Clean, Clever and Competitive

Early November 2005, Pieter van Geel, the Dutch State Secretary for Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment invited me to facilitate a group of "eminent" representatives from business and NGOs to produce an Advice to the European Heads of State on how to make Europe more competitive with its core competencies on energy and resources efficiency.See the CCC site.

I accepted enthusiastically. I believe since long that eco-efficiency and eco-innovation are fundamental strategies for success and that their time will come. This project was about getting faster to that time.

This is not the first of such excercises. However I think that it went a step further. We have a new basis for discussion between business and NGOs about fiscal incentives and market distortions in favour of eco-efficiency, a taboo in neoliberal economics. This was worth the exercise.

But while the advice is sound and bold it will require listening and courage in the political sphere to take it up. Please study it and pass it on. We need movement!