Reflections are only that, reflections, nothing more nothing less. Often these reflections are related to books I read, but occasionally also other things. These are often written very late, very fast,  using notes from my mobile phone, so the grammar and spelling is horrible.



Invitation to Sustainable Innovation 08

Here is an invitation to “sustainable innovation 08” in Sweden Malmö. Please see the webpage for further information. I’m on the jury/advisory board.

The conference could be very interesting (it all depends on the participants), as the timing is very good I have high expectations.

Hopefully we will ideas that mix pragmatic approaches with visionary goals for a sustainable 21st century development.

Too fast for prizes

I “sort of” got a ”Social Capitalist Award” by a Swedish Newspaper (Veckans Affärer, no English webpage) together with Lars Kristoferson and Lasse Gustavsson (x-CEO and current CEO of WWF Sweden). I “Sort of” got it, because I only got to know it when I saw the diploma in WWFs car when I came to Almedalen… I know that some people think I’m constantly moving, not even knowing that I got a prize might be a sign that they are right ;).

The motivation that the jury provided was that WWF Sweden’s focus on export of sustainable solutions and work in new constellations have been successful. Not sure why I was mentioned though. Lars and I discussed it and shaped the framework for a new kind of climate work over the last three years, but it was not until Stefan Henningsson (now the head of the climate work in Sweden) and Barbara Evaeus (in charge of climate communication) started to work that something actually happened here in Sweden. From an entrepreneur perspective Arne Forstenberg and Jakob Rutqvist who was instrumental in getting GlobalFOCUS and the whole climate innovation of the ground (before WWF Sweden got a climate team in place) might be even more interesting.

The really innovative work for me is obviously the work that is not visible in media. The results can be seen in places like China and India, delivered by networks looking beyond incremental results. Some of it I have already described briefly in this Blog, more will come soon and the rest of 2008 will be really fun.

Proven Reserves and a Possible Crisis in November

There are many similarities between the climate change issue and peak oil. Today there is a wide spread agreement that climate change is real and that we need to reduce our CO2 emissions. The interesting thing is that for climate change the scientific agreement existed for about 10-20 years before it became politically correct to accept it.

The mechanisms behind this lag have been discussed elsewhere and this post is just to signal that we might see an “IPCC 4AR” (when climate change became a mainstream issue) happening this November with regards to peak oil.


In November IEA (can be seen as the same credible/media accepted body for oil as IPCC is for climate change) will release WEO 2008 (could become a similar report for peak oil that the fourth Assessment Report, 4AR, was for climate change). The similarity is that both can say something that everyone working with the issue already knows, but for the world it is not until these bodies say something that it becomes "real".

The World Energy Outlook 2008 (WEO 2008) will look into the sensitive issue of proven reserves. IEA is basically the last major institution that still produces reports that are based on assumptions that there are huge oil reserves that will allow us to continue to burn oil for another 200 years (IEA do not really look into the climate aspect even if they lately have begun to add new scenarios for low carbon development.)

Now the world is changing and the technical discussion is no longer the interesting (how much oil does exist), but more the economic (how will supply and demand develop).

A great interview with Biril from WEO is available here.

About the three pictures.

The one above is from the last WEO, where I have added the actual price development. The two below should be seen from this perspective. If we for the first time have seen proved reserves shrink, 2008 might be the year when politicians start getting really serious about the issue (I will come back to the danger with this as right now the increase in oil prices is mainly resulting in actual or planned investments in really destructive areas such as CCS, Coal to Liquid, Arctic Oilfields, etc)

Global proved reserves 1993-2007 (From BP)






Proved reserves in the Middle East 1993-2007 (from BP)



For those who want to be inspired there is a CNN short movie called “we were warned”.

Proven Reserves and a Possible Crisis in November

There are many similarities between the climate change issue and peak oil. Today there is a wide spread agreement that climate change is real and that we need to reduce our CO2 emissions. The interesting thing is that for climate change the scientific agreement existed for about 10-20 years before it became politically correct to accept it.

The mechanisms behind this lag have been discussed elsewhere and this post is just to signal that we might see an “IPCC 4AR” (when climate change became a mainstream issue) happening this November with regards to peak oil.


In November IEA (can be seen as the same credible/media accepted body for oil as IPCC is for climate change) will release WEO 2008 (could become a similar report for peak oil that the fourth Assessment Report, 4AR, was for climate change). The similarity is that both can say something that everyone working with the issue already knows, but for the world it is not until these bodies say something that it becomes "real".

The World Energy Outlook 2008 (WEO 2008) will look into the sensitive issue of proven reserves. IEA is basically the last major institution that still produces reports that are based on assumptions that there are huge oil reserves that will allow us to continue to burn oil for another 200 years (IEA do not really look into the climate aspect even if they lately have begun to add new scenarios for low carbon development.)

Now the world is changing and the technical discussion is no longer the interesting (how much oil does exist), but more the economic (how will supply and demand develop).

A great interview with Biril from WEO is available here.


About the three pictures.

The one above is from the last WEO, where I have added the actual price development. The two below should be seen from this perspective. If we for the first time have seen proved reserves shrink, 2008 might be the year when politicians start getting really serious about the issue (I will come back to the danger with this as right now the increase in oil prices is mainly resulting in actual or planned investments in really destructive areas such as CCS, Coal to Liquid, Arctic Oilfields, etc)

Global proved reserves 1993-2007 (From BP)







Proved reserves in the Middle East 1993-2007 (from BP)











For those who want to be inspired there is a CNN short movie called “we were warned”.

Size matters: 400 millions that could use sustainable IT solutions in China

China mobile now have more than 400 million subscribers…

I’m waiting for a response from China Mobile on the next steps in our project (we are already working on case studies with them). For obvious reason this is a priority project. In one month they increased with almost the whole population of Sweden. (Increase in May for China Mobile: 7.49 million, Population in Sweden: 9.20 million).

The rapid development makes it hard to keep up. Even the traditional experts are not using the right numbers. An example is Dominic Barton, Chairman at McKinsey Asia did a presentation at the Even Treasury and Finance Conference Asia Pacific 2008, last week. He had a slide stating that “CHINA MOBILE HAS MORE THAN 80 MILLION MORE SUBSCRIBERS THAN THE TOP FIVE US CARRIERS COMBINED”. This was based on 301 million subscribers. About 100 million or 30% off the mark.