Burden or

Challenge?

From Low-

carbon to High-

carbon Economy

Last year a national organization of businesses

organized for the f irst time a conference on

the lowcarbon economy They invited me to

tell them something about the development

of the circular economy Walking around

during the conference listening to some of the

speeches and discussions it struck me that

not many happy faces were to be seen in the

crowd Of course the theme is serious climate

change can be felt everywhere nowadays

drought hurricanes excessive rain as general

examples but what motivates people towards

change

Ive been working on increasing sustainability

all my life and saw this happen before In the

worst case it results in denial or minimal

responses In my opinion the economy is

the driver of change sometimes because of

increased regulation but mostly because of

increased prof its So for me and you the key

question is how can businesses create prof it

based on the use of carbon

Every time the businesspeople were told during

this LowCarbon Economy Conference you

should minimize your CO2 emissions with x

in 2030 and xx in 2050 they nodded but

showed no expression of trust or action Low

Carbon feels as a burden was my observation

The complexity of the problem and the given

solution gives the entrepreneurs a feeling

of insecurity partly because the connected

language is not familiar and partly because

the impact on production and business is

anticipated as downgrading No one feels

happy with a downgrading ambition This

ambiguity hit the crowd hard

The result we have to do it so we have to

start doing it which means in practice step

by step at the slowest pace possible The effect

is the placement of a f ilter at the end of a

production process instead of a redesign of the

production process A common denominator in

climate change policies f ind some low hanging

fruits to show good intentions A burden does

not create challenges

It brought me to another way of reasoning

Is carbon really the problem What is the

advantage of a lowcarbon economy How can

we politicians and producers make the burden

into a challenge Carbon is not the problem it

is the CO2 that we produce We all know what

the fundamental source is usage of fossil fuels

produces massive amounts of CO2 in all kinds

of production processes heating mobility

and more For producers this is a technical

challenge based on three steps use of clean

energy creating smart production systems and

f inally capturing and f iltering CO2 emissions

Of this last step the result is captured CO2

that needs to be stored or used Both are very

well possible and still in a premature state of

development Carbon Capture and Utilization

CCU would create Carbon as a fundamental

resource for the circular economy In both

short time usage feedstock for agricultural

usage bubbles in our drinks and even fuels

and plastics and longtime usage building

materials the waste streams of CO2 become

useful I would say it is an interesting

technological challenge

Carbon itself is as said in chemistry the king

of elements Almost all products are based on

carbon being a diamond or a pencil a car or a

table and even a tree or a human being Carbon

is described by biologists as a fundamental

building block of life So a lowcarbon economy

is not a workable concept The real challenge is

to create a High Carbon Economy

That makes it exciting for all politics needs

a focus on creating conditions for industry to

become producers of high carbon products

and supports innovations towards carbon as

a resource Industry innovates and creates

new products and rethinks actual production

processes rethink productsmaterials and

rethink our way to work with CO2 Carbon

Capture leads to Storage CCS but much

more challenging is to work on CCU Carbon

Capture Usage CCU is the start of the High

Carbon Economy that we need in the long run

Usage in building materials usage in products

and usage in regenerative agriculture are

innovation challenges

The idea of a High Carbon Economy implicates

upgrading in quality of life In a high carbon

economy no carbon will be spoiled since it has

high value

Douwe Jan Joustra

Implement Circular Economy ICEAmsterdam

is the company of mr Douwe Jan Joustra

formal company name DJJoustra Advies He

is one of the initiators of Circular Economy in

the Netherlands and internationally in Taiwan

Bangladesh Brazil and many other countries

Starting his work on Circular Economy in 2010

he developed himself to one of the specialists

in Circularity in relation to systemsecology

worldwide During the years 20172021 he

was Global Head of Circular Transformation

at CAFoundation Joustra is a wellknown

international speaker on Circularity as

perspective for a Climate neutralpositive

future in Industry

Douwe

Jan Joustra