From enfant terrible to environmental catalyst: Hauge is now working with industry but his radical roots remain very much alive
In 1987, to draw attention to the dumping of dust in the Jøssing fjord, Hauge and a cou- ple of Bellona foot soldiers stormed the office of Norway’s then environment minister Sissel Rønbeck and chained themselves to her desk, upon which they dumped incriminatingly rotted shellfish. Rønbeck was not amused, and branded Hauge the environmental move- ment’s Ludvig Nessa (an upopular Norwegian priest with virulent anti-abortion tendencies). In another gambit, Bellona, together with pop group A-Ha, imported the first electric car to Norway and started driving it around without paying tax. The car was impounded on several occasions and consistently bought back by Bellona. The media lapped it up, and before long, the government had introduced a progressive tax incentive for electric vehi- cles. (Hauge last year became Norway’s first owner of the coveted Tesla Roadster). “Seeing is believing,” says Hauge, who has over the years become intimately acquainted with the inside of a jail cell (his last arrest was five years ago). “We got a lot of attention.” Bellona first piqued the international con- sciousness in 1989 when a protest against nuclear test explosions in Novaja Semlja, Russia, evolved into an ambitious mission to
map sources of radioactive waste pollution across the country.
The project stuck in the craw of the KGB,
and Aleksandr Nikitin, a Bellona employee and former submarine captain, was eventually arrested during the compilation of a report for espionage and charged with high treason. This incident proved a crippling blow for Bellona, which went on to spend millions over the next three years to free their man, who risked the death penalty. The battle almost bankrupted the organisation, but it prevailed and Nikitin was acquitted – the first time anyone had ever won a case against the KGB in the Russian high court.
Nikitin is today the leader of Bellona’s St. Petersburg office. “It was a fantastic example of environmental rights and that environmen- tal information should be open, and that the need for environmental rights exists in a civil society,” Hauge reflects proudly. For all the rabble-rousing non-violent action and media stunts, however, Hauge has from the outset imbued Bellona with a prag- matic edge, and a strategic vision that stretches far beyond blinkered on-the-barricade think- ing. “We always had a cup of coffee with the police and the director of the company
afterwards,” Hauge explains. “It’s important not to make it personal – we can always talk with people.”
It is this kind of perspective that has ena- bled Hauge to develop a stunning network of contacts (his mobile phone holds over 3,000 numbers) that can be brought together and configured in any number of ways to bring about the resonant changes he seeks. “Frederic has got a phenomenal energy and a real presence,” says Michael Pawlyn, direc- tor of Exploration Architects. “He manages to be very persuasive and charming at the same time, and not many people are able to do that. Many people, if they tried to do what Frederic does, would end up being very pushy, and get up peoples noses. He is extremely skilled at dealing with people.”
Bellona’s 25th anniversary falls next year, but Hauge claims he is only just getting started.
“It is fascinating to see what can be done
with small resources and a good team, and the ongoing motivation is what we could achieve with larger resources and even more people,” he says.
“Next year, we’re really going to start working.”
Sustainable Business | October 2010 | 23
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