Berlin No, there is no shortage of concrete ideas for greening the economy in this anthology. And very few would have thought of many of them. Take building material recycling, for example: to this day, cement and co. Are hardly ever recycled, also because rarely anyone knows what materials a demolition house was actually made of.
So why not just give new buildings a kind of list of ingredients, ask the two circular economy experts Sabine Oberhuber and Thomas Rau in their article – as is the case with food packaging.
The advantage of such a material pass: The recycling of the building materials would be easier and more predictable. And even a building that is ready for demolition would have an impressive residual value due to the foreseeable proceeds, which would also be positive for company balance sheets, write Oberhuber and Rau. In any case, a lot would be gained for the climate: In fact, almost 100 percent of old cement could be recycled, but in fact it is almost always made from scratch – with enormous heat.
It is estimated that around eight percent of global CO2 emissions are caused by cement production. The idea of material passports may sound crazy, but there have already been initial attempts, especially in the Netherlands.
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These and many other suggestions for a climate-neutral future can be found in the anthology “Germany’s New Agenda – The Transformation of Business and State into a Climate-Neutral and Digital Society”, in which more than three dozen experts from business, politics, society and administration have contributed. The spectrum of the illuminated areas ranges from steel, chemistry and automobile construction to textile industry and insurance to urban development, modern administration and the basics of economic environmental theory.
Illustres editorial team
The volume provides astonishingly detailed blueprints for the change processes we are currently experiencing. A one-stop strategy does not emerge in this way, the proposals remain piecemeal. But that’s not a problem, because even the green turnaround will ultimately be piecemeal and consist of thousands of individual measures.
The book, which was edited by an illustrious team of editors working with Veronika Grimm and the railway director Sigrid Nikutta, comes at exactly the right time. After all, Berlin is currently negotiating a new government that no longer sees digitization and decarbonization as just annoying issues, but as issues that one would like to face consciously and quickly. In any case, the coalition-designate would do well to pick up the book.
From the tenor of the election campaign that recently ended – none of that is possible, and it will also be much too expensive! – nothing can be felt in the contributions. “It’s no longer about the question of whether the transformation will take place, but rather how it will take place,” write the editors in their foreword – which sounds refreshingly realistic after a largely populist election campaign.
Often there is even a real sense of optimism: “The innovative strength of industry will make it possible to combine social prosperity with sustainable business,” says the foreword. The head of Vattenfall Wärme Berlin, Tanja Wielgoß, underpins that this may well be true in her article with a dry reference to countries like Sweden, which have long been significantly further ahead than Germany in the energy transition – and still look back on many years of solid economic growth.
Digitization and climate-friendly restructuring of the economic system are being brought together
It is a clever approach in this book to jointly shed light on the two decisive processes of change to which society and the economy are currently exposed, indeed to think them together: the climate-friendly restructuring of the economic system on the one hand and digitization on the other. Both will determine the agenda for the coming years and decades, both will be the focus of innovation activities.
Veronika Grimm, Sigrid Nikutta et al (Eds.): Germany’s new agenda.
Econ
Berlin 2021
420 pages
78 euros.
And both are inextricably linked: The green electricity from thousands of small wind and solar power plants will only be able to secure the energy supply if there are smart digital systems that adapt demand to the supply depending on the weather and time of day – for example, by only allowing machines or even entire factories to start up when there is excess electricity.
The turn to electromobility will only work if smart navigation systems help to make optimal use of the limited space at the charging stations. And last but not least, it is the digital economy itself that helps save energy. After all, more and more haptic products are being converted into intangible digital goods. Even newspapers such as the Handelsblatt are now mostly only delivered using electricity pulses – and no longer printed on paper and sent across the country.
The strange tenor in the summer of the election campaign – that the bad decarbonization is first and foremost expensive, while the great digitalization primarily brings growth – finds no echo in the contributions. No wonder, after all, both change processes are double-edged: digital change is also destroying existing structures and destroying jobs – for example in retail.
Decarbonization can also be a growth driver
And ‧Decarbonization also has the opportunity to become a real driver of innovation and growth. “Climate-neutral economic activity can become the core of a future-proof competitiveness in Europe”, says the editor’s foreword. The following contributions fill the statement with life.
In fact, many authors provide ideas for how the need to save greenhouse gases can become a growth model for the entire economy and new business models for individual companies. To do this, managers have to show speed and determination, says Roland Berger partner Yvonne Ruf in her essay: “Those who act quickly and decisively can strengthen their position in the competition.”
But it is also important to make it credible that you are serious about your own climate awareness. “While competitiveness has so far been mostly based on strengths in terms of quality or prices, acting or not acting on climate issues is now gaining importance as a differentiating factor,” writes Ruf. Making one’s own processes – at least in a net perspective – climate-neutral is of central importance.
Over 400 pages with sometimes more, sometimes less quality
As is usual with anthologies of this kind, the individual contributions to this 400-page tome are of very different quality and legibility. The introductory paragraphs are sometimes the same, the reduction paths planned by the federal government, for example, are certainly reported a few times too often. With some contributions, the question of legitimacy also arises – for example, when a representative of the management consultancy industry is unsurprisingly allowed to explain why the energy transition cannot be achieved without expensive consulting.
But many contributions are worthwhile. And there are real treasures among them. For example, the almost avant-garde essay by Deutsche Bahn board member Sigrid Nikutta and the former Berlin urban developer Regula Lüscher on the city of the future, which spans several centuries of Berlin’s architectural history.
The authors’ surprising tenor is that the capital’s obvious investment backlog is actually more of an advantage than a disadvantage in terms of climate policy. After all, it offers the opportunity to design a climate-neutral city without delay – with more space for people and nature, with work and living growing together, with new mobility concepts.
Also exciting is the contribution by Tanja Wielgoß, the head of Vattenfall Wärme Berlin, who emphasizes the importance of sector coupling for more efficient use of existing energy sources. The heating sector in particular can help and wherever it is possible to tap waste heat for the district heating network – for example in waste incineration plants, small power plants or even in classic industrial companies. The cities are much more important here than the rural areas, according to Wielgoß, after all, the distances here are particularly short.
It’s not just about technology, it’s also about organization and regulation
Not only in this article it becomes clear: It’s not just about smart technology, it’s also about smart organization and regulation – about incentive systems, planning law and the like. Software standards are also an important topic: If technical home devices – such as the photovoltaic system, the heat pump or the charging station for the electric car – should coordinate their energy consumption, it is imperative that the devices can communicate with each other, write Peter Körte and Stefan Niessen from Siemens in their contribution. “In practice, however, we have a situation like in the 1980s with home computers: every manufacturer of intelligently controllable units uses its own standard.”
The authors leave open whether state intervention is required here to enforce uniform standards. In many other places, however, it becomes clear that things will not go fast enough without state control. Suggestions for smart regulation can be found throughout the book. For example, circular economy: Here the state could introduce minimum quotas for recycling shares in its own procurement, write the experts Oberhuber and Rau – or lower the value added tax for repair services.
And there is one thing that the state must also create, as many contributions make clear: it simply has to ensure that the amount of available green electricity soon increases massively. Because even if energy consumption is to be reduced everywhere, significantly more electricity is required. “Extensive electrification of all sectors is a must,” write Katja Purr and Martin Schmied from the Federal Environment Agency in their article.
Heating systems, mobility, industrial production – until now, fossil fuels have been relied on everywhere there, but electricity will soon be used instead. In fact, electricity consumption could increase by more than two thirds by the middle of the century – compared to today.
This shows that clever ideas alone are not always enough. When it comes to electricity, at least the sheer amount also counts.
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