Scientific, Entrepreneurial & Financial Perspective to Energy & Resource Efficiency

Climate Change is a Marxist Plot!

?Climate Change is a Marxist Plot!? – this is how Brazil’s new foreign minister was recently cited by a English newspaper. A different opinion is expressed by Klaus Schwab, who said in the run-up to this year's WEF: "In my opinion, the most pressing problem does not concern our economies. It concerns our environment”. It seems that climate change has arrived at the WEF and thus in the economy.

In fact, climate change and scarcity of resources are receiving increased public attention. Above all, the younger generation is involved in this regard and creates pressure on politics and the economy through social media, among other things. This younger generation demands that the words or conferences finally be followed by action. As a contribution to this discussion, we held a panel discussion at the end of January that looked at energy and resource efficiency from different perspectives. 

The scientific view was represented by Prof. Schmidt, ETH Professor of Energy Policy. He deals with the costs (and the benefits) of climate change, which are becoming increasingly visible. He weighs the 'green risks' against the 'brown risks’. According to him, the benefit of 'green' products is greater than the cost of 'doing nothing' thanks to technical progress. Dr. Rehrmann, Head of Sorting Systems at the Norwegian company Tomra, mentioned that from an entrepreneurial point of view, the waste problem is a great opportunity. When the plastics and food industries join in, Tomra says 50% of plastic packaging can be recycled in a profitable way. The major companies in the chemistry industry want to forestall the growing social pressure and are preparing to invest large sums in the recycling of plastic. The potential is enormous, because today only around 2% of plastic packaging is reused as equivalent packaging.

From a financial perspective, investors are faced with the task of making capital available for promising products and projects. Our experience from the past 10 years shows that this is possible without sacrificing financial return. On the contrary, the financial return is accompanied by a positive ecological and social impact, which is today demanded by an increasing number of investors.

Did you know? - At present, a large part of the plastic waste ends up in the sea, corresponding to the load of one truck per minute. If this trend continues, there will be more plastic in the seas in 2050 than fish. Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation

This is an excerpt from Carnot Capital's commentary published on the 7th of January 2019, of which the full version can be accessed here.