Dornbirn, 5 June 2014 Politicians are blindly running into the wrong direction, while trying to design and implement energy and environment policies. That warning gives prof. Friedrich “Bio” Schmidt-Bleek in his latest book “Grüne Lügen. Nichts für die Umwelt, alles fürs Geschäft – wie Politik und Wirtschaft unsere Welt zugrunde richten“, (Green Lies, nothing for the environment, everything for business – how politics and business destroy our world”).

Bio Schmidt-Bleek presented his book in the Life Cycle Tower One (LCT One) of Rhomberg-BAU AG in Dornbirn, Austria.

Schmidt-Bleek criticises in particular using the CO2 footprint methodology for measuring the environmental impact of goods and services and policies, since this neglects many environmental problems, and can lead to an increase of the material intensity of our economies. Decoupling of economic growth and use of materials would be beneficial for both the economy and the environment. 

The author is president of the Factor 10 Institute and one of the co-founders and now Honorary President of the World Resources Forum.

Watch here the video of his keynote speech at World Resources Forum 2013 in Davos and find here all information on how to order the book (in German only). 

This article in German can be found here.

 (Photo top left corner: Walser)