Thierry Van Landegem
Chairman, GreenTouch
Vice President, Global Operations, Bell Labs
Chairman Thierry Van Landegem blogs about the Global Green Growth
Forum
October 10, 2012
The second edition of the Global Green Growth Forum (3GF) just finished here in Copenhagen, Denmark. The forum brings together business, public and society leaders who are committed to advancing green growth – you got it, not just economic growth but green growth. And the time to act is now! Waiting for green growth until we get out of the current economic crisis was strongly dismissed. Several studies have shown that we are living a life that mother planet cannot sustain – as an example if every single human would live as the Qatari, we would need six planet earths! So we have to change, we have to live greener. Green growth becomes the new norm!
Amongst others, two main conclusions of this 3GF edition show that we are on the right track with GreenTouch: innovation with an ambition goal and collaborative partnership. One: technological innovation is an essential element for growth and disruptive innovation in particular - looking at game changers to improve energy efficiency in ICT networks. Two: given the broad scope we can’t do it alone – partnerships are a must between all stakeholders and at a global level. That is exactly what we do with GreenTouch.
But several challenges were identified where we as leaders will have to focus on. For one, the importance of (social) mobilization through informing and communicating about green growth was underlined. Secondly, closing the gap in financing the transition to green growth was identified as a top priority: financial innovation with particular focus on energy efficiency. Thirdly, the current lack of transparency in government subsidies is not sustainable especially when public private partnerships are part of making green growth happen. And finally, further work is needed on policies and standards.
Those challenges sound familiar, right? With GreenTouch we have started on a renewed path of more communication and information, on simplifying and making available more funds towards research and set-up a dedicated group towards policies and standards. Let’s go for it!