Fossil Dot Com: ICED11 Sustainability Keynote

Since the start of the industrial revolution in 1800, with breakthrough innovations in iron production, textile industry and the steam engine, society has sustained incredible growth and transformation. During the 200 years, worldwide individual productivity has grown more than 32 times, and the transformation has moved 50% of us to live in cities, whereas a mere 3% dwelled in cities in 1800. However, this 200 year long fossil fuelled bubble is coming to an end, which affects societies around the world and the way we design products and services for these societies beyond imagination. With rich technological examples from his background as director of the innovation centre at DONG Energy, Charles Nielsen will discuss the impact of upcoming changes to the backbone of industry: the energy supply. DONG Energy has an ambitious strategy of changing the energy supply from 15% to 85% renewable energy before 2040. Embodiment of the corporate strategy into designs including urban design, bio refineries, offshore wind, sun and electric vehicles will serve as a platform for describing design challenges of the future - A future where society at large becomes the most important stakeholder demanding sustenance. Management gurus have taught us for the last 20 years that in the end we all are delivering products and services to end users. This may still hold true; however, we now need to learn that we all are nothing but subsidiary companies of the nature.