suitability of each solution.
“I want to bring key people together,
into the World Alliance: startups,
companies, institutions and
organisations that are producing,
implementing or supporting the use
of clean technologies, and offer
them – free of charge – access to
these independent experts – who
give credibility to each solution,” he
said.
Solutions Bertrand says already
exist.
“I think there are a lot of people
everywhere in the world; in startups,
in universities, in research labs and
even big corporations, with one or
several solutions that are profitable
and can protect the environment,
but they are not known about,
people have no idea that they exist.”
All 1000 will be presented at COP24
in Poland next year.
European
startups show
the way
A number of game-changing
innovations stemming from
European startups have caught
Bertrand’s eye in recent weeks.
“One startup in Europe has
invented a system of solar cells,
to simultaneously produce heat
and electricity,” he said. “Until now
you had only thermal solar, or
photovoltaic solar, and it combines
the two; so on the same surface you
can produce heat and electricity.”
Another young company which
impressed him, is advancing a
product within the rapidly growing
electric vehicle market.
Bertrand continued: “This company
has invented an additional power
unit that you hook to your electric
car, that allows you to travel an
additional 600km. And you rent it,
you don’t need to buy it. So you can
have your little electric car for the
city, which you use during the week,
then at the weekend - when you
want to go on a break - you rent the
little trailer to give you the additional
range you need for your electric car.
This is really interesting.”
Creating amazing products is
only one part of the equation
though, their value must also be
properly communicated to the right
audiences.
“What I want to say to the startups,
all the people gathered for the EU
Top 50, all the innovators – they
have to work on the political level,
they have to promote themselves,
they have to speak of profit, not only
ecology,” Bertrand said.
“And we need to help them
market themselves better. This is
what people miss when they are
innovators, the marketing part. They
are very good scientifically but they
don’t know how to communicate.
And today lots of the success will
come from communication. By
becoming better known, better
respected; they can bring their
solutions to the market. This is
where the World Alliance can help
them because all our strike force is
in communication; it is in the media;
it is in the relationships we have with
governments.”
Think differently
And on a personal level, Bertrand
added that those who want to
help accelerate the shift to a
sustainable world, have to find ways
of approaching challenges from
different angles.
“What we have to do is to learn to
think differently,” he said. “I believe
that we have to understand that, as
human beings - or even companies,
we are prisoners of what we have
learned to do. We are prisoners
of our habits, prisoners of the
paradigms that we believe are so
strong and important.”
To break free of these shackles,
Bertrand urges innovators to ditch
paradigms that stop them moving
forward.
“For me innovation is not when
you have a new idea. Innovation is
when you get rid of all substitutes,
all beliefs, and this is how you can
innovate. You don’t innovate with a
new idea, you innovate when you
understand the paradigm that
prevents you from moving ahead,
and you get rid of this paradigm.”
He added: “When I initiated Solar
Impulse, the paradigm was that
you can never fly longer than the
20 days that I did with my balloon
around the world, because after 20
days – which was a long flight – you
have no fuel, so you cannot continue.
So you think ‘OK we can never
progress, we can never get better’
but that’s wrong. The paradigm is
you have the fuel and you fly as long
as you have the fuel. So to change
the paradigm you need to stop
having fuel. And Solar Impulse is a
plane that changed the paradigm
and flew with no fuel, and could
actually fly forever.”
Roland Strauss (K4I) and Bertrand Piccard at COP23, Bonn