Virtual Mobility and e-Materialisation

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Greening the Economy: Lessons from Scandinavia

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Lund University

Greening the Economy: Lessons from Scandinavia

355 notes

How can we live a good life on one planet with over seven billion people? This course will explore greening the economy on four levels – individual, business, city, and nation. We will look at the relationships between these levels and give many practical examples of the complexities and solutions across the levels. Scandinavia, a pioneering place advancing sustainability and combating climate change, is a unique starting point for learning about greening the economy. We will learn from many initiatives attempted in Scandinavia since the 1970s, which are all potentially helpful and useful for other countries and contexts. The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE) at Lund University is an international centre of excellence on strategies for sustainable solutions. The IIIEE is ideally suited to understand and explain the interdisciplinary issues in green economies utilising the diverse disciplinary backgrounds of its international staff. The IIIEE has been researching and teaching on sustainability and greener economies since the 1990s and it has extensive international networks connecting with a variety of organizations. 5-8 hours/week 5 weeks duration 40 films 20 teachers

À partir de la leçon

Business strategies

In the third module, we look at the business level, focusing on how companies and organisations choose strategies that can help transitions to a green economy. In this module, the aim is to understand the changes relevant to the business level for a greener economy. You will be presented to some solutions and concepts that companies use to deal with complex problems encountered in their sustainability work. We will discuss the challenges facing companies that want to take a lead in the transition to a greener economy, and reflect on strategies for green business in different contexts.

Business Fundamentals5:47

Greening Upstream7:41

Greening Downstream8:34

Green Processes6:20

Green Business Strategies5:45

Virtual Mobility and e-Materialisation8:00

Rencontrer les enseignants

Dr. Kes McCormick
Associate Professor and Assistant Head
International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Dr. Luis Mundaca
Professor
International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Prof. Oksana Mont
Professor
International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Prof. Lena Neij
Professor and Director
International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Dr. Thomas Lindhqvist
Associate Professor
International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Dr. Håkan Rodhe
Associate Professor
International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Dr. Peter Arnfalk
Associate Professor
The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Dr. Charlotte Leire
Lecturer
International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics

[MUSIC]

Hi, my name is Peter Arnfalk.

And today, I will talk about e-materialization and virtual mobility.

Going digital offers companies and the rest of our society a range of

really interesting opportunities to save energy and resources and to cut costs.

Moving bits in the digital world requires just a fraction of

the energy it takes to move atoms in the physical world.

Producing a digital copy requires less resources than it takes to

produce a physical product.

Often so much less that we're talking 10 or 100 times more eco-efficient solutions.

Some examples of this are streaming music instead of buying records or

CDs, or reading e-books instead of paperbacks,

reading your news on the phone or on a tablet, or

getting your invoices and receipts electronically.

De-materialisation or e-materialisation is a way of doing more with less.

In the case of e-materialisation, a physical product is

replaced by an electronic or digital service providing the same or

similar function as the physical product does.

Digital solutions also make it possible for people to do and

to get access to things without having to physically go to a certain place.

It enables us to communicate instantly with people halfway across the world.

It enables us to telework - that is - working from home or

from another place outside the regular office.

It also gives students all around the world access to a multitude of

educational resources that they never had access to before, and

the ability to attend schools and universities around the world.

This is referred to as virtual mobility.

And this course in Greening the Economy is also an example of this.

Virtual mobility can influence our travel patterns.

Say an employee teleworkes regularly two days per week from home,

this can cut their weekly commute by 40%.

Companies and other organizations investing in good system for

virtual meetings, commonly save about 20 to 30% of their business travel.

Some companies report much higher savings.

In fact, driving one hour by car emits as much carbon dioxide as

talking on the phone for one full year.

Efforts to make the transport system more sustainable, including public transport,

bicycling, and alternative fuels have so far not been sufficient to turn the trend.

And virtual mobility can offer companies and

other organizations a green option to cut transport emission and cost.

A win-win solution.

So, this sounds great.

Will this digital revolution automatically solve all of

our major environmental problems?

Well, there are a few challenges.

For example, all digital services need products and an IT infrastructure to work.

Things like servers, computers, telephones, and

fiber optic cables to connect it all together.

All of these need to be manufactured, they require electricity to work.

And when they are replaced, they turn into electronic waste.

The product lifecycle for IT products is relatively short and resource demanding.

It's estimated that the ICT sector generates about 2 to 3% of

all carbon dioxide emissions, about the same as the aviation industry.

The number of IT products is also rapidly growing and

their lifespans are getting shorter.

Another challenge is that if we want this virtualization to reduce our energy and

material consumption, it has to actually substitute or replace something,

like e-books and online newspaper replacing physical books and newspapers,

which reduces the need to produce and distribute printed paper products.

This is the vision of the paperless society.

However, these environmentally promising gains have

often failed to meet expectations.

Although we're increasingly reading things online,

we have continued to buy books and newspapers.

The digital alternative then becomes a complement, not a substitute,

to the physical one.

And many people still prefer to print electronic documents in order to

read text on paper.

In this case, we're experiencing a generating effect,

resulting in even higher consumption of paper.

The effects of substitution, complementarity, and

generation all takes place in parallel.

But we're now noticing that since a few years back,

the substitution effect is becoming relatively stronger.

For example, resulting in fewer newspapers and paper books being sold.

And that hardly anyone sends a postal letter or card any more, as they're being

replaced by digital solutions like emails and social media apps like Instagram.

The third challenge is the rebound effect.

That is, by making things more efficient, we're saving resources,

such as energy and time.

The problem is that these freed up resources are often used for

other consumption, resulting in that the net savings are reduced or

even eaten up completely.

For example, when business meetings are held online, costly and

time consuming business travel is avoided, saving the company both time and money.

However, the time saved will likely be used for more work and

the money likely used to consume other products or services, including travel.

So, does this mean that a digital revolution is

a lost eco-efficiency opportunity?

No.

But we need to recognize the potential and to utilize it.

e-materialization and virtual mobility offers us options.

If we, as society, are to change old habits and to promote climate-friendly solutions,

we need to support this development at all levels to make this happen.

National and local government, businesses and individuals.

In Sweden, for example, the government has adopted a green IT strategy

that says that state agencies should buy resource and energy efficient products.

This strategy also promotes virtual meetings while

introducing disincentives for business travel.

TeliaSonera, a major Swedish-Finnish IT company has for ten years worked

strategically to reduce business travel by replacing it with virtual meetings.

Starting by scrapping its travel policy and introducing a meeting policy instead.

Since then, they have cut travel costs by 65% and

reduced flights by 73% per employee.

So while there are challenges that need to be overcome,

virtual mobility and e-materialization can help companies and

other organizations to become more eco-efficient,

enabling society to take a great digital leap forward towards a greener economy.

[MUSIC]

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