Introduction to the Blue economy

                                                        What is the Blue economy?  
  

The Blue economy can be described as a sustainable use of our natural resource to bring economic value and social growth to local communities [1]. The Blue economy promotes the use of: 1) only what is locally available, 2) the laws of physics and 3) nature intelligence to not only respond to the basics needs (water, food, shelter) but to also to create jobs, energy and healthcare [1].  To apply the Blue economy principles, it is important to  understand how nature ecosystem works. Nature can teach us a lot in terms of economics and in fact the Blue economy states that nature has a Master of Brilliant adaptation (MBA) [2] . In nature, there is no unemployment, no tax and anybody is contributing to the health of the ecosystem. For instance we can take a look at slime molds. Slime molds have one of the most advanced business model. Slime molds collect tree wastes and use it as a source of energy but also convert the rest of this waste as nutriments for trees and other micro-organisms. 

  “Key in life is to be able to answer the question "How much is enough?" Modern society has a desire to accumulate stuff and do nothing with it” Gunter Pauli [3] 

                                                 Who invented the Blue economy?  

The Blue economy initiative started in 2004 and was created by Gunter Pauli, a Belgium entrepreneur and author. He is actually the best selling Belgian non-fiction author [4]. The Huffington Post actually called him “The Steve Jobs of Sustainability” [5]. The 2008 global financial crash gave him further hint to extend the Blue economy initiative and at the end of 2009 he presented the Blue economy book [6]. The Blue economy book contains a list of a 100 innovations in accordance with the Blue economy vision that can create 100 million jobs worldwide, provided that people start to be aware of it and take action to use it in their local communities. 

  “People who contend with stressful situations regularly detect more opportunities of this nature than people who are living in pampered circumstances.” [3] Gunter Pauli

 

                                                     Why was the Blue economy invented?  

Gunter Pauli used to be the CEO of Ecover, an ecological soap company which was making biodegradable soap from palm oil trees [7] . While making biodegradable soap is ecologically a very good initiative for fishes in rivers, Gunter Pauli realized the damaged that it did to the Orangutan forest in Asia [8]. Indeed, due to the increasing demand of palm oil, rain forest trees were replaced with palm trees, which was destroying natural inhabitants and microorganisms. Palm oil trees had nearly no inhabitant, no animal, it was a “ghost forest”.    
  This allowed Gunter Pauli to understand that being “green” does not necessarily mean being sustainable nor ecological. Humans most of the time think linearly, while nature does not, and this is why humans sometimes tend to not see the direct consequences of their actions. For instance, the chemists that design plastics decades ago thought that it could be dumped in oceans without any harm. They failed to see that oceans have heavy amount of sodium, which is a strong preservative agent. Gunter Pauli then quit his company to start the Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI).
 

                                         Some concrete innovations of the Blue economy  
The Blue economy shows tremendous amount of initiatives that can be used to create business which will empower local communities while respecting the nature and its basic principles.  
  

1) Did you guys know that when we go to Starbucks and we drink a capuccino, really we are only drinking about 0.2 % of the coffee matter while the rest of it is dumped to waste? 

This seems like a pretty bad business model isn’t it? Who designed that kind of system (economically it does not make any sense)? Now what if I told you guys that the remaining 99.8 % of that coffee matter could be used to create a business and thus bring economic value? Yes that’s right, it is possible and it is explained by the Blue economy.  Coffee  waste is the best known compost for mushrooms, provided that it was already sterilized (which happen when your coffee is brewing in the coffee machine!!!).  Coffee waste can be used to make U.V creams, clothes, underwear and so on. Coffee is known to well absorb smell. For instance, a company from Taiwan used coffee to make odorless clothes [9]. Once harvested, the mushroom roots can be used to feed cattle for instance.  
 

                                    2) Paper can be made out of rock particles coming from mines

 Paper made today wastes tremendous amount of trees, energy and water. We can just look at how the Amazon forest is being destroyed everyday. What if I told you guys that paper can be made from rocks? That is right and that is one of the innovation of the Blue economy. It is much more lucrative in terms of cost and its sustainable and beneficial to the environment (it keeps out forest safe)!  
  China is now one of the very few countries that produce paper from stone along with Argentina! The technology was invented by William Liang from Taiwan and is explained in detail in the Blue economy book 3.0 book written by Gunter Pauli. Check this link for more details: goo.gl/a2qvvW. To briefly explain, stone paper is made from 80% calcium carbonate crush stone from mining plant wastes and 20% of a non toxic plastic HDPE (High Density PolyPhene). That paper is also fully water proof and can be constantly recycled !!! You can imagine the tremendous economic and environmental impacts of such an advanced technology! This is a really great opportunity for entrepreneurship and for the environment!  
  

In this paper, I wanted to introduce the Blue economy initiative to the Steemit community. I presented 2 innovations (out of many many) to show you its potential. In future sustainability posts, we will explore more innovations as well as the philosophy of the Blue economy at its core.  
 

juv79505 sincerely thank you for reading this article. Please feel free to comment below in case you have ideas, questions, suggestions or simply want to criticize this article. Also, note that all pictures used in this article were extracted from the google section “pictures labeled for commercial reuse”. Stay tuned for more articles on health, environment, artificial intelligence, technology, geography, history, sports or video games. 

References

[1] The Blue economy 3.0 book, Chapter 1

[2] https://goo.gl/ptKWpp

[3] https://goo.gl/MkGLqb

[4] https://goo.gl/KTXuBY

[5] https://goo.gl/6fBktZ

[6] http://www.theblueeconomy.org/

[7] https://goo.gl/9VLU6s

[8] https://goo.gl/pQ2Wcq

[9] https://goo.gl/EVh9w8

Pictures

Image 1 was taken from: https://goo.gl/HZ7wSA

Image 2 was taken from: https://goo.gl/yRjydh

Image 3 was taken from:  https://goo.gl/fWz7g4