Blue is the new green

By Gunter Pauli

Nature itself shows us how to innovate, generate wealth and create jobs.

The current “green business” model has failed to achieve its vision and goals. The idea that business would provide more capital and consumers would pay more to reduce our carbon footprint languished even when everyone believed the economy would grow forever. When governments are sinking into debt and millions are unsure they will have jobs tomorrow, how can paying more motivate anyone? This model, rooted in romanticism, can only succeed for those who are wealthy enough to equate a cleaner conscience with a cleaner planet.

Replacing a toxic process with a less toxic alternative is just “doing less bad.” This is exactly the approach that sees billions of dollars invested in less toxic and longer-lasting batteries. Yet, even less toxic batteries rely on mining, smelting, and toxic chemistry. Even less toxic batteries will be dumped into the environment and landfills, poisoning our ecosystem and posing long-term health hazards. Is it enough to do less bad? A thief is a thief even if today’s theft is less than the last.

Humanity’s leap toward sustainability requires more than buildings with a green feature or a recycling program for a single waste stream. I believe we will achieve sustainability when we design our systems the way ecosystems function and evolve. Ecosystems connect, creating networks of networks, wherein each contributes to the best of its ability, operates with clearly defined boundaries and endlessly cascades nutrients and energy using the enduring laws of physics. Those same management principles apply in deserts, alpine mountain ranges, wetlands, or tropical rainforests.

Enter the Blue Economy. In a Blue Economy, sustainable efficiency is achieved by substituting what is not needed with what is functional and by combining several innovative technologies into an integrated whole, just as habitats and ecosystems do. Blue transcends green because it does not depend on wealth or capital to afford economic or ecological savings. Instead, it orders and joins processes through the wisdom of nature. But blue does not simply marvel at nature; it follows nature’s systems and considers the whole. It works in the First World; it works in the Third World. It produces revenue rather than promises of something good downstream. It produces jobs. READ MORE >>

via www.odemagazine.com