science

The Blue Economy

The Blue Economy is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Blue Economy rather than just read about it. In short: The Blue Economy: 10 years – 100 innovations – 100 million jobs is a book by Gunter Pauli. The book expresses the ultimate aim that a "Blue Economy business model" will shift society from scarcity to abundance "with what is locally available", by tackling issues that cause environmental and related problems in new ways.

Key takeaways

The Blue Economy belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Blue Economy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Blue Economy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Blue Economy: 10 years – 100 innovations – 100 million jobs is a book by Gunter Pauli. The book expresses the ultimate aim that a "Blue Economy business model" will shift society from scarcity to abundance "with what is locally available", by tackling issues that cause environmental and related problems in new ways.

Contents The book highlights potential benefits in connecting and combining seemingly disparate environmental problems with open-source scientific solutions based upon physical processes common in the natural world, to create solutions that are both environmentally beneficial and which have financial and wider social benefits. The book suggests that we can alter the way in which we run our industrial processes and tackle resultant environmental problems, refocusing from the use of rare and high-energy cost resources to instead seek solutions based upon simpler and cleaner technologies. The book proposes to focus on the generation of more value, instead of blindly cutting costs. The book aims to inspire entrepreneurs to adopt its insights, by demonstrating ways in which this can create economic benefits via job creation, reduced energy use, and more revenue streams from each step of the process, at the same time benefiting the communities involved. The Blue Economy is presented in 14 chapters, each of which investigates an aspect of the world's economies and offers a series of innovations capable of making aspects of those economies sustainable. By 2014, the book has been translated into 35 languages worldwide.

References

External links Video, speech of Gunter Pauli at next! Conference Cartoon video presenting the Blue Economy The Blue Economy is the ZERI Philosophy in Action The Official Website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Blue Economy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Blue Economy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Blue Economy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Blue Economy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Blue Economy

In research: The Blue Economy appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Blue Economy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Blue Economy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2010 English-language non-fiction books, 2010 in the environment, 2010 non-fiction books, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Blue Economy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Blue Economy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Blue Economy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Blue Economy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Blue Economy in simple terms?

Why does The Blue Economy matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Blue Economy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Blue Economy.