|
The Blue Economy goes beyond the Globalized and the Green Economy. All new jobs are generated in only 10 countries around the world, and 40% of the population earns less than $3 per day. Time has come to shift towards a competitive business model that responds to the basic needs of all with what is locally available. We need a model that allows producers to offer the best at the lowest prices by introducing innovations that generate multiple benefits, not just increased profits. This economic philosophy was first introduced in 1994 by Prof. Gunter Pauli when asked by the United Nations to reflect on the business models of the future in preparation for COP3 in Japan where the Kyoto Protocol was decided. Now, substantiated by over 180 concrete cases, it is increasingly clear that it is possible to generate more revenue, while generating more jobs and still compete on the global market.
The key to this dramatic shift is to evolve from a core business based on a core competence to a portfolio of businesses that generate multiple benefits for business, society and puts nature back on its evolutionary and symbiotic path. As long as corporate executives wish to pursue economies of scale, based on standardized products, secured worldwide through just-in-time deliveries and outsourcing where labor productivity is the key to success, jobless rate will continue to soar while major parts of the population are excluded. However, if the business model evolves towards the full use of all its available resources, clusters activities and cascades to higher levels of efficiency, then a new model emerges. A coffee company can generate income from the coffee, its core business, and now can also generate revenue from the mushrooms farmed on the waste, and whatever is left over after harvesting the protein rich fungi is excellent animal feed. One revenue model is now transformed in a three revenue model. Companies have focused excessively on cutting costs and therefore pursued a global strategy looking for the cheapest and most flexible place of manufacturing or service delivery. However, the drive towards ever cheaper products has resulted in an increased deprivation of cash in local economies, which have less employment but also less purchasing power, thus leading to less money circulating in the communities and this results in an economic contraction as is being experienced in numerous economies, not the least in Spain and Greece countries that suffered also from excessive government expenditure. The power of the Blue Economy is that is injects money back into the local economy, and contrary to traditional belief, it offers high quality products at a lower cost price. The healthy mushrooms before beyond reach of the majority of the consumers are now available fresh and abundantly requiring much less transportation. When the global supply chain of food implies that up to 90 percent of all the value added generated in the supermarkets is spent on transportation, now hardly any transportation is required, costs are reduced, margins are improved and prices to the consumer are lowered. The Blue Economy applies to any business sector and in addition to the reinjection of cash into the local economy, and the use of locally available resources it is dedicated to eliminate whatever is not needed. A battery is not replaced by a green battery, it is simply substituted by an energy system for mobile electronic devices and power storage that does not rely on metal-based (and mining driven) battery. This represents massive savings in material and costs, while reducing the ecological footprint on the environment and the health risks to the citizens of this world. The Blue Economy is not tailored to the large corporations, which have an established business model that will be hard to change. The Blue Economy rather inspires the young and the entrepreneurial minds and offers a broad platform of innovative ideas that have been implemented somewhere in the world to demonstrate that the future is bright, provided we go beyond the known and the obvious |
|