Interview Frederic Hauge
conduit to fast-track local environmental cases through the quagmire that is central government bureaucracy.
While those radical roots remain very much alive, the Bellona of today – staffed by 75 engineers, ecologists, nuclear physicists, econ- omists, lawyers, political scientists and jour- nalists – is more likely to hit the headlines for its willingness to work with industry to find solutions, often in syngergistic unison with the very corporations it has – and continues to – campaign against.
Bellona is also winning plaudits as an irre- pressible can-do catalyst for environmental betterment in Brussels where, despite Norway not being a member of the EU, Hauge since 1997 has been righteously represent- ing the European Commission’s Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants as vice president. Bellona’s indefatiga- ble and influential lobbying has been instru- mental in paving the way for EU-funded CCS demonstration projects, and it recently estab- lished an EU technology platform group, to be chaired by Hauge, dedicated to develop- ing policies and criteria for ‘carbon negative’ power plants fuelled by algae and fitted with CCS technology.
The Bellona gospel is also vociferously disseminated from offices in Washington, and Murmansk, and St. Petersburg. Not to mention via its floating operations hub, the Kallinka, a boat that tours the coast of Norway and elsewhere to bring environmen- tal justice to the people.
As a collaborator and co-manager with
industry of game-changing climate change mitigation projects Bellona is in an NGO field of its own, with over 40 partnerships currently ongoing. “This is not a competi- tion of who is right,” says Hauge, who points out that in the Bellona Scenario, an extensive solutions-led report unveiled to much fanfare at the COP15 debacle, it states that is possible
to cut at least 85% of the world’s CO2 emis- sions with pre-existing technology. “This is a game where we have to find the solutions together.”
Bellona’s CV of collaborating with big business is littered with intriguing prospects. Together with Eidesvik Offshore, via the FellowSHIP programme, the shipping indus- try’s first commercially viable fuel cell has seen the light of day on the Viking Lady ship. Currently running on LNG instead of heavy
fuels, the fuel cell reduces CO2 emissions by up to 50%, improves energy efficiency by up to 30%, and eradicates emissions from harmful substances such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx) and particles. It’s a promising start, but Bellona is pushing
22 | Sustainable Business | October 2010
to go one further to get the fuel cell running on hydrogen.
There’s the Trondheim Smart City pro-
ject, where Bellona is working with Siemens Norway to propel Trondheim to the top of the world efficiency league by revolutionising the way the public, private and industrial sec- tors consume energy.
Meanwhile, over in Holland there’s a deal with Dutch firm AlgaeLink to create algae- based fuels for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines fomenting encouragingly behind the scenes. Then, of course, there’s the Sahara Forest Project, which is arguably capturing
the
attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (nephew of John F. Kennedy) got to know Hauge and his modus operandi well after spending three days onboard Bellona’s boat for an oil drilling protest near Lofoten and Vesterålen. He was impressed, to say the least. “Frederic is smart, he’s opportunistic, he’s not an ideologue,” Kennedy observes. “He uses the conventional tools of advocacy, which Martin Luther King said were ‘agitation, legislation, litigation and education’, but he also uses innovation, both technical and scientific.
“He is saying ‘how do we make society work’ given where the power centres are?” As with many that know or work alongside Hauge, Kennedy is quick to praise his open mindedness, and enduring optimistic belief that by getting the right people working together, change will come.
“His willingness to work with companies and make free-market capitalism work for the environment instead of a hardcore ideo- logical approach is impressive. You have to be very careful when you do that because you don’t want to compromise yourself or your principles, but I think he’s been able to walk through that minefield without losing his credibility.”
It’s fascinating to see what can be done. The ongoing motivation is what we could achieve with larger resources
imaginations of committed, tech-savvy envi- ronmentalists most of all. Biomimetically inspired by the Namibian fog-basking beetle’s ability to harness its own fresh water in the desert, the project aims to marry concentrated solar power with seawater greenhouses to produce renewable energy, water and food, not to mention trailblaze a potential method of combating desertification. Partners include Exploration Architecture, which worked on the Eden project, Seawater Greenhouse and consulting engineering company Max Fordham, and Bellona has wasted no time in rustling up philanthropic funding to the not- inconsiderable tune of £300,000. “If you team up with environmental organ-
isations like Greenpeace or others, they only see problems, they don’t see possibilities,” says Siemens Norway CEO Per Otto Dyb. “Over the years Bellona has changed, and Frederic Hauge has changed, to not be this enfant terrible just pinpointing problems, but instead wanting to be a part of the solution.” Last summer, environmental activist and
Lois Quam, founder and chair of Sahara Forest Project collaborator Tysvar (a “new green economy” proponent and health care reform incubator) and one of America’s “50 most powerful women” according to Fortune magazine, echoes the sentiment. “Bellona utterly stands out as probably the single most effective organisation in this space in the world,” she notes. “Time magazine was correct in naming Frederic one of the most influential people in the world [in its 2007 Heroes of the Environment issue]. He will be one of the most important people in the new green energy economy.”
Growing up by the sea, Hauge was drawn to environmental activism as a young boy after witnessing first-hand the devastating effects of oil spills. “When you like fishing and sailing it is not fun to see a lot of dead seabirds bobbing around,” he says. He joined youth organisation Natur of Ungdom (Nature and Youth), but soon real- ised its limited scope for rattling the system was holding him back from making bold, last- ing impacts on environmental issues. Hauge wanted to get his hands dirty. The young Bellona’s trademark involved donning red boiler suits, and showing up unannounced at polluting plants with the media in tow, often to physically dig up incriminating waste. High profile cases of polychlorinated biphe- nyl (PCB), dioxin and quicksilver disposal malpractice were all early scoops.
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