december 2013 lecture Wageningen University on sustainability, business models, energy

“The reasonable man adapts himself
to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the
world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the
unreasonable man.” G.B. Shaw

sustainability?
…or “lariekoek”…

“Tsukuba (…), the site of perhaps the
world’s worst electricity wind
farm: in the 12 months it has
operated, its windmills have
consumed 43 times more power than
they have generated.”
www.econbrowser.com

when I led an energy company I
learned…
• more awareness
• increasing
independence and
ownership
• sustainable value
creation
• improving our
world
• more awareness,
less margin
• more independence,
less turnover
• put it on fire and it’s
gone
• well, ok, we had a
CSR program, one
day per year

…and I learned
that all energy
companies were
pretty much like
that…

I wanted
another sort
of business…

• increase awareness
• increase independence and
ownership
• create sustainable wealth
• bring benefit to the world
“in nature, nothing is created or
lost. things are only transformed.”
Lavoisier, French Scientist, 1743-1794

let’s start with a question:
Fossil fuel consumption (8000BC to 12000AD)
You are here
Source: Lawrence Staudt, 2007
Until 200 years ago, humans did not use more energy than the
earth could produce, and within 200 years this will be the same again

Source: international energy agency

and another question:
what is
energy?
erm… well…
uhh… …que?

energy is:
the ability to
do work

energy is:
now, let’s
make this a
bit less

if this guy cycles for 8
hours…

…he can lift this car all
the way up

…to cycle for your
laundry…

…but what’s that 8 hour
job worth?

is it worth more than €
100?

…is it worth less than €
10?

…is it worth less than €
1?

€ 0,05
(or € 0,006 per hour excl.
taxes and levies)

…and how long does he have to work
for your home energy consumption?
2000 hrs?
20000 hrs?
200000 hrs?

every year, this person
cycles…
…160.000 hours for
you!
…but wait a minute: a year does
not have that many hours, does it?

and these 19 cyclists feed
on:

we have found
ourselves the
cheapest
labour in the
congratulations!

…but is it
really that
cheap?

…we got
ourselves used
to finite fuel
resources…

…and we
deplete them
quickly…

…for every
barrel of oil
our earth
produces

…we extract 5
million barrels
in the same
amount of

99,99998%
…the required saving on our
fossil fuel consumption is:
to regain our
balance…
…or 5 million times less than
we consume today…

…let this
marinate for
a minute…

ownership
“You never change things by fighting the
existing reality.
To change something, build a new model
that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Richard Buckminster Fuller, critical path, 1981

with the
Path to Zero,
we achieve a 30%
energy cut in 4
years

Filmpje Landrust (niet meegewetransferred)

ownership
“We can be richer than industry as
long as we know that there’s things
that we don’t really need”
Willy Mason – Oxygen – 2004

create sustainable
wealth
problem
• the price of labour
is extremely low
• but this “present
happy progressive
condition is a thing
of limited
duration”
William Stanley Jevons,
1865
• and we forgot
what
solution
• regain control
over our energy
needs
• indepence and
ownership lead to
sustainable wealth

what change
do we wish to
see in te

we decided to start with
the end of things:
a
100 year
plan

why?
food heat
light motion
basic need
no control

our mission is, by 2110, to
increase wealth and
independence by creating an
abundance of energy from
renewable resources to an
extent where energy is freely
available to everybody

I believe that energy should be included in
the universal declaration of human rights

this 100 year plan is based on
the following factors
Internal (easy to
influence)
• Social
• Organizational
• Financial
• Technical
External (hard to
influence)
• Economical
• Awareness
• Societal
• Ecological
…and it remains work in
progress

for instance, a snippet from our
social framework:
to create a company culture:
• …in which a learning attitude holds a central
position
• …where the focus is always on the goal
• …where there is no gap between company
image and company identity
• …where roles, rather than tasks, define co-
workers’ activities
• …where “you just have to do what I tell you”
is replaced by “you just have to do what you
tell me”“a strong company culture is essential. It will set the framework within
which goals will be attainable. Throughout BAS’ endeavours to change the
world, its culture should be nourished, maintained and developed”

"The mission of a manufacturer is to overcome
poverty by producing an abundant supply of
goods. Even though water from a tap is a
processed product with a price, no one objects
if a passerby drinks from a roadside tap. That
is because the supply of water is plentiful and
its price is low. The mission of a manufacturer
is to create material abundance by providing
goods as plentiful and inexpensive as tap
water. This is how we can banish poverty, bring
happiness to people's lives and make this
world into a paradise.”

ownership
“The reasonable man adapts himself
to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the
world to himself. Therefore all
progress depends on the

who do we influence?
It’s all
about being:
Beneficial
to
All
Stakeholde
• 101: Shareholders
• 102: Suppliers
• 103: Employees
• 104: Employees’
families
• 105: Customers
• 106: Society
• 107: Ecology

it’s not about
balancing economy
and ecology, but
about fitting our
little and finite
economy into an ever-

…there is no
substitute for
action
…and finally:

december 2013 lecture Wageningen University on sustainability, business models, energy

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