Ocean of Opportunities
From the Viking Age until modern times, the ocean has been an important source of wealth, providing work, energy and access to food. What circular opportunities can be explored in the ocean industries today and how do we create emission and waste-free industries, regenerating life and resources as part of the business models for the future?
“As humans, we are completely dependent on the oceans to sustain healthy livelihoods,” says Cathrine Barth, circular strategist, Natural State and Managing Partner, Nordic Circular Hotspot, Norway. “As we now are on the brink of the circular economy revolution, it is clear that the ocean will be a key building block. All we need to do is jump at the ocean of opportunities.”
From fisheries to shipping and today’s petroleum industry, the oceans offer rich opportunities for the Nordic economies—historically, today and in the future. “We need to think like natural systems to create future economic solutions,” says Einar Kleppe Holthe, founder, Natural State and Managing Partner, Nordic Circular Hotspot, Norway.
Birgit M. Liodden
Ocean opportunity knocks
The solutions lay in co-operation between industries and country borders, and to “crush the silo thinking and working,” says Birgit M. Liodden, CEO, The Ocean Opportunity Lab (TOOL) and board member, Greenstat AS, Norway. “Only by communicating and collaborating can we deliver solutions that are more efficient, rethinking the use of energy, materials and rethinking industry borders.”
Creating the next era for the ocean and energy sectors, TOOL is the world’s first floating lab and shared resource for ocean entrepreneurs and change agents across ocean industries, sustainable solutions and technology. are a fully regenerative-focused company that experiments, plays and collaborates with its partners to redefine business as it should be, rip up the rule books, and reinvest 25 per cent of its profits back into the innovators and start-up community.
New energy
Bergen-based TOOL member Greenstat is Norway’s new energy company with a specific focus on green hydrogen, solar, wind and zero-emission maritime solutions working to produce and generate green hydrogen from the Norwegian continental shelf. This serves as a great example of the opportunities that exist within yesterday’s system of production.
Taking old oil rigs that are going out of production, Greenstat will establish green energy production on site, with offshore wind, ocean sun and a cluster viewpoint sea farm.
“If we are going to build all the ships as new-builds we will have a great environmental impact. But there is a great potential to retrofit the ships and rigs that already exist,” says Liodden.
“An oil rig could weigh 35,000 tonnes and is made of premium materials of the highest quality. This is a playground for designers and architects.”
Future solutions
Looking at the petroleum industry, there are over 100 fields on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) alone. When we move away from fossil fuels, these will become obsolete. All buildings constitute incredible banks of materials, both on land as well as offshore.
Fredrik Barth
“An oil rig could weigh 35,000 tonnes and is made of premium materials of the highest quality,” says award-winning Norwegian architect and urban developer Fredrik Barth, Chairman, Nordic Circles AS and General Manager, Vill Arkitektur AS, based in Bergen. “This is a playground for designers and architects.”
Currently, only one per cent of scrap metals end up on beaches in the west versus 86 per cent that ends up in South-East Asia, where it pollutes local ecosystems in “maritime graveyards” on the coastline. There is, however, a great opportunity in working with building materials, because the construction industry has both the demand and the money to spend. Typically, the industry will buy metals back from China and India. Hence, locally-sourced, upcycled metal can become competitive for a larger market.
Marcus Oliveira
Emissions from the construction industry account for almost 40 per cent of both global energy-related CO2 emissions, while building material accounts for half of the solid waste generated every year world-wide. Significant improvements are possible if we are willing to learn from the past. Looking back in time to the traditional industry clusters in Bergen, upcycling of maritime materials was the norm. Taking materials that were used on boats and then using them for construction on land was completely normal, and some of these houses still stand today, at the iconic Bryggen, the old wharf of Bergen, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.
Einar Kleppe Holthe
“We need to rethink how goods and services are used and produced, and to redefine growth in the Nordics,” says Holthe. “Nature does not throw resources away. She rather finds new ways to transform and utilise them. This is what our economies need to learn too. We need to find new ways of utilising ocean resources in a totally sustainable, circular and resilient way. A more circular use of the oceans’ resources can be achieved by using innovation and building on collaboration, inspiration and creativity from industry, research and development.”
“Our goal with this session is to inspire collaboration on innovative circular ocean projects,” Liodden concludes. “By building on the backbone of existing industries and reutilising resources in new ways, we can create the next era of the ocean and energy sectors.”
This article has been written by Marie Storli and Peter Michel Heilmann, based on the conversations and speeches that took place during the “Ocean Challenges & Circular Solutions” session of the of the Nordic Circular Summit 2020, an official WCEF Side Event held on November 26-27. A milestone virtual event gathering over 1,000 delegates from around the world, the summit was co-hosted by the Nordic Circular Hotspot and Nordic Innovation. The session was hosted by TOOL and Natural State and moderated by Birgit Liodden, founder and CEO, TOOL as well as Einar Kleppe Holthe and Cathrine Barth, Managing Partners, Nordic Circular Hotspot, Norway and CEO & founder, Natural State, and co-founder and circular strategist, Circularities, respectively. Barth is also a co-founder of Circular Norway.