: turn Bhutan into the first country committed to bioplastics. An inspirational encounter between the Queen with Dr. Catia Bastioli, the founder of Novamont of Italy, who is already converting agro-waste of 600 Italian farmers into bioplastics, set the stage for a promising collaborative effort. Bhutan said no to plastic bags. Now it says yes to bioplastics made from left-overs which after use are composted and returned to soil.

The rise of petroleum imports is hurting the Bhutanese balance of payments. The prime minister already declared that the country will be carbon negative. Now he is prepared to commit to eliminate all use of fossil fuel. He is inspired by the pioneering work of Las Gaviotas, Colombia. Las Gaviotas taps pine trees to generate all the fuel it needs. Bhutan has a 72 percent forest cover. We can imagine an army of “happy tappers”, generating fuel from the trees.

The capital city of Thimphu and emerging urban centres are struggling with an increasing flow of black water, a danger to public health and costly to treat. The prime minister is ready to turn Bhutan into the first country committed to eliminate septic tanks, sewage, and water treatment. Instead, Bhutan wishes to opt for the Swedish technology proven to work in homes, schools, apartment blocks, and city quarters by the architect Anders Nyquist in Sundsvall. This “dry” approach, which does not smell at all, eliminates viruses at source, recycles water on site, regenerates nutrients, and is cheap.

Each policy decision proposed is backed by technologies, competitive business models, and investment opportunities all based on the Blue Economy, a development model that does not require anyone to pay more to be sustainable. Everyone in the government read my book of the same title, and now I realize the power of publishing! These policy decision made on December 7, 2010, inspired me to create the GNH fund with local partners. Over 100 figures signed a letter of support, going well beyond the clapping hands and slapping of shoulders. We are delighted to advance on an investment rather an aid strategy and expect the fund will be operational by spring 2011. Imagine if the big neighbouring countries would opt for the same strategy.(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Gunter Pauli is author of the Blue Economy and entrepreneur.

Excerpt:

By Gunter Pauli
TOKYO, Jun 21 2010 (IPS)

The world is in need of a new economic model. Who doubts this while the debate on climate change decelerates and the temperature of the earth rises, along with unemployment and poverty levels. We have to search for solutions beyond the obvious and make quantum leaps.

The traditional development models have collapsed. The Planned Economy was never able to efficiently allocate resources. The Market Economy evolved into a system whereby companies pursued economies of scale and unleashed a wave of mergers and acquisitions whereby management leveraged assets to control competitors. When debt became untenable, financial wizards invented sophisticated financial instruments that created assets based on nothing, until that scheme collapsed. The only serious response seemed to be the Green Economy.

The promoters of the Green Economy questioned growth and argued for going beyond money to eradicating hunger and poverty, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Unfortunately, in spite of all the good intentions the Green Economy has not taken off. It requires government to subsidise, companies to accept lower returns, and consumers to pay more. This is only viable in a growth model where unemployment is decreasing. However, this is a tough act to follow when governments are bankrupt, demand drops, consumer confidence dwindles, and the youngest citizens are told there is no work as over a billion people live in poverty.

The time has come to embrace a portfolio of innovations, to move from our romance with nature and our pessimism with industry to a pragmatic redesign of our economy inspired by ecosystems. The time has come to embrace the short-term urgent need for water, food, and health with long-term strategies to build social capital. The time has come to discover solutions that have no unintended consequences, like the increased cost of food due the use of corn as feedstock for both biofuels and bioplastic. Or, the use of palm oil for biodegradable soaps that destroys huge tracks of rainforest and the habitat of the orangutan. In our drive to embrace sustainability we have tolerated collateral damage as if we are fighting terrorism.

Ecosystems provide the inspiration to model new entrepreneurial businesses beyond what we know. We call this the Blue Economy (Paradigm Publications, Taos, New Mexico). Ecosystems cascade nutrients and energy as demonstrated in the astonishing work of George Chan, a sanitary engineer, taking the best of permaculture to a new order of efficiency. In his models implemented in Colombia, Namibia and Fiji, we see that spent biomass becomes the growing medium for mushrooms, spent substrate becomes protein-rich feed for livestock, their bacteria inoculated animal manure generates biogas in a digester, its slurry becomes a nutrient for algae, and its residual water promotes plankton that becomes fish feed and enriches irrigation water. In Brazil, biologist Jorge Alberto Vieira Costa redirects CO2 exhaust from the local coal-fired power station. It provides the nutrients for spirulina algae producing protein-rich food and biofuels. It demonstrates how an excessive polluting by-product (CO2) can be converted to a resource in the retention basin for warm water from the cooling tower.

Ecosystems operate with what is locally available and rely foremost on the laws of physics. Physics is predictable and has no exceptions: warm air rises, cold water drops. Following these principles allows entrepreneurs to reduce or eliminate mined metals, processed chemicals and non-renewable energy.

The mechanisms developed by zebras and termites display more mastery of air and humidity control than any of our existing mechanical and electronic solutions. We see this in the design by architect Anders Nyquist of the Laggarberg School in Sweden, Gaviotas’ field hospital in Colombian Vichada, and the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe, where air is continuously and naturally refreshed without the need for pumps, heaters or coolers. This cuts capital costs by exploiting pressure and temperature differentials. As a result, chemical insulation is complemented or even replaced by physics, eliminating the unsustainable use of materials and energy in the process.

The same logic is applied to the generation of electricity. Each year some 40 billion batteries, mined and processed at high environmental cost, end up in landfills. Every ecosystem generates electric currents based on differentials in pressure, pH, and temperature. These micro-currents are sufficient to provide a substitute for billions of -green- batteries which pollute beyond any logic. This has been demonstrated by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute, where they have successfully made the prototype of a cellphone that generates electricity from the temperature difference between phone and body, and converting pressure from our voice into piezo-electricity that provides the power to transmit our voice … as long as we are talking.

Some 100 innovations provide the benchmarks for entrepreneurs to design innovative businesses from the grassroots up. The Blue Economy wishes to expose, not to impose, and offer the depths of science so that a new competitive model can emerge, the sooner the better. Let us not demand more of the Earth. Let us do more with what the Earth provides. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Gunter Pauli is an entrepreneur in business, science, education, and the arts and the author of non-fiction books and fables for children.

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