Seoul, April 23— While many advocate a “green” economy, the reality is that many “green” solutions are merely a case of doing less bad, rather than more good. If we are to tackle the underlying causes of many environmental concerns, our thinking needs to emerge in a new direction.

Entrepreneur and researcher Gunter Pauli has coined the notion of the Blue Economy - to enable business innovation by following natural logic. Eco-business.com has an exclusive interview with Gunter Pauli as part of our Thought Leadership Series.

ECO: What initially gave you the idea for the project?

Gunter Pauli: I’m an entrepreneur, I’m looking at opportunities. I realize there is a major portfolio of opportunities that is being underused because business is preoccupied with core-business and core-competencies.

ECO: So business is missing the boat?

GP: Totally. And I believe that business does not want to be bad. We need to reconnect with the world and change our business model. Ecosystems never work with what they don’t have. Whatever is available will be exploited to its full potential, for the needs of all. Innovations in nature can generate multiple benefits—this is great for business, it means multiple cash flows.

ECO: Of the 100 technologies, which do you personally think are the most promising?

GP: The ones where you substitute something with nothing, the ones where you eliminate something from the business. Where you eliminate a battery, rather than replace it with a green battery. That’s the good stuff. Another one is using wind energy without having to use wind turbines. They can be built into existing pylons. A lesson of nature is to use what we already have.

ECO: Of the 3000 technology research recommendations you examined, you held the criteria of choosing ones that did not need any subsidies or tax breaks. Why was that the case?

GP: Because I think these technologies change the rules of the game. If they do not need subsidies and they can prove themselves in the market quickly, they will have quick adoption. When we can we have to avoid using subsidies. They are a political decision. When someone changes in politics, subsidies can go just as quickly. I can’t bring a business model on the reliance of a subsidy. The need for large investments prevent new industries from taking off, and if that’s the case, “green” innovations will remain fringe.

ECO: Your ultimate technological recommendations are ones that characterise a mimicking of natural functions, for example, efficiency and reuse of nutrients. Of the final 100 technologies selected for the Blue Economy, do you see any potential for humans to be misguided about the application of a certain “nature-inspired” technology? That is, to somehow fail to grasp the full implications of what nature has created?

GP: I think here we need make a distinction between 3 basic sciences: physics, chemistry, biology. If I have something based on physics, there is no opportunity for misuse. Harnessing basic reactions such as air flutter cannot be misappropriated. The laws of physics are the basics we should be using. There are no exceptions. Apples fall from trees— we can get predictable results. In biology, everything is open for evolution. Merely finding some chemical way to be less bad is not the way to become sustainable. It is the way to become less damaging.

ECO: The opening remarks of your book mention quite openly that our economic system is failing. In a perfect world, if the powers that be were to adopt your recommendations in Blue Economy, how might the transition look? What might the coming decade be like? What sort of new economic system could emerge?

GP: First and foremost, we are going to see an economy driven by entrepreneurs. They will change the rules of the game by giving value to something that had no value (e.g. converting coffee refuse to mushrooms) or by eliminating blatant symbols of unsustainable production into natural processes. For example, if we want to insulate a building, we will put in insulation. Compare that with the smartness of the zebra with black and white stripes with the best air conditioning system ever created. The stripes alternate air flow and decreases its surface temperature by 9 degrees Celsius. We can do better.

Human driven solutions are so often chemistry driven when the opportunity is all around the physics. As in the case of the zebra, it is around colour differentials and heat transfer. We can harness this logic.

We’ve gone to green and we wanted to be by biology. But we forget that in biology, everything is on a path of evolution, it always changes.

ECO: In what ways do you think entrepreneurs will reshape the existing business paradigm?

GP: They will change the rules of the game. They are David vs. Goliath. David won because he changed the rules of the game. He didn’t inform Goliath, he just did it. This is really where we have the most important psychological approach to changing the market.

If you can do a surgery on a heart patient and you need a battery in a pacemaker, then it will cost $50,000 for the system and hopefully insurance pays. On the other hand if you understand the conductivity of skin and you insert a carbon wire. You can power the pacemaker with the capacity of the heart or the body to make its own electricity. This little carbon wire can be put in through a catheter, no surgery. The whole thing could cost $500.

Of course vested interests would not be interested in seeing that technology emerge, and many highly regulated markets wouldn’t pass the innovation. So we have to start in more developing areas, where the resource availability, outlook, and regulatory environment are different.

ECO: You mention that your early work with Ecover around green cleaning products inadvertently had some negative effects of having palm oil as a key ingredient. Do you see many products today that are still repeating the same mistaken logic?

GP: If I’m a vegetarian and I’m eating shitake mushrooms, then I’m most likely responsible for the destruction of the oak forests, as most of the mushrooms are grown on oak. We might be becoming vegetarians, saving animals, and eating mushrooms, but the end result is we are destroying forests. If we are fed up with plastics and phase that out, we then have the unintentional consequence of putting a higher demand for corn.

[From a business point of view] we focus too much on core competencies. MBA’s focus on one little thing. As a result, we don’t see the big picture. We fall out of touch with suppliers say, overseas. As a result, we do not have a clear view of what is happening, say the destruction of a natural habitat for a key ingredient—a rainforest in Indonesia to get palm oil.

ECO: So business schools are training people to be narrow minded?

GP: No, just too focused. The real request of mine is that we have to have opportunities to see the whole picture. We have to make connections. If we do not connect, then we are not succeeding in getting the whole picture.

ECO: What would you say is the way around such well-meaning yet short-sighted decision making in such a case? What sort of criteria should people take into consideration up front?

GP: You need to follow your inputs that you bring into the manufacturing process and you need to follow the end of life of your products. It has to go beyond the lifecycle assessment. At every step, you ask yourself if there is a way to simply eliminate what you are doing. Is there a way to substitute something with nothing. Can I get the same outcome with what I’m doing. We’re always thinking “better” or “cheaper”—we’re stuck in the same business model.

As a replacement for palm oil, we could use citrus peels for detergents for example. Many of these opportunities are such a shift from what we do today that there is no existing core competence.

The book gives portfolio of 100 of these opportunities covering 200 sectors.

ECO: You speak out negatively on cloning and genetic manipulation in the book, though briefly. Would you care to comment further your thoughts on the subject?

GP: If we rely on the law of biology and we want predictable results, we rely on cloning and genetic manipulation. I don’t think there is a need though. Just on coffee waste, I can generate 16m tonnes. Why can’t that waste be used to raise mushrooms to make feedstock? We have production systems that are so prolific, solving issues like food security can be done without the need for genetic manipulation.

ECO: You talk about peak oil and peak food, two topics that many leaders worldwide try to avoid. Why do they manipulate the situation? Why do you think they avoid the topic, or at best just placate the issue?

GP: It’s the art of muddling through. This goes for politicians and those in poverty. It’s the art of “getting to the next day.” The crisis is for millions in poverty worldwide that just muddle through. We need to find ways to help people have a life, not just muddle through. We are not good as human beings at confronting the hard issues. We should be conscious of this and see things not so much as a challenge, but an opportunity.

For more on Gunter Pauli’s work, visit — Zeri

The Blue Economy is out now in bookstores.

Eco-Business.com’s coverage of the Business for Environment Summit in Seoul is thanks to the support of City Developments Limited (CDL).