Innovation for generations

ONEMORE

TIME

2

ONE MORE TIME

A debate anthology published by H.J.Hansen Recycling Ltd.

© H.J.Hansen and authors 2009

Contributors: Connie Hedegaard, Tor Nørretranders, Suzanne C.Beckmann, Henrik Wenzel, Mads Thimmer and Preben Mejer

Concept: Thorvald Brix Isager, Head of Environment DepartmentEditors: Environmental Consultant Rasmus Olsen, Marketing Consultant Sanne Terp Nielsen and Deputy Director Jesper BankProject management: Sofie Pedersen, Stickelbergs Bureau Graphic design: Ulrik Samsøe Figen, Stickelbergs BureauPhotography: Ulrik Samsøe Figen, Polfoto and ScanpixTranslation: Intertext l Mus & Pen

ISBN 978-87-990443-2-0

The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of H.J.Hansen.

To order:Copies of the anthology ”One more time” can be ordered fromH.J.Hansen on the website at www.hjhansen.dk or by telephone on +45 63 10 91 00

The book is FSC-certifided and printed by AKA-PRINT, Tilst

3

Jens Hempel-Hansen: Recycling – for the sake of the climate

Connie Hedegaard: Intelligent solutions are the future

Tor Nørretranders: Recycle – and repeat

Suzanne C. Beckmann: Green self-deception – the myth of the eco consumer

Henrik Wenzel: Scrap is no crap

Innovation Lab: Facing the future with confidence

4

6

8

24

36

50

page

page

page

page

page

page

Content

4

Global warming is one of the top issues at the inter-national agenda. The lives of future generationsdepend on our ability to find intelligent solutions tothe climate changes and to make the right decisions.It is a huge responsibility, but it also provides anexciting opportunity to take new directions andredefine society and our way of living.

For generations, H.J.Hansen has been processingrecycled materials ranging from old horse-shoes toworn out hub caps. Some people see it as waste – to

us, it is raw material. Our foremost task is to protectthe limited resources of the Earth by reusing themagain and again, and thus contribute to the creationof a better climate. Each time we recycle metal scrapinstead of discarding it as waste, we reduce the CO2

emission, and our goal is to play an active role in thebattle against global warming.

As our contribution to the global climate debate, wehave invited five social commentators with differentbackgrounds to give us their views on how reusing

Recycling –for the sake of the climate

5

and recycling can provide the climate with a helpinghand in future. The commentators took the challen-ge and allowed their thoughts free rein, which hasresulted in this serious, interesting, entertainingand – at times – provocative collection of articles.

Innovation Lab guides us along into a high-techfuture in which new inventions make life as an envi-ronmentally aware citizen of the world both easyand convenient. Suzanne C. Beckmann reveals theself-deception of the green consumer. Henrik

Wenzel gets to the heart of the global environmentissues by aiming the spotlight at the myths and thefacts of the energy debate. And Tor Nørretranders,in short, wants us to recycle everything over andover again. All in all, this is a collection of thought-provoking ideas that are very worthy of attention,whether or not one agrees with the five social com-mentators.

Enjoy your reading.

Jens Hempel-Hansen, CEO H.J.Hansen4th generation of the H.J.Hansen family

6

We are living in a time of crisis. As inhabitants of theplanet Earth, we must decide whether or not we aregoing to assume responsibility for climate change.Whether we are going to take responsibility for thefact that the way we have organised our society mostlikely will alter the planet’s entire eco-system withinthe next two to three generations, unless we changethe way we use our resources. It is a huge challenge. But it isn’t the only one we face.In the year 2050, the world's population is expected toreach nine billion, and eight billion of those peoplewill live in countries that today are considered to bedeveloping nations. These people will demand thesame goods and resources currently enjoyed by thoseof us in the developed world. This is why it is all-important that we discover better and more effectiveways of using our resources if the future is to hold thepossibility of global growth and development. Butthis doesn't have to mean bans, deprivation and cold

showers. It means that we must stake our efforts ondeveloping new technologies that can provide us withcleaner sources of energy and better and cleaner waysof using our resources. Denmark has shown that the careful use of resourcescan pay off. Since 1980, Denmark’s economy hasgrown by 78 percent while energy consumption hasremained more or less constant, and CO2 emissionshave been significantly reduced. This was possiblebecause we discovered new and intelligent ways inwhich to use our resources. For example, we establis-hed the framework that enabled wind power to suc-cessfully develop into an efficient way to generateenergy. Today, Denmark is among the countries thatderive the largest percentage of their electricity fromwind power – and it has also become an extremelyprofitable business as other countries discover thepotential of wind power and seek Danish technologi-es with which to exploit it. We have also enabled more

Intelligent solutions are the future

7

efficient use of fuels in electricity and heat produc-tion. In Denmark, half of all electricity and heat areactually produced together, which is an intelligent,common sense way to use resources. At the sametime we have ensured that existing resources such asbiomass or waste are also included in energy produc-tion and thus become part of the recycling process. Intelligent solutions and new technologies are theway forward if we are to solve our challenges. Anddevelopments are already taking place – new ways ofthinking and new ways of looking at how we can useour resources. At one time the cradle-to-grave cyclewas widely discussed: Products we used everydaywere to be subjected to carbon footprint analysis atevery step of their life cycle, from production to waste.This mode of thought is now being replaced to a largeextent by a new way of thinking: cradle-to-cradle.With this concept there is no "grave" – each productis manufactured in such a way that it is 100 percent

recyclable or biodegradable. Consider a worn-out run-ning shoe that today would end up in the trash. Rightnow, one of the world's most well-known runningshoe manufacturers is developing footwear that canbe taken apart and recycled in its entirety after itsusefulness is at an end. Another example could be icecream packaging that degrades into fluid withinhours if taken out of the freezer and left at room tem-perature.This kind of thinking deserves a fair hearing – notonly with manufacturers but with us as individualcitizens and consumers faced with the choice of whichrunning shoes to purchase. Every single day, wemake choices that send messages to the market,including whether we support the way in which themarket develops new technologies. I am convincedthat we can solve the challenges that stand before usif we all put forth a collective effort – and that inclu-des politicians, citizens, and businesses

By Connie Hedegaard, Minister for Climate and Energy

8

Chapter 1 : Recycle – and repeat

9

Share your shit! Donʼt produce waste that no one can use.

Pass your stuff on, on and on – waste, ideas,

openness to others. Share all of it.

Tor Nørretranders

,,

,,

10

Tor NørretrandersAuthor and Adjunct Professor of the philosophy ofscience at Copenhagen Business School.

With a background education as an environmental plan-ner, Tor Nørretranders’ trademark is communicatingthe mysteries of natural science in an easy to under-stand yet fascinating manner. He is concerned with theoverarching questions of our existence: What does itmean to be human, and what part do we play in theEarth’s flow of energy and matter? In 1991 Tor Nørretranders received international recog-nition with the publication of his book “The UserIllusion”, and today he enjoys a faithful audience bothwithin Denmark and abroad, which he keeps suppliedwith a steady stream of lectures, articles and booksabout natural science and social science subjects at thetop of the current agenda.

11

It’s not exactly news: We can reuse and recycle mat-ter. We can use energy that comes from sourceswhich renew themselves continually and whichnever run out. We can use information again andagain. Most truly valuable things in life become morevaluable the more we use them: Knowledge, langua-ge, love. This is nothing new. But it seems new because it has been forgotten. Outof sight, out of mind for thousands of years. Now,however, it is returning to our awareness. It’s allhappening anew: We realise that recycling is theprinciple that governs everything that lives on Earth.Recycling is something that every other organism onthe planet does, so why shouldn’t we do it too?

An incredible planet

But let’s take it from the top: We live on a planet

where incredible things happen all the time. Life islived, flowers bloom, and wolves howl on the step-pes. It is quite incredible what ants, clams and seagulls continually manage to accomplish. And theyall do it with just one source for all this activity, onesource of all this energy: the Sun. The Sun is a nuclear reactor way out there in spaceat exactly the right distance that a nuclear reactorought to be from Earth: 150 million kilometresaway. We orbit the Sun and are therefore alwaysbathed in its light that sheds many hundreds ofthousands of terawatts of energy on the Earth. Itshowers us with energy that courses through theEarth’s outer layers, the atmosphere, the oceans,the soil, and not least, the biosphere. This energyleads to an enormous amount of activity, both inphysical systems such as air streams – wind – and

Recycle – and repeatHistory always repeats itself – luckily for us. Recycling is returning as the dominanthuman way of life. But it will not succeed without our own efforts. The greatest chal-lenge in the history of the world is before us when the climate crisis is finally recog-nised for what it is: the tip of the iceberg of the need for a recycling approach through-out our existence. That applies to energy, it applies to materials, it applies to ideasand it applies to relationships. The slogan for this approach is both simple and rude:Share your shit.

By Tor Nørretranders

12

movements of water – streams and waves. And notleast in terms of biological systems that transportenormous amounts of matter, all driven by sun-light. In this wonderful world, a vast majority of the orga-nisms on Earth – plants, algae, and certain bacteria– are able to eat sunlight. They absorb the light andextract energy from it . This energy is captured intoenergy-rich sugar molecules in the process knownas photosynthesis. In order to achieve this, theseorganisms must rely on more than sunshine. Let’slook at plants as an example. They need water,which they absorb through their roots embedded inthe soil. And they need nutrients, which they alsoabsorb through the soil. And finally they requirecarbon dioxide to form their sugar molecules.Carbon dioxide is taken from the ambient air,which among many other gases contains this sub-stance. Carbon dioxide consists of molecules com-prised of carbon and oxygen.Carbon is an element that plants need to grow,while oxygen is something they produce as surpluswaste. So they “exhale” the oxygen back into theatmosphere. Therefore a plant grows by absorbingsunlight from above and water from below, so it cansplit the carbon dioxide it inhales from the air intocarbon, which it uses itself, and oxygen, which is itswaste.

Oxygen was once pollution

When the first plant-like micro-organisms on Earthevolved billions of years ago, they gave rise to a pol-lution disaster of monumental proportions: The

atmosphere was pervaded by an incredibly reactiveand terribly poisonous gas that many organismscould not tolerate: Oxygen.Oxygen could not be tolerated by many of the exi-sting micro-organisms, but it became vital to laterorganisms that evolved to adapt themselves to thisextremely reactive gas. These were animals, whichcannot “eat” sunlight and which are therefore depen-dent upon organisms that can. Animals eat plants,which absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide. The ani-mals produce energy by consuming the plants’ car-bon-containing compounds and combining it withoxygen. Combustion is thus the process where oxy-gen and carbon-compounds are combined to releaseenergy. We are familiar with this process from bonfi-res, and we know it also from animals like ourselves,which in principle behave exactly like flames.Combustion sucks carbon out of plant materials (forthe bonfire it’s firewood, for us it’s food) and combinesit with oxygen that is sucked out of the air. By estab-lishing this connection a surplus of energy is createdwhich is used to keep the process going. The fire iscomprised of a flame that constantly sends hot airrich in carbon dioxide into the air, so that new, freshair full of oxygen can be sucked in. The oxygen iscombined with the carbon-rich firewood into the fire.And just like that, energy is released. The air that the flame sends up is rich in the type ofgas that is created when we burn things. Combustionconsists of binding carbon compounds and oxygen, soit is perhaps not so surprising that the process leadsto the creation of carbon dioxide, which is the combi-nation of carbon and oxygen. The sequence is simple:

14

The flame absorbs oxygen by sending the heated airupwards. The oxygen combines with carbon and con-verts to carbon dioxide, which goes upwards with thecombustion air. The flame consumes plant material – wood – but alsoensures that this plant material returns to the cycleagain in the form of carbon dioxide. Carbon returnsto the atmosphere where new plants and treesabsorb it and use it to grow by separating carbonfrom oxygen. In other words, this is acycle: The plants collectcarbon dioxide, which theysplit into plant matter andoxygen respectively. Theanimals eat the plants andrecombine them with theirown waste product, oxy-gen, to create energy reser-ves. These energy reservesallow the animals to survi-ve, move about and eatplants. So in effect, plantssupply the energy necessa-ry for other organisms tomove about and eat them.

Fruit sets the trap

Doesn’t all this mean that plants are stupid? Not atall! In fact, animals serve as useful tools for theplants. Plants have one great talent: They can eat sunlight.Their lives therefore consist of sitting in the sunlight

and absorbing all that wonderful energy. Plants don’tneed to move about because the sunlight comes tothem, and the water they need is taken up throughtheir roots, which are not easy to move. It is not wit-hin a plant’s power to be mobile, so they need ani-mals just as much as the animals need them.Because plants want their seeds to be spread far andwide so new plants can grow. But how can you achie-ve this feat if you can’t move? Some plants have evol-

ved clever mechanisms bywhich seeds can be releasedto travel on wind currents.But a lot of other plants havedeveloped an even more ele-gant method: They producefruit. Fruit acts as a sort of baitfor animals. The plant ortree produces a berry orfruit that has seeds contai-ning hereditary materials.By making the berries orfruit look and taste appea-ling to animals, the plantgets the animal to eat thefruit. The animals moveabout and eat fruit, and

when eating fruit the animal avoids chewing thehard and bitter seeds. They move through the ani-mal’s digestive system and are eliminated in excre-ment, which itself is very clever in that it is rich innutrients that new plants can use to help them grow. So the plant uses the animal to transport its heredi-

“Any breath you take draws at

least one atom from any one of

your previous breaths into the

lungs. Each time you are breat-

hing, there will be at least one

atom in the air that was in your

lungs when you blew the cand-

les out on your birthday cake

the day you turned eight years

old.”

15

tary material. The animal uses the plant to get ener-gy from the sun. The two live in interdependenceand, quite literally, on each other’s waste. But what about the matter? What about the materi-al? Carbon dioxide becomes oxygen and carbon,which again becomes carbon dioxide, which againbecomes oxygen and carbon. What is the point of allthis? What is the end result? That sunlight is conver-ted into movement. That life is lived. That atomsmove through circuits. Why is this so interesting? Because life itself is inter-esting. It is so wonderfully conceived and arranged –matter just circulates while energy flows through thesystem and ensures that it can continue circulating.And it is all powered by the Sun.

Humans as eddies

No new matter is necessary, no matter is removedfrom the system – it’s all one big recycling businessthat gives birth to new life. And we also take part inthis huge circuit to the extent that 98 percent of theatoms in our bodies are renewed each year. 98 per-cent! We are more like flames and rivers that onlyremain the same because matter continually flowsthrough them – than we are like cliffs or chairs. Achair will fall apart if its atoms are separated. Butwe as living organisms die if this process does notcontinually occur. Life is a gigantic process in which all atoms arecontinually being replaced in every living orga-nism. A human being consumes a tonne and a halfof matter each year in the form of food, beverages

and a small quantity of oxygen (okay, it’s a lot ofoxygen, but it doesn’t weigh much). The water inour bodies is completely replaced in under amonth. Our bones and the heavier parts of ourbodies take months to replace themselves, but notmore than that. We are just small eddies in currents of water; eddi-es with our own identity and our own civil registra-tion numbers. But basically an eddy nonetheless, apattern in a flow of matter that is always movingthrough the eddy. An eddy that always consisted ofthe exact same matter would merely disappear onthe spot. Eddies can exist only in a stream and simp-ly because the stream is flowing. There can be noeddies in still water. A flame goes out if the sur-rounding oxygen is not continually replaced. And ahuman being dies if matter is not flowing throughthe organism at all times. That’s all well and good, but is it recycling? It mostdefinitely is! Just look at the air we breathe if youreally want to see evidence of recycling. There areapproximately ten thousand billion billion atoms inone breath. If you wrote that figure down, it wouldbe one digit followed by 22 zeros. So that’s a lot ofatoms when you add them all up. If you then look at how many atoms there are inthe entire Earth atmosphere, it is ten thousandbillion billion times as many as there are in onebreath. There are just as many atoms in each bre-ath as there are breaths in the atmosphere. Thishas a surprising consequence – each time you breath,there should (statistically speaking) be at leastone atom in the air that you have breathed in once

17

before. And even more thought-provoking: Anybreath you take draws at least one atom from anyone of your previous breaths into the lungs. Eachtime you are breathing, there will be at least oneatom in the air that was in your lungs when youblew the candles out on your birthday cake theday you turned eight years old.And still weirder: Each time you breathe, there isat least one atom in the air that was in the lungsof everyone the last time he or she took a breath.This could be Caesar, Jesus Christ, LouisArmstrong, Leonora Christina or Christian IV.Take your pick. But remember that it could alsobe – and was! – Hitler, Napoleon, Genghis Khanand a tiny little opossum in a far off desert some-where. Wow! You’re sharing oxygen atoms witheveryone imaginable: criminals, worms, balletdancers, blue whales, Swedes, songbirds and adizzying array of various kinds of beetles. Matter circulates over and over again. Oxygengoes down all our throats, and our bodies consistof an orchestrated dance of matter that continual-ly replaces itself. Atoms jump from sunflowers tocattle to humans to monkeys to lotus flowers andcow manure. The soil rises up and walks aroundlike a human being.We are the wandering soil. We are sunlight con-verted into movement. We are miracles, for hea-ven's sake.

Not exactly a polite slogan

But this is definitely recycling. The same atoms,the same oxygen, the same soil, the same water

being pumped around and around and around bythe eternal sunlight that falls so gently, steadilyand bountifully upon us. All the time.Nature’s one simple principle is recycling. Oneorganism’s waste is another organism’s food.Plants cannot live without the carbon dioxide werelease, and the excrement we produce, filled as itis with nitrogen and phosphorus and all that goodstuff. The animals – us, that is – cannot survivewithout the oxygen that plants produce as waste.If we go for more than a few minutes without oxy-gen, we die. There is no way out of this system,this big and endless recycling business. We canonly be part of it if we consume the waste of otherorganisms. And this is the law of life: Sunlight isthe source of everything, and in order to benefitfrom it you have to take whatever shit comes yourway. You must pass on your own shit. And live on theshit of others.Perhaps this is an odd way of putting it, but thisis an odd culture in which we do everything possi-ble to hide the fact that we are full of somethingthat we pass on to others who avidly consume ourleavings. After all, 10 billion flies can’t be wrongwhen they are dining off our dung. And all theplants of the world have the right idea in wantingour carbon dioxide to help them grow.Food and waste are in circulation and in balance.No surpluses of oxygen or carbon dioxide are crea-ted because those who produce carbon dioxide (us,that is) do so solely because they eat somethingthat has eaten carbon dioxide. It all adds up, the

18

same amount goes in as comes out, and there isbalance.Circulation, circulation, and circulation, all dri-ven by sunlight – that is the law of life. To put it succinctly: Share your shit! Don’t producewaste that no one can use. Pass your stuff on, onand on – waste, ideas, openness to others. Share allof it. I know it’s not exactly a polite slogan, but thatdoesn’t take away from its inherent truth.

The recycling mind

But what is it about us human beings? Why don’twe want to be part of this?We feel that it’s too much trouble to be dependenton collecting the energy that constantly streams toEarth from the Sun in the form of sunlight, whichflows through our environment as solar heat, wind,ocean waves, and energy in plants and trees. Wewant something that is easier to manage and moni-tor. So we’ve started digging up ancient organismsthat are deposited in the Earth’s crust like in a kindof cemetery, where old plants are transformed intounrecognizability and are stored as oil, coal and gas.These are substances we can pump up and burn up.But there’s a downside: New carbon is thus addedto the atmosphere, because we burn old corpses;carbon dioxide that hasn’t recently been taken outof the atmosphere. So carbon accumulates and theplanet heats up. That’s bad news, and it’s happe-ning right now so we are going to have to do somet-hing about it. When we don’t use the constant flow of energy but

instead depend on the old deposits stored deep inthe layers of the Earth, we have a problem. We stepoutside of the flow and use up limited resources.And we produce waste, which no one can or willmake use of. Instead of behaving like all other organisms on thisEarth, which use what other organisms create, andwhich produce what can be used by other orga-nisms, we insist on using something that no one ismaking anymore (old corpses) and producingsomething that no one can use (landfills). This is a stupid and short sighted mode of behavio-ur. And the alternative is recycling.When we recycle, we use something that we haveused before or something that has previously beenused by someone else. If you use something you'veused yourself, you are recycling from a technicalsource - a former product. When you recycle somet-hing that other species have used, you’re recyclingfrom a biological source - someone else’s waste. Oryou are using solar energy. The good thing aboutsolar energy is that there is more than enough of itto go around. A whole lot. All you need to do is to col-lect this energy when it whooshes by as sunlight,wind, waves or biomass. Using this energy means recycling the energy thatthe Earth has already collected in a continual flowthat we ourselves participate in. We all know themethods used to recycle energy in the form ofsustainable energy: Windmills, solar panels, solarcells, wave power generators, biofuel facilities.There isn’t much new about this area, it’s only aquestion of getting started. We’ve been asleep at the

19

wheel, but now we are waking up to the global cli-mate imperative. We have to get a move on. Now. When it comes to materials, a great deal must takeplace before we can recycle. We must invent pro-ducts that are actually suitable for recycling. All theproducts we have today – from irons to steam engi-nes – were conceived of in a world that used thingsup and discarded them. A world where everythingended up on the trash heap. But that mindsetdoesn’t work anymore. Now we need to create newproducts, new designs, new materials, new methodsthat allow us to use things over and over again. Andthat takes a lot of research, a lot of development anda lot of curiosity. Not to mention a lot of interest ininvesting in this area. And so it couldn’t be muchbetter: We must reinventeverything from scratch.From an environmentalstandpoint this is very good,because existing productsand technologies are notexactly brimming with envi-ronmental awareness. Andfrom a business standpoint itis also good news, because a lot of new things willhave to be invented and the products will thereforehave to be marketed, which will translate into hugebusiness profits. Thus recycling offers very largepotential. Very large indeed.

Recycling human relationships

It isn’t just energy and matter that needs to be recyc-

led. It’s also the social relationships, the connectionsbetween human beings. This concept may soundstrange, because how can you recycle a relationshipwith another person? Hopefully you are doing it all the time. You use yourrelationships with your family, your friends, your co-workers, your local shopkeepers, your neighboursand your sports buddies. Hopefully you reuse theserelationships over and over again, because you knowinstinctively that the more you use a social relations-hip the more valuable it becomes. But as you may ask, how can you do otherwise? Canyou avoid recycling social relationships?Absolutely. For example, you can restrict yourself to

entering relationships thatare inherently non-recycla-ble. If you purchase anitem, pay the cashier for itand take it out of the shop,that’s a finalised relations-hip. You have nothing moreto do with each other. Atransaction has occurred;an exchange of money andproducts. End of story.

City life is full of such finalised relationships. Youpurchase, you serve, you drive, you move aside, youpass, you honk your horn. That’s it! There's nothingmore to it. And you may never see each other again.Country life is characterised by relationships thatare used over and over again. You connect with otherpeople in many different contexts; not only whenshopping, but also at the fitness centre or when you

“Recycling is not just a question

of matter, energy and resources.

Recycling is about everything,

including our ideas and rela-

tionships.”

21

attend the same birthday party. You have relation-ships with each other in many different ways. The anonymity of the big city can be liberating. It iseasier to be odd or different in a big city. Indeed, it’sdifficult to be otherwise.The intimacy of a small town can be suffocating.There is no room for anyone who is different.Everyone talks about each other, and everyoneknows everything about everyone else. The entiresocial fabric is one of recycling. Having a happy life is about recycling relationships,but not in a small system. Better it should take placein a large system. Luckily for us the Internet is here,and it has become easier to enter into relationshipswith complete strangers with the exact same nicheinterests that you have. The village freak can findother village freaks located in other places. For hundreds of years development has advanced inthe direction of more and more anonymity, greaternumbers of relationships that are finalised and unre-cycled. But now we are beginning to recognise thatthere is a need for tightly woven recycling and forfresh air in the form of new relationships. And enti-rely new ideas. We need to use each other’s ideas, put them out intocirculation, share them, exchange them, allow themto arise freely in profuse confusion. We need to reali-se that the more ideas we share with each other, themore ideas we have (it’s different from sharingapples or exchanging pears, because you don’t gainmore of them that way). Recycling is not just a question of matter, energy andresources. Recycling is about everything, including

our ideas and relationships. We must learn to live ina system that is powered by a faraway star, an inces-sant circulatory system of life moved by sunlight. Wemust learn to love it. To see waste as resources andto see shit as life. Junk can be beautiful if you onlylook at it in the right way.

Odense Harbour in winter

The taxi from the train station glides slowly throughthe half-deserted industrial area near the harbour.There’s no denying that it all looks a little depressingon this rainy grey December day on my way to visitthe H.J.Hansen recycling plant by Odense Harbour.I don’t know much about the company other thanthat they are interested in publishing a book aboutrecycling. Plant after plant emerges in the winter light as Iwonder when the recycling company will appear.And suddenly there is no doubt: Mountains of junk,piles of scrap iron and enormous loads of rubbishpush their way into view. It’s hard to believe my owneyes. A walk around the place reveals all the aesthetics wehave learned to loathe over the past few decades ofphotographs showing the senseless and idioticAmerican car graveyards. Tonne after tonne of junk,rubbish and scrap iron to represent a symbol of thestupidity of our consumer society. Isn’t this the same thing I’m seeing here in Odense?Not at all. This is something that is on its way tobeing reused, something that will enter the system ina new way. It starts out looking like a ridiculousscrap heap, but it's in the process of becoming some-

thing else. Mounds of sorted copper, iron, brass, leadand aluminium. It all gets prettier as it makes itsway through the facility. But it starts out lookingawful. Recycling begins with something we think iswaste. That’s the whole point. We know the concept from biology: From one view-point – the pedestrian’s – it looks like dog shit. Fromanother viewpoint – that of the fly – it’s food. From athird viewpoint – that of the plant – it’s fertiliser.Dog shit is food or fertiliser that has ended up in thewrong place – on the pavement rather than in thebush or in the field. And so waste is simply resourcesthat have landed in the wrong place. Pollution ismerely misplaced resources. It won’t be many decades now before we figure itout, if nothing else then out of bitter necessity: Wemust produce things so that they are easy torecycle. We must create social networks thatmake it easy for us to use our relationships overand over again, and we must also create new ones.We must manufacture our cars so that they areeasy to take apart when we are finished withthem. And we must make things that can be usedagain when we no longer require them. But at this point in time, all sorts of products aremade without this type of forethought, so it takesa lot of ingenuity to separate them again.Recycling is difficult today, but hopefully it willbecome easier tomorrow. We must design pro-ducts so that they are easy to recycle withouthaving to first pass through gigantic scrap heapsand massive recycling technologies. In the course of a few decades we will have done

away with the need for the immense scrap heapsout by Odense Harbour. We will make it easier torecycle. Recycling technology is an emergency solutionthat we do not have to recycle. We must make pro-ducts that recycle themselves without the help ofhuge recycling facilities. The recycling industry isof vital importance right now. In the long term, we will do away with it comple-tely and return to the great circulatory system.Again and again.

22

DID YOU KNOW THAT

… on average, the Earth receives just asmuch solar energy per square meter as itwould take to illuminate nearly seven 50-wattlight bulbs?

… sustainable energy supplied 17 percent ofthe 2007 total Danish energy consumption?

… the total waste production in Denmark in2006 was 15.5 million tonnes, 70 percent ofwhich was recycled? Only six percent of itwas landfilled.

… a Danish researcher, with the help of adesiccated, petrified human dung deposit, hasdetermined that America was inhabited byhumans 14,300 years ago?

24

Chapter 2 : Green self-deception – the myth of the eco consumer

25

,,

,,

There are a great many environmentally conscious consumers but a lot of them buy

products that are neither organic

nor eco-labelled.

Suzanne C. Beckmann

26

Suzanne C. BeckmannMarketing Professor at the Copenhagen BusinessSchool, Department of Marketing.

What values influence us as consumers when we fill ourshopping baskets at the supermarket? ProfessorSuzanne C. Beckmann has looked at this question fromvarious angles throughout her professional career, witha great deal of focus on the so-called green consumer andthe marketing of environmentally-responsible products.Based in Copenhagen and Berlin with the world as herworkplace, she follows the latest trends in developmentsin corporate social responsibility and is a frequently con-sulted expert in the public debate about consumertrends and branding.

27

We say one thing and do another when it comes togreen-conscious consumption. In general, manyconsumers like to convince themselves and othersthat they are making environmentally responsiblechoices in their daily lives, yet most people tend todo whatever is easiest – and cheapest. This is the view held by Marketing ProfessorSuzanne C. Beckmann, who has been followingconsumer attitudes towards the environment for20 years. “Consumers are more aware of the environment thanever before and they want to take part in the gre-ening of society – in theory. But in actual practice,the right attitudes are far from synonymous with theright behaviour,” states Suzanne C. Beckmann.Over the last 10 years there has been an explosivegrowth in eco-labelling initiatives that describe the

processes that consumer items undergo prior toending up in our shopping baskets. We can buy orga-nic, biodynamic, fair trade, Swan labelled, free rangeand a vast array of other labels. The latest in thisseries is the ‘cradle to cradle’ certification that indica-tes that the item is recyclable and can be safely com-posted at the end of its life cycle. Or eco-labelling,which states the amount of CO2 emissions associatedwith the production of the item. But the vast numberof labels is not necessarily increasing consumersenvironmentally responsible purchasing.“The environment has become hip, and that’s why weare seeing so much interest in launching all thesenew green eco-labels. But often the labels are moreconfusing than they are helpful. In Germany, forexample, there are over 20 different eco-labels on thefood market alone and that means that the consumer

Green self-deception – themyth of the eco consumer The ethical consumer has the wind beneath his or her wings, but a lot of it happensto be hot air. In reality, our shopping baskets and consumer behaviour only reflect thepopular environmental attitudes to a limited degree. If we are going to back up ourattitudes with action, then society has to ensure that choosing green is the easiest andmost profitable way to go, believes Copenhagen Business School Marketing ProfessorSuzanne C. Beckmann.

By Sofie Pedersen, journalist

29

must be very well-informed in order to know whatthey stand for, what distinguishes them, and whichones are fake. We are well on our way into the exactsame situation here in Denmark. Very often it is thesame narrow niche market of environmentalists thatis responding to these labels. The majority of consu-mers choose items that they are already familiarwith, that are easy, and that are cheap," explainsSuzanne C. Beckmann.

The myth of the eco consumer

While it may appear on the surface that there is anincreased consumer focus on environmental values,it must be taken with agrain of salt. For example,one survey revealed thatsales of Max Havelaar-labelled items in Denmarkincreased by 72 percent in2007, but the survey alsoshowed that each Danespent on average 54 DanishKroner – approximately sevenEuros – on these productseach year. The amount doesmake Denmark one of theleading countries withinfair trade, but actually addsup to only a bag of coffeeand a bunch of bananas perperson. According to Suzanne C. Beckmann, the future pro-spects may not be very bright for the ‘cradle to crad-

le’ label, the CO2 label and many of the other certifi-cations intended to provide the consumer with help-ful environmental information. And she is thus farfrom optimistic: “A lot of people would sympathise with the conceptbehind ‘cradle to cradle’ labelling if they had good,solid information about the concept. But even thoughconsumers believe that ‘use and recycle’ sounds bet-ter than ‘use and discard’, it is going to take a lot ofwork to get us to change our consumption habits. Ithas taken almost 30 years for the organic concept tomake any headway with consumers, and it was onlywhen prices began to go down that market shares

went up. If the ‘cradle tocradle’ idea is going to haveany practical application,we should focus more onchanging behaviour than onchanging attitudes. Societyfor instance must ensure tomake recycling the most con-venient and most inexpensi-ve choice for consumers,”says Professor Beckmann.There is a lot of evidence toshow that attitude changedoes not achieve long-termresults in relation to alte-ring consumer behaviour.In some cases consumer

demand has led to products that simply are not pur-chased when they end up on store shelves. “Roughly speaking, there are a great many environ-

“The notion of a consumer who

lobbies for more eco-labelled

products in the local supermar-

ket and who succeeds in the

end is a dream scenario that

doesnʼt match reality, where the

big battle takes place on the pri-

cing field.”

30

mentally conscious consumers but a lot of them buyproducts that are neither organic nor eco-labelled. Soin terms of purchase behaviour the political consu-mer is largely a myth. The notion of a consumer wholobbies for more eco-labelled products in the localsupermarket and who succeeds in the end is a dreamscenario that doesn’t match reality, where the bigbattle takes place on the pricing field. If a new pro-duct doesn’t generate high turnover in the first fourweeks, the store takes it off the shelves again,”explains Suzanne C. Beckmann.

The right choice must be the easiest choice

German chemist Michael Braungart and Americanarchitect and designer William McDonough are thefounders of the ‘cradle to cradle’ label and exponentsof the philosophy of a future society in which every-thing is designed to be recycled. They believe that theroad to the waste-free society is through innovativesolutions that aim to make the environmental choicealso the easiest one. As they say, the Stone Age didn’tend because we ran out of stones. Suzanne C. Beckmann shares this viewpoint. “People want to act environmentally sustainablewhen it is to their own advantage and easy to accom-plish. A good example is the bottle deposit system,where consumers receive a financial benefit by collec-ting their bottles and returning them to be recycled.In this case, the principle about moving from chan-ging behaviour to changing attitudes is valid. Peoplemay have a lot of reasons for wanting to sort theirtrash, but fundamentally speaking there must be apractical or financial incentive for them to actually do

it. There is no point in asking the consumer to rinseout jam jars or yoghurt containers in order to putthem in two separate containers. Sorting recyclablesmay benefit the environment, but it’s simply toomuch bother for most people to actually do it,” saysProfessor Beckmann.At the end of the nineties Beckmann was involvedin a study comparing various recycling programs.In one program, the consumer could choose betwe-en three different sizes of rubbish bins for house-hold use and save money on refuse collection byusing the smallest size. But the savings were just 150Danish Kroner per year – approximately 20 Euros –compared with the largest size, and this amount wastoo small to motivate people to sort their domesticwaste and change their household habits. “In the attempt to motivate people to behave in amore environmentally conscious manner, the politici-ans often forget what daily life is like for many fami-lies. If you’re busy and are only just managing tokeep it all together, it’s going to take a great deal foryou to begin changing your behaviour. But with theright incentives, either in the form of taxes on lesshealthy products or a practical or financial rewardfor choosing green products, you can point people inthe right direction towards more environmentallyresponsible behaviour in their daily lives,” saysSuzanne C. Beckmann.She points out that there is a huge and undevelopedpotential to make it easier to choose green:“Today it is generally both more expensive and moredifficult to act environmentally responsible. Forexample, when I take old newspapers down to the

32

paper recycling bin, I have to push them through aslot that is so narrow that I can hardly get the entireSunday paper in the slot in one go. Or if I decide totake the Metro downtown instead of my car, there isnowhere to park my car atthe Metro station. Both ofthese examples show howmuch trouble is attached tomaking green choices, butthis is something that canbe changed quite easily.”Scarcity of raw materials orhigher prices can also moti-vate us to be more environ-mentally responsible. “People have always mana-ged to sort items when itmade financial sense to doso. In the former DDR, lackof availability often resulted in the East Germansbeing better at sorting and recycling than the WestGermans. It wasn’t concern for the environment thatmotivated them, but practical and financial factors.We saw the same thing during World War II, whenpeople became very good at reusing things andwasting as little as possible. So it isn’t unlikely thatscarcity may cause us to sort and recycle more in thefuture.”

A guilty conscience doesnʼt sell

Films like Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” ope-ned the eyes of many when it came to global clima-te change. But according to Professor Beckmann

these environmental horror stories have very littleeffect on how we behave both as citizens and consu-mers. Our guilty conscience may prompt us to makesporadic changes in our daily lives, but it will not

make us change our lifesty-les. “The consequences of the‘use and discard’ lifestyleare so far into the futurethat consumers don't belie-ve that there is cause forconcern. This is compara-ble to the consequences ofan unhealthy lifestyle. Weknow from countless offici-al health campaigns that ifyou smoke, drink too muchand eat fatty foods, yourisk shortening your life

and reducing overall life quality. But people keepsmoking, drinking too much and eating unhealthyfoods. So the health campaigns make up good exam-ples of how difficult it is to change human behavio-ur by targeting attitudes,” says ProfessorBeckmann and adds:“Most smokers would wholeheartedly agree thatsmoking endangers their health, but they do it any-way. Only when governments enforce anti-smokinglegislation in public places and the workplace do wesee real changes in the behaviour of smokers. It’sthe same thing with the environment. If we reallywant to do something about the level of pollutioncaused by our disposable culture, then society will

“There is no point in asking the

consumer to rinse out jam jars

or yoghurt containers in order

to put them in two separate con-

tainers. Sorting recyclables may

benefit the environment, but itʼs

simply too much bother for

most people to actually do it.”

33

have to regulate consumer behaviour eitherthrough incentives or through some form of coer-cion. As long as there are easier choices out there,most people will go for those instead, because theconsequences of doing so are so far down the road.If the environmental consequences were lessdistant, it would be more realistic to try to changebehaviour through targeting attitudes. For exam-ple, let’s say that you hear that existing landfills arealmost full, so the municipality is going to build anew one in your suburb within five years unlesseveryone in the area reduces domestic waste andrecycles. This is a more specific and imaginable sce-nario and it is far more likely that it will prompt youto change your behaviour than the prospect of glo-bal warming of two to three degrees over the courseof the next 100 years.”

Recycling and good design

Society can do a great deal when it comes to chan-ging our behaviour to become more environmen-tal, but if recycling is really to take off, ProfessorBeckmann believes, it will mean making ‘choosinggreen’ both trendy and quality conscious. “The days when it didn’t matter what eco-friendlyproducts looked like are long over. Of course thereis still a tiny segment of middle-aged environmen-talists who are willing to compromise on design aslong as the products have the right values. Butthese are not the people in the forefront of socie-tal trends and change. Today, most people displaytheir self-identity through the products andbrands they use, and this is why it’s vital that

appearance and design project the right code,”says Suzanne C. Beckmann.She points to the electronic industry as a good exam-ple of this. Technological development moves veryquickly in this sector, and when the consumer choo-ses a new television it is necessary to navigatethrough many different details and designs. Whetherthe television can be taken apart and recycled isn’t abig priority. Only when the consumer is confrontedwith an array of televisions similar in terms of tech-nology, price and design do environmental considera-tions play a role. “Imagine that the salesperson says that television Afeatures 80 percent recyclable material, but televi-sion B – which has exactly the same qualities as tele-vision A – is only 30 percent recyclable. In this caseenvironmental awareness can enter the equation,becoming an additional quality parameter for theconsumer. But viewed separately, recyclability is nota selling point,” explains Suzanne C. Beckmann.She believes that Nike has the right idea. Thesports shoe manufacturers launched a new shoein 2008 manufactured from recycled materials. “Nike already enjoys a cool image with a lot ofyoung people, so the company can therefore launch arecycled material shoe as a quality-conscious and sty-lish consumer choice. But if Nike really wants to doit right, they should invite consumers to hand intheir old shoes for recycling when they buy thenew ones, and they should also inform consumersabout how much of the shoe is actually recyclableand how the recycling process is performed.” A lot of people have no idea of what happens to

34

our domestic waste after it goes in the rubbishbin. It simply disappears from our minds: “When you hear stories that domestic waste sor-ting is pointless because it all ends up together inthe same heap, it’s easy to develop an indifferentattitude. Although I don’t believe that attitudechange alone can get consumers to alter theirbehaviour, I do believe that educating people isvery important. The more tangible a role thatrecycling plays in our daily lives, the better,”concludes Suzanne C. Beckmann.

DID YOU KNOW THAT

… Denmark was the first country in the worldto appoint a minister for environment? It tookplace in 1971, and three years later theDanes were presented with their very firstenvironmental legislation.

… Danes returned 345 million empty deposit-refund bottles and cans in 2007? In compari-son, they returned only 19 million non-refun-dable bottles and cans.

… 44 percent of all Danish families owned flatscreen televisions in 2008? On average, a flatscreen television uses more than twice asmuch energy as a regular television.

… there are over 50 different environmentaland energy labels in Danish stores, rangingfrom eco-labelling for textiles to labels indica-ting sustainable fishing?

36

Chapter 3 : Scrap is no crap

37

The good thing about scrap is that

it will never run out: As long as we use metal,

we will have available scrap. We just need to

refrain from throwing it out.

,,

,,

Henrik Wenzel

38

Henrik Wenzel Professor at the University of Southern Denmark,Institute of Chemical Engineering, Biotechnologyand Environmental Technology.

Some solutions are more beneficial for the environmentthan others, and over the last 20 years Professor HenrikWenzel has spent his career evaluating which solutionsare the “greenest”. He separates emotions from factswith detailed calculations about the collective environ-mental impact of products from cradle to grave. Eachtiny, individual process in the product lifecycle is exami-ned and factored in until the statistics speak for them-selves. Professor Henrik Wenzel was previously at theTechnical University of Denmark where he was one ofthe primary developers of the award-winning EDIP(Environmental Development of Industrial Products)method which evaluates the environmental impact ofindustrial products. Henrik Wenzel has also worked asa project manager on the hitherto largest and mostcomprehensive review of international studies concer-ning recycling and waste management.

39

Aluminium is a popular metal with many advan-tages. It is light, strong, does not rust, and we useit for many different purposes on a daily basis –from tin foil in a juice carton to wheel rims andairplanes. But aluminium also has an environ-mental drawback: It takes a lot of energy to pro-duce. Aluminium is not found in its pure form, butis stored in chemical compounds in the ground. Toexploit the aluminium it first must be dug upfrom a depth of several hundred meters, then con-centrated, extracted and cleaned. This processrequires large amounts of energy – not least forextracting the pure metal from the compound thatit is a part of. The process itself produces a lot of waste. Eachtime we manufacture one kilogram of aluminium,we get around 10 kilograms of waste, which also

has to be processed. All together, the productionof one kilogram of new aluminium thus costs theenvironment energy equivalent of five litres of oil,versus just two decilitres of oil for recycling asimilar kilogram of aluminium. In other words:By recycling the aluminium, we save over 95 per-cent of the energy.The large amount of energy used in extractingnew metals draws on fossil fuels, especially coaland natural gas, and this leads to large CO2 emis-sions. When we recycle the aluminium instead ofextracting it, we therefore save large amounts ofCO2. For every tonne of aluminium we recycle, wesave the environment the impact of 10 tonnes ofCO2 compared to what it would take to extract themetal from raw ore. That is quite a lot. In fact, theDanish aluminium recycling of 75,000 tonnes saves

Scrap is no crap Scrap is good business for the environment. When we recycle metal – meaning to col-lect, sort and melt it down - we emit much less CO2 than when we extract metal fromthe ground. The environmental benefit applies to all metals and is gained every timewe recycle them. That is a positive message in a world where we search for methodsto reduce our CO2 emission. And the environmental potential is big: There are noupper limits for how many times we can recycle metals, which makes recycling animportant part of the fight against global warming.

By Henrik Wenzel

40

the environment the same amount of CO2 that isgenerated by heating of approximately half a mil-lion single family homes. Therefore, it is of greatimportance whether the metals we use on a dailybasis end their life in the rubbish bin or as rawmaterial in new production.

Metal should be recycled, not burned

Let’s take a look at the well known beer and softdrink cans. When you have an empty aluminiumcan in your hand, you have two possibilities: You caneither throw it in the bin, or you can deposit it forrecycling at the supermarket or the recycling centre. If you choose to throw the can in the bin, sooner orlater it will end up at the landfill or the waste inci-neration plant. Here it is ofno use. Aluminium cans donot burn in the incinerationplant ovens, but instead,melted aluminium on theincineration grate in theoven can cause stoppageand extra work. This meansno benefit from the incine-ration, but instead a wasteproduct and a lot of hassle. If we then add the amountof energy that has original-ly been spent to produce thealuminium can, it is clear that choosing the binoption is environmentally a bad deal.If instead you choose to provide the can for recycling,you turn the energy spent on producing the can into

a more sustainable investment: You recycle a valu-able resource and at the same time save the environ-ment from additional CO2 and waste. The benefit of recycling aluminium is evident, becau-se the energy saving compared to mining the metalsis significant. But there are also large energy savingsfrom recycling other metals – for example steel.When we recycle one tonne of steel, we save 50 per-cent energy and one tonne of CO2.

Scrap – an inexhaustible resource

What is good for the environment is also cost-effecti-ve for industry when it comes to scrap recycling.Thus, steel scrap comprises half of the raw materialin the global production of new steel, whereas alumi-

nium scrap comprises afourth of the global alumi-nium production. As the known metal reser-ves of the world dwindleand we start digging formetal in smaller concentra-tions, both the environmen-tal and economic advanta-ges of recycling scrap willincrease. And the goodthing about scrap is that itwill never run out: As longas we use metal, we will

have available scrap. We just need to refrain fromthrowing it out.Even though much is being done today to recyclemetal, we can still do better. For example, we know

“As the known metal reserves

of the world dwindle and we

start digging for metal in smal-

ler concentrations, both the

environmental and economic

advantages of recycling scrap

will increase.”

42

that in spite of the deposit system, a lot of beer andsoft drink cans end up in the household bin and arelater incinerated. Every year around 40 million cansin the Danish deposit system are lost, along with thepossibility of saving the environment 5,600 tonnes ofCO2 emission. The amount of imported aluminiumcans outside the deposit system, which end up beingincinerated, is presumably even larger.

The myth about transportation

Some people question whether the recycling ofmetals really is beneficial for the environment whenwe take into account the resulting amount of trans-portation:”It must cost a lot of transportation to first get it fromthe household in the middle of nowhere to the recyc-ling plants, and then send it all the way to China tobe melted down. Does that really pay?” The question is relevant, but the truth is that it takesa lot more transportation to extract pure metals.Consider the fact that raw ore is also extracted fromfar-off places in the world, where, incidentally, deep-er and deeper digging must be performed in order toextract it. In addition, the ore contains much moreimpurities which also must be transported before thepure metal has been extracted. At the same time,consider that the large amount of energy usage con-nected with extracting virgin metal is based on fuelslike coal, oil and gas, which also have to be transpor-ted from far away. Finally, think about the fact thatthe scrap would also need to be transported from theconsumer in the middle of nowhere even if it was notrecycled – that is, to an incineration plant or a land-

fill. The simple answer, then, is that even thoughscrap must be collected in the middle of nowhere,recycling as a whole involves much less transporta-tion than production of metal by mining.

Globalisation with a green conscience

There is also the persistent perception that thepresent globalised production methods are put-ting an unnecessary strain on the environmentbecause of the increased amount of transportationbetween producer and consumer. This is notalways true. On the contrary, globalisation canlead to rationalisation, and if the transport isorganised intelligently it can be an advantage forthe environment that not everything is producedin our own backyard. For example, in terms ofenergy efficiency it makes the most sense to culti-vate tomatoes in hot climates and not in heatedgreenhouses in cold climates. Compared to thebenefit of this, transportation is of no significancein the environmental equation.Correspondingly, the transportation of scrap toChina is insignificant compared to the fact that apart of the increased production in China can bebased on scrap instead of on extracting newmetals. But some forms of transportation are more envi-ronmentally intelligent than others, and seatransport is undoubtedly the most environmental-ly responsible. Imagine you have forgotten to buya Christmas present for your wife. At the lastminute you start up the car and race down to thelocal shopping centre for a small frying pan that

43

Lots of energy

The process of manufacturing new aluminium uses large amountsof energy and produces a lot of waste during extraction and trans-port, making it approximately 10 times more resource consumingto produce one kilogram of new aluminium than to recycle alumi-nium from scrap metal.

she has been wanting for her fried egg in the mor-ning. It is three kilometres each way. Your wife isdelighted with the gift, but she also does not knowhow foolishly you have behaved from a transpor-tation standpoint. Because you chose the worstpossible of all transportation scenarios – to startthe car purely for the sake of that one frying pan.For the same energy you used to drive the six kilo-metres back and forth with the frying pan, youcan send the same frying pan 10 times around the

world on a container ship once the metal in itneeds to be recycled. It costs virtually nothing tosail – a frying pan of one kilogram circulates theworld for half a decilitre of oil – and in the totallifespan of the frying pan the sea transport is irre-levant no matter how long it is. What really mat-ters in the energy equation is whether the metalis recycled or not.In the metal life cycle, looking at transport, it isby far the distance that the metal is transported

44

Frying pan world tour

If you take a frying pan that weighs one kilogram, put it in yourcar and drive six kilometres, you will use approximately five deci-litres of oil. For the same amount of energy the frying pan could betransported 18,000 kilometres in a lorry or 450,000 kilometres ona container ship. That’s the equivalent of travelling around theworld 10 times!

in a car that has the most adverse impact on theenvironment. The initial sorting of the metalscrap and the transportation to the recycling cen-tre in particular are areas that deserve our atten-tion. It is not good sense for each of us to start ourcars to drive to the recycling centre with a fewkilograms of metal. Conversely there is a largerationalisation gain by allowing the scrap to becollected at the household along with the otherdomestic waste. Sorting and collecting of metal forrecycling at the household level does not necessa-rily mean more transportation, because the metalwill have to be transported in any case – either forlandfill, incineration or recycling. Depending onhow intelligently we organise our domestic waste

handling, there is a lot of energy and CO2 to besaved. A more rational collection procedure is,thus, a task of national importance with greatenvironmental potential.

The art of green accounting

When we calculate the environmental impacts ofrecycling versus new metal extraction, the calcu-lation is performed according to rigorous interna-tional standards that ensure that all of the partsof the metal life cycle are taken into account. Asthe term ‘life cycle’ indicates, every little processin the life of the metal has to be included – fromits inception in the mine until the material is rein-carnated through recycling, or is lost by incinera-

45

tion or landfilling. I have worked as a projectmanager on the hitherto largest comparison of allinternational metal life cycle analyses studyingthe environmental impact by virgin materialsextraction and subsequent incineration or landfil-ling compared to recycling. The studies unani-mously show that recycling costs fewer resourcesand provides substantial benefits for the environ-ment. There is a certain variation in the size ofthe environmental benefit in different countries,but for example aluminium the results encompassan average of approximately 10 tonnes of CO2

that are saved every time we recycle one tonne ofaluminium instead of sending it for incinerationor to a landfill.

Progress often outpaces product reuse

Reusing a car hub cap as a hub cap is better forthe environment than melting down that samehub cap. That makes sense. The same applies tothe reusable bottle that we wash and reuse asmany times as possible before melting it downand making fleece jackets out of it, in case it is aplastic bottle.But product reuse is not always possible. Firstly,there is a limit as to how many times a productcan be reused before it is worn out. And secondly,there are many types of products which it wouldmake no environmental sense to reuse, becausetheir design has been outpaced by technologicalprogress. For example, should we reuse the old non-aerody-namic body work for cars, knowing that a decisive

amount of the car’s energy usage is caused by airresistance – which today has been substantiallyreduced through new body work design? Orshould we try to repair and reuse the old refrige-rator or the old radio amplifier after 15 years,knowing that the new generation of refrigeratorsand amplifiers use less than 10 percent of theenergy when in use, and knowing that usage isall-important in the total equation? Of course not,and it contradicts environmental sense when westart talking about a society where products lastforever or can be reused forever as products. Thedynamics and the innovation in our way of livingand the products that we manufacture will alwaysbe so great that certain products at the end oftheir lifetime would be obsolete and environmen-tally unintelligent. Renewal and innovation neverstops. It is not like we suddenly achieve technolo-gical perfection and then stop becoming smarter.

We shouldnʼt always imitate nature

There is a lot of ambition nowadays to create thewaste-free society. Nature’s cycle, its incredibledesign and symbiotic interaction are often consi-dered role models that we humans can learn from. Nature is incredible. But we should not make it amodel for technology in all aspects. In some areas,technology and human methods of adaptationhave actually outpaced ‘nature’ by severallengths. The ability of plants to capture sunlightand combine it with CO2 during storage of energyin biomass is incredible. But it is not nearly aseffective as the latest technology’s ability to cap-

47

ture sunlight. Where the best plants can capturebetween a half and one watt per square meter ina temperate climate as the yearly average, solarpanels and photovoltaics can capture up to 80watts per square meter under the same condi-tions. That is 100 times more, so nature clearlycomes in second here.The substance cycles of nature are also fantastic:Plants capture sunlight and CO2 and build plantmaterial, and the matter is cycled through thefood chains and released as minerals and CO2,which are captured again, and then the cyclescontinue. But these substance cycles are in reali-ty connected with very large energy losses on theway through the food chain, both from plant toanimal and from animalto animal, and theyshould not be made a rolemodel of how to designmaterial cycles in society.Those material cycles, wehave already established,are in many cases signifi-cantly more efficient thanthe substance cycles ofnature, because we strivetowards avoiding energylosses, and conserve asmuch of the material’sfunctionality and energycontent as possible betwe-en each material cycle. To strive for this is muchmore efficient than going in the opposite direction

and aiming to make materials biodegradable sothey can enter nature’s biological cycle betweeneach use. So we should not be tempted to mimic nature’sdesign in all aspects. Intelligent environmentaloptimisation is about finding the right combina-tion of reuse of products and recycling of materi-als, energy and resources.

The future is better design and smarter sorting

We can recycle metal an infinite number of times.But in practice, there will unavoidably be some-thing lost in the metal life cycle – especiallybecause some metals are built into products in away that makes recycling difficult. That could be

the tin foil in the juice car-ton or the metal in a smallcomponent in a mobilephone. Therefore, we willnever reach 100 percentrecycling of metals, but wecan get to a level that ismuch higher than today,and the environmentalbenefits are indisputable.To exploit the full potenti-al of recycling, we needprimarily to think harderduring the design phasewhen we develop new pro-ducts. For example, cars

are today equipped with more and more smallelectric motors containing copper, making it pos-

“It is not good sense for each

of us to start our cars to drive

to the recycling centre with a

few kilograms of metal.

Conversely there is a large

rationalisation gain by allowing

the scrap to be collected at the

household along with the other

domestic waste.”

48

DID YOU KNOW THAT

… every Danish household produces an ave-rage of 1,311 kilograms of waste each year?

… you can sail one kilogram of metal aroundthe world on just half a decilitre of oil?

… with our current rate of consumption, theworldʼs known copper reserves will only lastanother 30 to 40 years?

… Denmarkʼs aluminium reclamation effortssave just as much energy as it takes to heatapproximately half a million single familyhomes?

… modern solar cells and solar panels captu-re 100 times more sunlight per square metersthan plants growing in a field?

sible to roll the windows up and down, power thesprinkler, the wipers and much more. The techni-cal progress increases the comfort of the driver,but at the same time complicates recycling, becau-se the little copper threads and coils of these elec-tro-motors catch onto other objects and are diffi-cult to sort out during the automatic disassemblyof the car. If copper, thus, ends up in the steelfraction, it can cause problems with the quality ofthe steel. The small electric motors are just oneexample of technology that designers evidentlycan design in a more environmentally consciousway if they prioritise it. Similarly, waste sorting can doubtlessly be orga-nised more effectively. Try to imagine a future inwhich all materials in all products are markedwith a chip or a micro/nano structure that makesit possible for automated sorting plants to recog-nise and sort out the metals in a cheap and effici-ent manner. In your home, the rubbish bin is desig-ned with a dry and a wet compartment and requi-res no further sorting. The sorting of the drywaste subsequently takes place in an automaticand highly efficient way at a central facility wheredetectors recognise all materials and sort outwhat should be recycled. That future is quite pos-sibly not as far away as one would think. Soonyour rubbish bin can turn out to be worth money,and there is no law of nature that says that envi-ronmental awareness must translate into extracost or hassle for the consumer.

50

Chapter 4 : Facing the future with confidence

51

We will start to look more anxiously at raw

materials than the balance of payments, and it will bemore important to recycle

efficiently than to be situated on top of a

geological stroke of luck.

Mads Thimmer and Preben Mejer / Innovation Lab

,,

,,

52

Mads Thimmer Technology prophet, Literary Historian and CEO ofthe knowledge centre Innovation Lab.

Being right in the machine room where developmenttakes shape has always been Mads Thimmer’s drivingforce. He keeps a close eye on tomorrow’s trends andenjoys turning things upside down, shaking them upand watching the pieces fall into new patterns. With hissharp pen and often thought-provoking ideas, MadsThimmer challenges the way in which we experience theworld, and his ability to shed new light on new develop-ments has made him a popular commentator and spar-ring partner in the business world.

Preben MejerTechnology prophet, Chairman of the knowledgecentre Innovation Lab, and founder of TDCInternet.

When the Danish media and business world want a peekinto the crystal ball of technology, they call InnovationLab. In the space of less than 10 years the knowledgecentre has established itself as a reliable and committedmediator of future technologies, and what they can beused for. At the helm of Innovation Lab is Preben Mejer,who has been dubbed Denmark's official IT guru for hisability to generate and inspire new ways of thinkingabout technology. Preben Mejer is one of the country'smost popular lecturers and a regular guest expert on theTV2 programme “Good Morning Denmark”, where heapproaches complex technological innovations in a waythat the average viewer can understand.

53

The arch-enemy of our global environment is neit-her isolated sources of pollution, the oil lobby, orunscrupulous “axis of evil” nations. It is the huge,destructive climatic impact caused by overcon-sumption in our everyday lives. But there is hopethat we can fight the downside of expansion andthe exploitation of natural resources. The techno-logy of the future will come to our collectiverescue. Once upon a time, development came from above.This was when military research and big businesswere the forces that took humanity forward interms of technology and introduced us to compu-ters, mobile phones, flat screen televisions andthe Internet. When there were fluctuations inonly the prices of raw materials and when scarci-ty was unthinkable. When all growth equalled

economic progress, an unquestionable good thatwas free of side effects. That was then.This is now. At a conference on future IT trendsheld in San Diego in March 2008, a high-rankingmember of the US military research agencyDARPA suddenly came forth with a highly unusu-al message. It was an apology. A candid admissionthat US military research – which came up withinventions such as the Internet and GPS – couldno longer keep pace without involving users. Today, development grows from below – from theusers. Today, teenagers teach the business worldto become more efficient, to communicate in realtime over instant messaging systems such asMessenger and text messaging, and to make opti-mal use of mobile technology. No respected re-search division would now dare to rush into new

Facing the future with confidence Technological development is humanity’s best ally in the climate war against ourselves

By Mads Thimmer and Preben Mejer

55

technological possibilities without first havingevidence in the form of thorough and preferablyanthropological studies showing the directionusers and needs are heading. And new social net-working platforms like the virtual world SecondLife or the Facebook “community” make it next toimpossible for big business and institutions not tojoin these developments. Here, logos and budgetsmean nothing – in these virtual spaces, only yourdigital dexterity and social networking skills mat-ter. And that’s a good thing! It gives rise to hope in aworld that is continually waking up to cruellerand more dire forecasts in terms of man-made anddestructive climate phenomena. Global warming,flooding, hurricanes. The democratising effect oftechnological development has not only providedmore and more people with a sense of empower-ment instead of helplessness, the time has alsodefinitely passed for future generations to bemere observers. Everyone is born to participate,to assume responsibilities and to be fully sociallyengaged with a global perspective.

The two-sided life preserver

The participatory culture is one side of the climate’slife preserver. Unfortunately, climate challenges donot consist only of isolated sources of pollution andgreenhouse gas emissions that can be eliminatedthrough political action. The greatest climate chal-lenges cannot be addressed through legislation alone.The real challenge lies in changing fundamentalbehaviour and getting people to recognise that eve-

rything we have long considered indisputable bene-fits – prosperity and growth – carry an equally indis-putable downside that is killing our planet. In thissense it is the rapidly increasing behavioural chan-ges in terms of increased commitment, participation,responsibility and cross-border social solidarity thatwill be of critical importance for the improvement ofour global climate. The other side of the technological life preserver fea-tures an equally important economic component.Technology and economics have always gone hand-in-hand; one is seldom seen without the other andthey mutually enrich one another. Each societal chal-lenge is also an economic and technological opportu-nity, and where once upon a time military war wasthe main driver in technological advances andrecharging national economies, development nowfocuses on the global climate war.Very few technological trends will emerge unshapedby the enormous demand, legislation and meteorolo-gical changes caused by the global climate war. Justas numerous peaceable inventions such as Velcro,penicillin and synthetic rubber were due to thedemands of wartime, climate change will provide thegreatest ever progress in technological development.This work will also lead to enormous industrialdevelopment and will imply far-reaching consequen-ces for all existing industries. But what do these future technologies hold, and howcan they help the climate?

Open sauce

What began as very idealistic and not particularly

56

capitalist projects based on wind power and solarenergy in the 1960s and 1970s are now billion-dollarindustries transforming the world at a much-neededpoint in history. Not long afterward, open sourcesoftware and alternativeenergy began to mature asgenuine pillars supportingsociety’s future. Open source is the conceptof making digital program-ming languages open andaccessible to all so that soft-ware development know-how can be freely exchan-ged across far larger organi-sations, countries and lan-guages than closed pro-gramming languages canachieve. These languagesdo not “belong” to a parti-cular company, but theycan be used by anyone who wishes to create softwa-re solutions. Openness and total freedom to makeuse of common experiences and solutions alwaysguarantees the most appropriate solution that canbe found by a community of contributing partners,and the freedom to break things down and startover from scratch guarantees the best possible qua-lity. On a small scale, open source is already being usedas a method to discover the best possible beers andthe tastiest sauces. On a larger scale, open sourcewill be in a position to quickly muster gigantic pro-

gramming resources into collaborated efforts tosolve climate-related issues or create calculationprogrammes. And this pays off. In 2000, goldmining company Goldcorp used open source to

make geological informa-tion available to program-mers, mathematicians,physicists and others whocould assist in finding sui-table mining sites. A num-ber of new areas wereidentified, 80 percent ofwhich turned out to havegold deposits, and in justten years Goldcorp zoomedfrom the brink of bank-ruptcy to develop a rangeof new methods and tech-niques that brought profitsof 226,796 kilograms ofgold in the bank and a

3000 percent increase in Goldcorp share prices.

The processing power revolution

In 2007, the US government asked IT companyHewlett-Packard what a computer that could per-form calculations about the earth’s climate in 2050would look like. The answer took a while in comingand was not exactly what the government had expec-ted. That was because the computer would take upas much space as metropolitan Paris, would not beready until 2040 at the current pace of technologicaldevelopment, and would require five terawatts of

“In a world of raw material

scarcity, the ultimate achieve-

ment would be to build the

recycling process into the

actual product. Today itʼs a

child bicycle, tomorrow a car

door – without expending ener-

gy for the meltdown or proces-

sing!”

57

energy to run – the equivalent of a third of the earth’stotal energy consumption – and would thus constitu-te the world’s largest environmental problem by vir-tue of its own existence! The issue of accurate climate impact calculations hasalready generated massive investment in new datatransfer methods. And the climate war is a clearboost to the development of processing power. Thingshave happened extremely quickly, but viewed incomparison with the energy distribution in the brainwhen performing calculations, all the energy disap-pears as heat in a computer. In fact, energy usagedevoted to computer processing power is equal to dri-ving just a few centimetres on a full tank of petrol. Heating from processors is also one of the reasonsthat Google is struggling with enormous costs con-nected with cooling its servers. There are so manyservers that more than half of the search engine’sexpenses are electricity costs related to cooling.Considering that Google’s motto is “we are not evil”,it may not surprise that Google is highly active in thequest for both more renewable energy and more effi-cient processing power. Researchers have high hopesfor concepts such as optical transfer, in which lightreplaces moving parts that generate the heat. This issimilar to the flash hard drive – popular in a key ringformat – that doesn’t have very many moveable partsand already exists in some of the newer laptops. Until the new and significantly less energy-consu-ming processing power arrives, we can content our-selves with vastly improved capacity utilisation. Theconcept of cloud computing sounds like somethingout of an environmental campaign, but in reality it is

a style of computing in which computer power is col-lected in a “cloud” that users can draw upon (and payfor) according to need instead of investing in theirown digital infrastructure with the inevitable andenvironmentally harmful surplus capacity that noone can use. With cloud computing, you simply buyyour way into the cloud whether your need is tiny orwhether you have one of the world’s most popularwebsites. Or whether you advance from needing fiveservers to 10,000, which is something that happenedto the video service Animoto when it launched onFacebook. Software and server space are somethingyou rent, not own. You could be using someone else’ssurplus capacity, say that of the bookseller websiteAmazon, capacity which otherwise would have goneto waste. And that is important in terms of the envi-ronment, when you consider that the amount of digi-tal information stored on servers with heavy coolingrequirements actually doubles every single year.

Small intelligence

Processing power doesn’t need to be concentrated inthe same physical location to be useful. Increasingly,basic processing power is built into products to ena-ble them to communicate with each other or at leasttransmit information about themselves. The RFID(Radio Frequency Identification) chip has longsought to replace bar code technology. In addition, itoffers the potential to hide in the product becauseunlike a bar code, the user does not see the RFIDchip. The advantage of the RFID chip is its complete-ly unique code that can be read at a distance andwhich does not need to be “recognised” by a laser

58

scanner. An RFID chip can therefore be placed in thetummy of a teddy bear or perhaps on any item ofvalue. This will put cashiers out of a job, but it alsomakes it possible to add a great deal of extra infor-mation into the products. Just by holding a productembedded with the RFID chip in front of a screen ora mobile telephone with a reader, you can get infor-mation about the entire manufacturing process, readin-depth about potential environmental benefits andget a complete picture of the total CO2 emissionimpact of all the products in your shopping basket.And perhaps in terms of your permitted householdquota! How many people today are thinking aboutthe fact that cattle farming cause 18 percent of allCO2 emissions when they are in the supermarketchecking out a minced beef offer?RFID is a micro technology that provides us withwider perspective in terms of information. Manypeople would make significant changes to their con-sumer behaviour if they had more knowledge about,say, the greenhouse gas impact of the products theypurchased. Nine out of ten people in England haveno idea how much edible food they throw away eachyear even though the amounts to 15 tonnes of CO2,which is the equivalent of the annual CO2 emis-sions from every fifth car in England. RFID alsooffers concrete advantages further along in thesystem. Our domestic waste suddenly becomes agold mine of data about our consumption and prefe-rences; it can be used to target advertising and thusreduce our use of paper – and it can transmit valu-able information through RFID chips about its rawmaterial value so it can be recycled more efficiently.

When it is time to dispose of the car, teddy bear orcomputer, a machine at the recycling grounds canalso read the RFID chips just like the supermarketscanner, and subsequently sort the waste into iron,gold and silver piles. In just a few minutes. Many large businesses dream of a world filled withproducts containing RFID chips. It would makelogistics significantly easier thanks to automaticordering processes, laser-sharp inventory controland split-second stock taking. And moreover itwould all be energy-saving. Nokia is one of the firstto have launched a mobile telephone containing abuilt-in RFID reader, and features a newer greenconcept telephone, the Ecophone, which has a built-in CO2 emission measuring device as one of its basicfunctions. Monitoring our own impact on the envi-ronment is becoming more and more central to ourexperience. When we know about something, wecan do something about it!

Nano – large benefits at the micro level

On a small scale there are many groundbreakingnew technologies in the pipeline that are ready togive the climate a hand. But none are as detailed asnanotechnology, which allows engineers to controlsystems at a molecular level, giving them the poten-tial to design items from the bottom up. One of theworld’s worst CO2 emission offenders is concrete,which releases huge amounts of CO2 during manu-facturing and which requires massive quantities offuel to transport. But researchers have developed aspecial nano-reinforced version of concrete which isfar more durable and which releases much less CO2

60

during its product lifecycle than regular concrete.Through nanotechnology, researchers have modifi-ed solar cells to become up to 20 times more effici-ent at capturing and converting sunlight into ener-gy, and special batteries with carbon nano-tubesaround the electrodes can be recharged much morequickly and store energy much longer. During theproduct’s entire life cycle, in fact. In catalytic con-verters, nano-filters reduce pollutants much moreefficiently than ever before, and in general nano-technology is utilised to add more environmentallyfriendly qualities to both products and materials. Over the long term, researchers are working at thenano-level to manufacture “programmable matter”,which is matter that canrepeatedly take on new sha-pes and new qualities. In aworld of raw material scar-city, the ultimate achieve-ment would be to build therecycling process into theactual product. Today it’s achild bicycle, tomorrow a cardoor – without expendingenergy for the meltdown orprocessing! Hopefully theprograms are well undercontrol...

Customised environment

A disproportionately large percentage of the world’sclimate problems are not due to consumption itself,but to overconsumption. In most big cities, free

newspapers fly around the streets along with theautumn leaves. It’s no longer a matter of them beingfree of charge – we simply cannot handle any moreregardless of price. New, paper-similar electronicscreens are on their way into products that make itpossible to put together customised print media fea-turing a mix of online and newspaper content, blogsand dailies, dynamic and updated wirelessly withoutundergoing resource-heavy processes such as printand distribution. All customised entirely to fit indivi-dual needs and interests. And in light versions thatdo not usually require power, which can tolerate fullsunlight and which do not depend on deforestationfor their paper manufacturing. The pages are turned

with a touch of a button;one recharging can stretchto more than 100,000 pageviews and the screen candisplay websites, blog posts,adverts and newspaperarticles. It’s already availa-ble in the USA, whereAmazon.com sells it underthe brand name Kindle. As the environmental costsassociated with transporta-tion become more and more

unacceptable, the development of home-based pro-duction technologies has also gained momentum.There are 3D printers that can customise items forthe home by printing layer upon layer until an itemis created. The desired item is simply “downloaded”as a 3D image and printed as a physical object. You

“How many people today are

thinking about the fact that

cattle farming cause 18 percent

of all CO2 emissions when they

are in the supermarket chec-

king out a minced beef offer?”

61

view a plate missing from the china collection, clickon it, and in a couple of minutes the plate can beremoved from the 3D printer tray. Soon there will be an alternative to the currentpractice of shipping raw materials from SouthAmerica to China, where they are processed andthen shipped as finished items to Europe. We willhave these 3D printers in our home offices ready toproduce the things we buy on the Internet – house-wares, toys, spare parts or even electronics.Researchers in this area are delving deeply intoprinting using conductive ink, which can present afar more environmentally friendly alternative tocircuits and resistances, take up considerably lessspace and which can be produced in just a fractionof time. So you can also print yourself a new remo-te control in your own home, should the old one gomissing. With a clear conscience. Especially if thematerials used for printing come from reclaimeddomestic waste, thus closing the cycle almost enti-rely – the raw materials just need to be sorted fromthe waste, and the manufacturing is done domesti-cally instead of in China. Digital print manufactu-ring is already being used on a large scale in theUS Army for practical reasons – it’s inconvenientto wait on a spare part order from back home if thehelicopter is on a mission in the Middle East.Textiles are another product often sewn in Asiaand then transported around the world to consu-mers, all without assurance of profit becausefashions change so quickly. This is something thatGerman project Virtual TryOn has attempted tochange using a virtual changing room. A 3D-scan-

ner in the changing room takes a precise copy ofyour body, and you can “leaf through” the collec-tions without actually physically trying anythingon, just digitally. You simply look at the 3D imageof yourself and click on your new garments. If youfind something you like, a tailor robot uses the datato manufacture a garment made especially for you.All without overproduction, transportation costs orrisking that the shop doesn’t have your size. At theexclusive London department store Harrods, custo-mers already have the opportunity to use the 3Dchanging room for a trial period.Tailored products, media and clothing are not justchic and luxurious ways to differentiate ourselves.The concept is fundamental to the environmentthat the Internet generation has grown up with –on the Internet, we get to decide and become iden-tified with our preferences. And personal tailoringis an excellent approach to limiting overproductionand overconsumption.

Virtual reality

Commercial air traffic is difficult to revolutionisewith biofuel because kerosene is a very light fueland is already environmentally optimised for usein flying. The only responsible way to meet from anenvironmental standpoint is therefore to stay putand use video-conferencing equipment, whichallows for eye contact and carries no delays, so thatparticipants feel as though they are in the sameroom even though they are on opposite sides of theAtlantic. Demand for this type of equipment isalready accelerating, not just because of the envi-

63

ronmental benefits but because a rapidly increa-sing work pace doesn’t allow time for any travel notabsolutely necessary.If you want to go one step further than video-confe-rencing, the US Teleimmersion project is workingon making it possible to exchange items acrossvideo conferences, so that an archaeological findmade in China can be digitally recreated and pla-ced in the hands of an expert located in Boston injust five minutes after the find has taken place.The item can even be enlarged for more in-depthexamination. The 3D scanner, virtual reality tech-nology and a technique known as force feedbackwork combined to create 3D objects that we can“touch”, thus limiting the CO2-emitting transporta-tion of people and things.

Environment by satellite

A virtual layer of information presented as a virtualreality – that is what is displayed when the GPSleads the car in the right direction. Many new satel-lite systems will come into use over the next tenyears, and the GPS will function indoors, in tunnels,and in covered city environments. This makes thetechnology stable enough to be able to calculate theCO2 load for any vehicle, measured on more thanjust car model and petrol consumption and with acentral registration of the number of kilometres dri-ven, whether it is city or country driving, and atwhich speeds. This will provide a clear opportunity toperform tax calculations based on the actual numberof driven kilometres, to constantly remind the driversof their CO2 emissions, and it will provide even more

reasons to consider the more environmentally friend-ly electrical cars which use 80 percent of the energyon moving as opposed to the 20 to 25 percent that theconventional petrol-powered car uses on moving, theremainder going towards heat (and later, cooling). But the satellites can accomplish even more. NASAhas developed a program to spot differences in cropsaround the world and can use the data to predictchanges in food prices and food supplies. This makesit possible to better coordinate crops and cattle far-ming on a global basis so that the most possible foodis produced at the smallest possible environmentalcost, and to do so without wastage thanks to optimalcoordination of food supply growth and processing.The NASA program is also a good example of the farmore widespread use of data visualisation that isnecessary for us to fully understand the consequen-ces of the climate war. And combined with a little vir-tual reality, the consumer can be made to feel theconsequences on his or her own body using virtualsimulation, which demonstrates the sensations con-nected to rising water levels and temperatures, andwhich can take you on a tour of a North Pole withoutice. That should certainly maximise the teachingpotential inherent in this technology.

Home.sweet.home

Most accidents happen in the home. And this is alsowhere most CO2 traps can be found: household appli-ances on stand-by, heat loss, dripping faucets andunnecessary lighting. Today, intelligent home controlsystems like Home Automations are considered luxu-rious custom additions in newly built housing, but

64

the basic packages will become more and more com-mon on a market driven by the need to automateand reduce the huge household CO2 emissions wethoughtlessly generate on a daily basis. The systemsensure that no lights are left on when they are not inuse, radiators are turned off when not needed andthat the washing machine can start up during surp-lus capacity periods at the power plant.One of the most effective energy-saving initiativeswas the introduction of the A-G energy label, whichprovides the consumer with information about howmuch electricity is consumed by different appliances.And here too, there is no doubt that the very factof having the information made available has anenormous energy-saving effect. If we combine thisknowledge with visible labelling of household CO2

impact, perhaps listed beside each house number,there would be good reason to make an effort on thehome CO2 front. And very soon, homeowners will beable to program their homes to their own desiredlevel of CO2-conscientiousness.

Developing countries

It is definitely the traditional Western countriesthat provide the stage for the numerous helpfulhands that modern digital technology will offer theglobal climate. After all, this was the centre forgrowth and progress, and this is the place thatbrought the world decades of CO2 emissions as aresult of developing wealth and prosperity. Paradoxically, the emissions from the world’sdeveloping countries are in inverse proportion tothe distribution of wealth. The rich countries con-

tribute disproportionately to global warming, thepoorest countries live in CO2 balance. Thus thechallenge is partly to make wealth CO2-neutraland partly to assist the developing countries inmanaging growth so that progress is not synony-mous with immense adverse environmentalimpact. Therefore it really makes sense to placesome of the new environmental technologies on theworld’s developing countries, because this is wherethe conditions exist for establishing growth measu-red precisely in relation to the potential strain onthe global climate. It’s an interesting concept.A direct extension of the concept of envisioningdeveloping countries as pioneer nations for sustai-nable living is the idea of adapting our Westernlifestyle to function on more greenhouse gas-neu-tral terms. This would result in fewer travel daysto more well-considered destinations. Perhaps thisisn’t a drawback when we can effectively socialiseacross national borders through virtual communi-ties and video-conferencing. This would also meanincreased use of public transportation and notleast, the bicycle, as a mode of transportation,replacing the lonely and energy-guzzling drive inthe diesel commuter car. The physical aspect ofthis “climate diet” could also do double duty interms of battling the obesity epidemic. And on ourplates, we would substantially reduce the amountof greenhouse gas-producing meat and serve smal-ler portions to avoid discarding food. Just like allthe nutrition experts – and our guilty consciences –have been calling for. In short, we would move dra-stically in the direction of living life the way we

DID YOU KNOW THAT

… penicillin was discovered by accident onmould in 1928 and put into mass productionduring World War Two? Since then, resear-chers have further developed penicillin andinvented – among other medicaments – asalve for infected skin derived from mouldfound on monkey faeces in Japan.

… the UN member countries have dedicatedthemselves to eradicating poverty and hungerwhile establishing environmentally-friendlyand sustainable development within the year2015? If we continue at the pace we aremoving at now, we will first reach these goalsin 110 years.

… government buildings in the UnitedKingdom emit more CO2 than the entire coun-try of Kenya – a whopping 11 million tons ayear?

want to live it, but which we find difficult to pullourselves together to do.

New resources

The technological development of the next centurywill be forced to deal with diminishing raw materi-als and rapidly mounting CO2 levels, but technolo-gy will hopefully also be able to play a new role inextending a helping hand to the ailing environment.This can create the conditions for a different andmore actively climate-committed behaviour in futu-re generations. It can help create a solid foundationto help optimise our existence in the most benefici-al ways possible in relation to the climate. And itcan create the transparency of the long-term con-sequences of our present actions. Whether thisoccurs at the meat section, where our hand hoversbetween the T-bone steak and the soy burger, orwhether it takes place at home where the groundsource heat pump and solar collectors have madethe household deserving of low energy certification.And that’s just the beginning. The economic growthwill be of secondary importance to the growth insustainability. We will start to look more anxious-ly at raw materials than the balance of payments,and it will be more important to recycle efficient-ly than to be situated on top of a geological strokeof luck. It requires technology, and this area is pri-med for those who wish to take the lead. One mightsay that Denmark’s scanty deposits of iron ore, cop-per and precious metals, and the difficulty in extrac-ting oil resources, can suddenly work in our favour.We are forced to prepare ourselves to exploit techno-

logy and social involvement as the new, most vitalraw materials in future development. So let’s getresourceful!

68

Source list for fact boxes:

Articles:Elkær, Mads & Nicolai Devantier, ”Verdens største søgemaskine fylder 10 år”, Computerworld 1st September 2008.Booth, Robert, ”Government buildings emit more CO2 than all of Kenya”, The Guardian 23rd December 2008.Busch, Morten, ”Afslørende afføring: Indianerne var der først”, Videnskab.dk 3rd April 2008.Viden om, ”Penicillin – det misbrugte vidundermiddel”, www.dr.dk/DR2/VidenOm.

Statistics:Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut, www.dmi.dkEnergistyrelsen, www.energistyrelsen.dkMiljøstyrelsen, www.mst.dkDansk Retursystem, www.dansk-retursystem.dkDanmarks Statistik, www.dst.dkElsparefonden, www.elsparefonden.dkInformationscenter for Miljø og Sundhed, www.miljoogsundhed.dk2015 Mål med mening, www.2015.dk

Photography and illustrations:

Camilla Hey: Portrait of Suzanne C. Beckmann.Innovation Lab/Morten Fauerby: Portrait of Preben Mejer and Mads ThimmerUlrik Samsøe Figen: Page 20, 31, 35, 43, 44, 46, 49, 54 and 66.Scanpix: Page 59, 62 and 65.Polfoto: Page 13 Nasa/Polfoto, page 16 Workbook/Polfoto, page 23 Topfoto/Polfoto, page 28 Nordicphoto/Polfoto and page 41 Mauritius/Polfoto.

69