The supplement market has a slew of products that promise to accelerate muscle building to almost miraculous levels. When embarking on a body-building mission though, an individual should have some facts in hand. Regardless of how well manufacturers package products or guarantees fast results, supplement on their own cannot help build muscle.

Strict fitness programs and diets are the assured ways of gaining muscle mass and supplement only magnify the outcomes. What a good supplement does is to help achieve the desired muscle mass a bit faster, help with recovery and complement nutrition. For this reason, a buyer should be careful about the supplements he picks to add to his workouts, which given all the products out there, can be a tall order. However, knowing three best (& worst) vitamin supplements men must take will help with the purchasing decision.

Worst Muscle Building Supplement

Numerous products that are advertised as muscle builders only serve to waste money. Some people may take a while to realize that they are not getting any value from these supplements but by then, they have already spent money and time on the products.

Testosterone Boosters

In recent times, testosterone boosters have become popular products in the supplement industry because every man is innately wary of lower testosterone levels. Muscle gain is one of the properties used to sell testosterone boosters. A good number of these products do not do anything they are said to, and a few will raise testosterone levels in the smallest degrees. One reason for this is the combination of ingredients contained in these products. ZMA, Tribulus Terrestris, and D-aspartic are the main ingredients found in testosterone boosters, and there is no scientific proof to endorse the claim that they affect muscle mass. In instances where a supplement does increase the levels of testosterone, it is usually in degrees that do not have any bearing on body composition.

Growth Hormone Boosters

HGH boosters are other popular supplements that a lot of men will run to when they want to look fuller. Manufacturers make HGH boosters with various ingredients combined with amino acids that promise to increase body composition and facilitate muscle building. However, most of these compounds do not have any effect on the human growth hormone because they are not potent enough to register any real changes. Some studies indicate that HGH boosters have to be used with steroids to give the desired results.

HMB

Relatively new on the market, HMB is advertised as a muscle builder although no studies have proven that it does anything to increase muscle mass. There have been reports that HMB supplementation facilitates small increments in leg strength although these results were in untrained men. Trained lifters experienced minimal changes when they used the supplement during resistance training. HMB was created as an anti-catabolic agent, and it accomplishes that very well. It helps with faster recovery by preventing muscle breakdown after workouts.

The Best Supplements for Building Muscles

Creatine

The naturally occurring compound is responsible for producing cellular energy, which makes it possible to take any action from chewing to scratching. As a supplement, creatine is made with several amino acids that help replenish the bodys reserve energy. Creatine supplements are also known to improve the water content in the muscles, which contributes to mass gain. The compound also increases blood flow during strength training hence, enhancing performance.

Protein

Any fitness trainer will advise a person looking to gain muscle mass to ensure that he consumes enough protein. However, it is nearly impossible to get all the required protein for muscle building solely from food, and that is where protein supplements come in. Protein powder makes it less complicated to balance the intake of macronutrients. Protein powders are easy to make, which means that a person can mix as a snack in a minute before or after a workout as opposed to cooking a whole meal. Whey protein is preferable because it digests faster and leaves a person feeling full.

Beta-Alanine

It is another compound that occurs naturally and boosts the bodys performance by increasing the level of carnosine in the muscles. Carnosine is a compound molecule that reduces muscle acidity, meaning the muscles can contract more without getting fatigued, which improves performance. High-intensity exercises result in the buildup of hydrogen ions that drop the blood pH levels. Acidification of the muscle is one cause of muscle failure, and it decreases muscle performance. Taking beta-alanine will also enhance the endurance of an individual, allowing him to work out more.

A person searching for the best supplements to facilitate muscle gain should take the time to find quality products with proven results.

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The Resource Based Economy

There has been a longer discussion recently in this article whether a resource based economy will work or not. And the opposers argument was largely centered around a notion that in RBE there will be no contracts, that people can just walk away from their job, and that this will lead to a lack of mining ore. That we wont find people to work in the mines to dig up minerals needed for our social production as he calls it, to produce our cell phones and laptops, etc.

Of course, he does have a point. But not only in regards to mining ore, but in regards to the operation of the whole planet. I understand his concern as I have it myself. The complexity of the world we have today is extremely vast when it comes to the production of goods and services. Of course, mining of ore to extract minerals, is one of the aspects of this complexity. We have a huge production of different products that need everything from aluminum to plastics to glass to silicon to mention but a tiny percentage of the whole. And all of these minerals and raw materials are processed in a lot of different places and manufactured into a huge amount of different products. And this goes on on thousands of locations all over the planet.

All of the alternative solutions to the problems we have in the world today deal with solutionswithin the monetary system. We have recycling, carbon shares, cradle to cradle, environmental protection, and so forth. All of these deals with the industry and the monetary system staying as it is. Recycling means that we have to recycle the minerals and raw materials used in many of our products. Carbon shares is a monetary way for the society to be able to continue to pollute the environment, but it will cost a bit more for the polluter. Cradle to cradle means that industries produce everything with the termination and recycling of the product in mind, not using any harmful agents in the product. Environmental protection is the total of allmeasures taken in regards to protect the environment, but still within the monetary system.

All of these measures assumethat the monetary system, the industry, the free market and so forth stay largely as it is. With recycling, cradle to cradle and carbon shares thinking, we still think in terms ofcontinuousconsumption and unlimited economic growth.

It is understandable that the majority of people can not think in terms of changing the whole system, from the root and up, because it is very difficult to think that far out of the box.

We have all become used to our way of life, with tonnes and tonnes of different products inthousandsof different categories. And we all think that this has to go on. We all think that we need hundreds of different producers of cell phones, lap tops, cars, mattresses, guitars, etc. etc.

Yes, we, humans are an industrious race. We have ideas, we produce, we manufacture, we consume, and we do it all over again. This is who we are. Isnt it? Humans have proven to be full of ideas and ingenious solutions to many of the problems of being human. We are also very good at creating problems for ourselves, so that we can have yet more to solve. We constantly do this, and it seems to be human nature. And we all want to be free. Free to do what we want, travel where we want, think and say what we want, work with what we want and live wherever we want. Of course, this kind of freedom is limited to only a few in our world today.

My point and question is; How can/will a resource based economy work on a global scale, without it becoming a totalitarian system? For sure, none of us wants any global machinegovernment, even though that is what Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project proposes. We all wants to be able to make our owndecisions. So, how can it work, then? We are all so indoctrinated into thinking that if theres no penalty in terms of job loss, money loss, property loss and so forth, we cant get people to do what is needed in society.

We think that if everyone will be able to do whatever they want to do, then we will lack a whole lot of people to dig ore as our commenter puts it. No one will take on a dangerous job like going into the mines and dig out the urgently needed minerals to produce our cell phones, because when he/she gets everything he/she needs, he/she could simply walk away whenever he/she wants. Since there wouldnt be any binding contract (in terms of money/property/job loss) in a resource based economy, the whole of society would simply collaps.

Trust me, I truly, really and utterly understand this concern and this disbelief in a resource based economy.

The first time I heard about RBE, Iimmediatelygot a feeling that this is good, but at the same time, I couldnt get it to work in my intellectual analyzing mind. And thats why I started this blog. I felt strongly that RBE is possible, and not only possible, but the best alternative humanity has ever been able to choose. But I couldnt prove it. Because I too was totally indoctrinated in my mind in regards to thinking about money and property as givens. As something thats always been there, like air. It has taken me a couple of years to dedoctrinate myself into seeing how RBE can be possible.

So, back to our question. If we have no money or need for money, and everything is provided for everyone, what will make people work in the mines and do all the dirty work needed in our society? It is a very good question, and I am not sure that I can give a 100% answer to that. Because I dont know. I can only speculate and imagine, which I have done for a couple of years. And my answer goes like this:

Firstly, we have to think of RBE as a totally and utterly different society. We can not think of an RBE society with our monetary goggles. We have to take them off. We have to be able to imagine that the individuals on this planet can actually shift their way of thinking from a penalty based society to a freedom of contribution society where we do what we do because we want to contribute to society in meaningful ways. Many people think this way already and refuse to take jobs just to earn money but do what they do because of theirconviction in a different society. They have an inherent need to do something meaningful that truly contributes to this world.Thinking that there has to be a monetary penalty lurking in the background to get people to do what is really needed in society is seeing this with the old monetary goggles.

The truth is that the monetary reward is over rated in terms of production efficiency. There have numerous studies that support this. Take a look atDan PinksTED Talk about this phenomena and the animation made from it. What is shows is that higher incentives leads to worse performance. It sounds like a self contradictory statement, but when you think about it and see the background, it is not. And these results have been replicated over and over again bypsychiatrists, sociologists and economists. For simple, straight forward tasks, if you do this, then you get that, monetary incentives are great. But when a task gets more complicated, when it requires some more conceptual thinking, the monetary incentives dont work.

What the research continues to show is that money is a motivator only when it gets people to take on a job. After getting the job, there are other factors that leads to betterperformanceand personal satisfaction, and they are; Autonomy, mastery and purpose. Money only plays a part if the job doesnt pay good enough for people to make a living. As soon as people are paid enough, then these other factors are the important ones.

What this shows is that the true values within humans are not penalty centered, but rather centered around our previous notion of freedom of contribution. Autonomy is a vital value. People wants to feel that they have a freedom to choose what they do and how they do it. Mastery is an equally important value. To have enough education and experience to really feel that one masters and succeeds in resolving the tasks at hand. And last, but not least:purpose. We all have to feel a sense of purpose in what we do. It has to be meaningful. In other words, money, and the threat of a monetary penalty is not the reasons why people do stuff.

This shows to prove that people actually might be digging ore if there is a sense of autonomy, mastery and purpose in the job.

Then we come to the point where we have to take off the monetary goggles and put on the RBE goggles instead. When we have this totally brand new world and way of thinking, there would be so many things that would be different. Since people doesnt have to take a job because of money anymore, what would people do? Why would they do anything? Well, the formersection should give the answer. People would seek meaningful and purposeful tasks. We would seek tasks where we feel a sense of autonomy and mastery. I think we also can add several reasons why people would do stuff that the mentioned research doesnt show. Likeexcitement, interest and fulfillment.

So, meaning, purpose, mastery, autonomy, excitement, interest and fulfillment are what really drives people, and what will drive people in a resource based economy.

Now, back to digging ore. If this activity brings any of the above mentioned elements, people will do it. But, when we have a resource based economy, where most people have waken up from the continuous consumption cycle and where most people wants to contribute to the betterment of society, things like digging ore will not be as needed as before. Why? Because of several things. With the new mindset of humanity, consumption will go drastically down. Not so much new minerals and raw materials has to be dug up. Production will go down too, as products will be made to last and instead of postponing the release of new technology to maximize profit, the newest technology can be released right away, thus saving millions of tonnes of raw material that other wise would have been used in the never ending new products. And lastly, technology that digs ore will be developed, minimizing the need for human personell way down in the mines.

To see how a resource based economy can work, we can divide it into 4 categories:

1. The human values has changed, or rather, has become acknowledged.

2. Technology has become more and more developed, removing the need for humans doing dangerous andrepetitivetasks.

3. As a result of RBE, society as a whole has changed drastically.

4. The notion of property and ownership has changed.

The most important first step for RBE to work is the human values. As we see, people are intrinsically motivated by other things than money, like a sense of purpose and meaning. It is only todays need for money that locks people into a mind prison thinking that money is what motivates them, when it really is not.

So this is about education and awakening. For RBE not to be a totalitarian, global, machine based government, which non of us want, people have to wake up one by one into the truth of their own motivation. We, as individuals have to train ourselves and each other into thinking of why we are here and what we really want to do, not in terms of money, but in terms of what we feel as our true purpose here on the planet.

I am training myself everyday to think this way. And the way I do it is to tell my self that every thing I do, I do of service to the planet and humanity, service to others, and service to my self. Service to my self in terms of what I want to do here on earth. And, I have already had theepiphanythat being of service to others can be extremely fulfilling for my self. Thus, doing what I do the very best way I can do it, is a fulfilling thing. And this has nothing to do with money. What is funny, though, is that since I started thinking like this, I have had more to do in my business than ever before, which of course brings in much more money than ever before as well.

Of course, we can say that money is a means of gratitude, a flow of appreciation, going from one person to another. I am not opposed to that way of thinking. Far from it. It is just that money and property and the whole management of the whole planet has been so thoroughly fucked up by the money logic, that trying to think of a world totally without money and property would do us all very good. It certainly does me good. And I realize that as soon as I start to think in terms of money, Iimmediatelyget that old stressful feeling again. It is me not thinking about money but at my purpose of being of service that brings the money in! Because when I think that I dont need money, I become relaxed, and the law of attraction works in my favor.

And then, my friends, what would be the logicalconsequenceof this? Well, if all of us started thinking of our purpose, rather than money, and doing things out of purpose rather than money.we wouldnt need any money! When our purpose is to be of service, to give and share, then everyone will always have enough of everything ever needed.And low and behold, we would actually live purpose- and meaningful lives. Every one of us. No need to stress for more money, paying bills, pay taxes, take up loans, do accounting, pay insurance, and what have you.

For a resource based economy to work, more and more people on the planet have to wake up to this reality. It is a human choice that we have to do as individuals. There are already a whole lot of volunteers around the world working for non-profit volunteer organizations. So the notion is not new. The question is whether it will spread to the rest of society as well. But that a whole world could work for free for each other should be totally possible. At least when enough (critical mass) people realize the benefits of doing this, rather than toiling with money and all that it entails.

When the new value system is in place, when enough people realize the above mentioned, both people who now are in normal jobs, but also those who are in politics and those who run large corporations, the abandonment of money will be a reality. Then, with the profit motive gone, technology can be developed without the hindrances that patents and greed used to be for unlimited development.

When we can concentrate on developing the best technology for everyone in every circumstance, and we can truly let technology replace 99% of todays jobs. Jobs that now are kept open, since replacing them with technology would bedevastatingfor the economy. Today, millions of people still work in factories doning work that easily could have been replaced by machines, robots and technology. There are already a whole lot of machines and technology in place, but again and again, I see people closing the lid on cardboard boxes and other meaninglessrepetitivetasks easily replaceable by technology.

And back to the ore digging metaphor. I am pretty sure that this field is also one where technology and machines could do much more work then it does today, replacing the need for human personell in mines. Besides, when we truly make products to last, and human values have changed, we wont consume as much, and we will be able to recycle 100% of all waste, maybe extracting enough of what raw materials we need, not needing to dig much more holes in the planet. In other words, technology teamed with the new human values, will make the need for constantly new stuff much much less, and thus the need to constantly dig up new resources.

And to me, being a part of a world where we all try to maximise human and environmental potential and protection, rather than profit, and where we work to develop technology to serve these ends is very interesting and fulfilling.

It would also be a true investment in humanity and the planet. An investment where we strive to take care of the environment,build up the soil, educate all humans and build asustainableworld. A world we all can truly enjoy for the rest of our lives and for all coming generations.

Now, with the human values and the new focus ontechnologyin place, society will change drastically. We all work to fulfill our purpose in life, for our own and others betterment, to master new skills, to share our knowledge and experience and to have exiting and meaningful work. In a society with no money or propertywe can all truly care about each other with no secret agenda.

All humans will be educated to serve other humans and the planet itself. The population will automaticallystabilize when everyone understands that every person can not have more then one child in his/her lifetime, meaning maximum twochildren per family. When this is followed we will have a one birth per one death, securing a stable population on the planet. And this is made by individual choice, not by force. By choice, because people now are educated to see the whole picture, and their own place in it.

What used to be companies and corporations will transform to be hubs of knowledge within their respective fields. There can still be employees, but they wont be there because they need to collect a pay check. They will be there because it is their field of interest and ofexpertise, because they want to be there. To participate and collaborate. People can still start businesses, but not for monetary gain, but to work together on new solutions to old or new problems, to create works of art, to draw new buildings, develop new transportation or new types of energy, new medicines or what have you.It will be a purpose driven world, rather than a profit driven one. It will be a world where human potential is maximized in all aspects.

So then, what would the ore miners do? Maybe some of them have been working in the mine for years and years and know nothing else. Maybe these would want to continue doing what they do, but maybe a little less. Maybe take a long vacation, or only work a couple of days a week. Maybe this leads to adeficiencyofColtan for a while, but so what? So what if we dont get the new iPhone 5 this fall. So what if we dont get the newest flat screen 52 inches LED powered Full HD TV this christmas. So what!?

The only thing in this world that needs this is the never satisfied, always craving, always consuming, never stopping Monetary System that needs cyclical consumption, planned obsolescence and endless waste to exist. But WE dont need that. We are not consumers, it is this system that has made people this way. It is this system that needs us to constantly consume and crave more and more and more, and no wonder, cause if we dont, the whole system will collaps. Just like that. If we stop buying our cell phones, our cars, our flat screens, our new jeans, ourjewelry, our what have you, there will be no more monetary system. So, thats why we need an alternative ASAP. And here we are, discussing RBE.

Back to the ore miners. Some other of the ore miners might have thought of smarter ways to do things, might have ideas to ease the process of getting up that ore. But, he cant tell anyone about it, because if he does, he might loose his job. Because his idea is for a machine that can DO his job. But now, in the new resource based economy, that is exactly what he can do. Of course, the mining company doesnt need to earn money any more either, so they might also relax a bit, digging that ore.

They have now become a part of a globalcooperationof former mining companies, working together in coordinating what is really needed of mined minerals in the world. And the former ore miner workers idea to a new machine that can replace the humans needed down in the mine is welcomed with open arms. He becomes a part of the new global mining cooperation, working together with researchers, scientists andenvironmentalistson how to provide what is now needed of new minerals in a most planet friendly way.

Some of the other miners also wants to be a part of this and becomes a part of the global team. Then again, other miners might grab the opportunity to do something completely different. One of them had always had an interest for sociology, but never go to study it. He goes of to university. The university that is now open for everyone. And the learning is now strongly aided by new technology, facilitating the possibility for many more people to learn than ever before. Another one had wanted to travel the world. Off she goes, being able to go anywhere she wants for as long as she wants. She learns a lot on her trip, and wants to study anthropology to understandindigenouspeople better, and how they can contribute to the world. A third one had several inventive ideas for improving and cleaning contaminated water. He quickly finds other people within these fields where his ideas becomes picked up, improved, tested and used in the real world, improving water everywhere it is needed.

All former patents are now made public, for everyone to study and contribute to. All secrets ever held by governments are let out in the open. All borders are opened and totally free travel by every one made possible. New efficient, environmentally friendly, energy independent and healthy transportation, housing and cities are built all over the planet. And everyone can live anywhere they want, according to their own interest and need. Everyone can contribute in the fields that interest them the most. Everyone can educate themselves in new fields at any time. The world has become 100% efficient in terms of human satisfaction and development. The question is, what do you want to do?. Not in terms of money, but in terms of what is needed on the planet at any time and what theindividualfeel is fulfilling to spend his or her days on.

There is a natural coordination in this. When a beach is full, one goes somewhere else. When a field is full, when an area is full, when there is no need, one finds something else to do, elsewhere. And there will always be needs that needs to be met. And we meet them in our full ability. If it is too much, we say so and get more help. We all collaborate in this world.

Humanity has discovered its true purpose here on earth. It turned out that it is not to compete for imaginary money and to hoard property, but to build a better world together, so that everyone can participate in true challenges and feel true and lasting joy.

Property and ownership have, as money, been around for thousands of years, and has been the key building blocks in the development of the capitalist socio-economic system. So, what about property and ownership in RBE? I feel the thoughts float towards communism and other not-so-nice isms here. Shall we have no ownership and own no property in RBE?

I will make a distinction here between personal property and public property.Personal property is your movable items that you own, also called movable property. Public property is what today is dedicated to the use of the public, owned collectively by the population or the state.Today, one person can own vast amounts of land and other property as their private property. More and more state property is now also becoming privately owned. This has been the constant struggle between the capitalists and the state for millennia. The state and the public wants to have property available for itscitizens, while the capitalists wants to secure as much property for themselves.

In RBE, some different models can be discussed. Obviously, no one person can own huge amount of land, like there is today. Still, if a family or a person wants and needs some land to have a family domain to live on and to grow their own food on, this could beaccommodated. Then who would accomodate this, one might ask. In Jacque Frescos RBE, there wouldnt be any state. Instead, there would be computerizeddecisionmaking, determining the fate of humanity. I can not see this working on a large, global scale. For sure, computers can, and does, make a lot of day to day decisions. And for sure, they can and willdefinitelybe extended to make more societal decisions than they do today. But, many decisions will still have to be up to us, the humans. And not to forget, WE are the ones who will be programming the computers, based on what we want out of them.

I foresee some kind of coordination, where coordinators and informators are assigned to different areas on the planet. The persons will not have any deciding power, but will coordinate and inform, together with data technology, what is decided on a particular place. They will be coordinating and informing the community, so to speak. But the community will have constant voting power in all relevant areas. Not like today, where someone are elected, and you have to stick with that person for the remainder of the period. I say relevant areas, because some things can not be voted upon, like the best angle for the pillar under the bridge that is to be built. These types of decisions are up to the specialized personell.

Computers and coordination aside, back to the land. The Venus Project proposes to build completely new cities that would be 100% self sufficient in terms of energy and food production, and very efficient in terms of transportation, energy use and waste management. This is something that would be a naturalextensionof RBE, when the majority of humans starts to think not in terms of money, but in terms of the betterment of people and the planet. So, new and more efficient cities is a natural way to use the land. At the same time, existing cities will be optimized as much as possible in terms of energy use, transportation and waste management. Buildings and parts of cities that are too difficult to optimize, will be recycled into new uses.

Today we have a lot of farming on the planet. Outside our existing cities there are hectare upon hectare of fields of all sorts, producing everything from maize to potatoes and rice to grapes. Today, all of the production of food is dependent on oil, both for transportation, but also for fertilizers and pesticides. An lot of todays food production is simply thrown away to uphold the food prizes on the global marked. Too much bananas? Then we throw some mega tonnes away, so that the rest can be sold for a good prize. Today, millions of tonnes of food is thrown away every day, because unsold food rot away in supermarkets waste containers. At the same time our earth and soil and water gets contaminated with all the artificial fertilizers andpesticidesused to grow the food.

I RBE, the new cities will be 100% self sufficient in terms of food production, utilizing both hydroponics, aquaponics and permaculture principles, providing clean, safe, nutritious and locally produced food all year round with absolutely no use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Very little food will go to waste in RBE, and we will thus need to produce much less of it, than today. So, some land around the cities will be used for food production for that respective city. And since there is no competition between food producers, the food production can be optimized to the true need of the population, minimizing wasteful production and transportation.

Of course, there will be a lot of room for individual choice in RBE, much more than today, where individual choice is determined by ones money amount. If one wants to live on an old type farm, on the country side, one can do this. This is not problem. There is still plenty of land on the planet, and people who wants to live in wooden old houses, redecorate themselves and grow their own food, can do that. If they wants to combine and use the latest technology on their land, they can do that too.

Just as today, we will in RBE have three major categories of land:

1. Cities

2. Country side

3. Wilderness

In difference from today, we will all have access to all of it. Of course, if someone is using it already, and that use is needed, then that part of the land is taken. Just like when you come to a beach, you dont put your towel on top on someone elses. No you put your towel somewhere else on the beach. And if the beach is full, you go somewhere else, or come back another day. And property will be used purposefully. If there is a factor there, producing clothing or something else, then that property is used for that, just like today, except that no one own the factory, but all of us. Someone has responsibility over it, but no one owns it.

In todays world, we see that in many cases, things work better if they are privately owned and sold to the public. At the same time, privately owned corporations can be responsible for a lot of pollution and misbehaving. In other cases, public services work better than private. It seems like it all boils down to the individuals behind it. A corporation can be (quite) environmentally conscious, treat its employers well, and work pretty well for all parties. Still, it is totally binded by the demand of the owners and employees to make profit and go well economically speaking. This, more often than not, ruins the businesses possibility to act in a responsible way when it comes to the environment and to its employees.

Then we come to todays public services. Some work well, some work terrible. At least, there isnt as pronounced profit motive here, as with the privately owned corporations, so more regards can be given to environment and human health. But again, public services are also dependent on money, and thus, are also somewhat a slave to the profit motive.

Privately or publicly owned. What is best? Again, it seems like it boils down to the persons and the intent behind it. It is the individual persons with their stronger or weaker intent that drives the results in this.

Non of us wants a resource based economy to be a new totalitarian dictatorial system. So, back to our first premise, human values and human awakening. It all boils down to this. We, as individuals have to wake up andconsciouslychoose this new direction. We have to consciously choose to share our property and give it up as our own. We have to understand the value in RBE against todays system, and choose based on what works best.

Property is a mindset. As written in another article, we dont really own anything. Ownership is an illusion. We think we own things, we believe we own stuff, but really, we dont. At best, we can say that this is in my possession as long as I need it and use it. This is the only ownership we will ever have overanything. You have a pair of jeans. You might have bought them in a store, you might have gotten them as a gift, or you might have picked them up for free in a used clothes container or sharing market. In any case, you are in possession of them right now. You might lend them to a friend, you might give them away tomorrow, they might be ripped apart by your dog, you might loose them on a trip, or you might throw them away. In any case, when were they yours? Were yours when they were made at the factory? Are they still yours after you have given them away?

No, the notion of ownership and property is only a construction to make the capitalistic society work.Ownership and property has been tools to create the economy and the system we have today, the monetary capitalistic system. There is no real ownership in nature. There is only temporary use and respect for each other. As long as we respect each other, our personal space, then we will have no problems. You can keep a pair of pants for as long as you will, but they are never truly yours. You can walk in the forest, and as you walk on the path, you are using the path, but it is never your property.

So, how will property and ownership work in a resource based economy? It will work like it works in nature. You will own your creations, but not in a way that prevents others to use them and continue to develop them. You will own your pants, but only as long as you need and want them. You will own everything you need as long as you need it.In other words, all land will be public, but you can grow your own vegetables on a plot of land and take care of that as your own as long as you would like that. But you cant claim vast amounts of land as your own if you or your family doesnt need it. You will own your personal property for as long as you want and need it, and the rest will be public property.

In other words, all land will be public, but one can get designated areas to have for instance a family domain or to grow you own vegetables. In general, we will work together to use land and grow food in the most sustainable ways, with or without machinery.

Housing will also be common and open to anyone. Meaning that if you want to live one place for a longer period, you can do that for as long as you want. But if you want to move, you can do that too. And you dont need to bring all the furniture with you, since that will exist on the new place. To travel and visit other countries and cultures will also be much easier in a resource based economy.

In genreal, the distinction is between ownership and accessibility. It should be pretty clear by now, that when no one owns anything, but have access to everything, we all will have much much more access to all the things we today have limited or no access to. At the same time, a lot less would have to be produced of the same things.

Take cars, for instance. Today we have a vast amount of cars on the planet, and more are produced every single day. Still, most of them stands still for 90% of the time, not being in use. So, we have parking lots brim full of unused cars, because we all have to own one. When we instead ownnothing, but have access toeverything, we wouldnt need one tenth of the cars we have today. When we instead share cars, we can all have access to a lot more cars than when we all have to own one car each. We will even have access to cars we never dreamed of driving before.

When we share everyone gets more. Both of land, cars, travel possibilities, boats, clothing, furniture, technology and what have you. Our choices becomes virtuallyunlimitedin RBE vs. in todaysownershipsystem.

For example, Google (one of the new knowledge hubs in RBE) have developed technology for cars so that they can drive themselves (See video here).With this kind of technology, there wouldnt be any problem with sharing cars. One could have a car pool, where one could simply order a car, and the car would show up on your frontporch. You wouldnt even have to drive it if you didnt want to. You could get in, and relax with a good book, check out the scenery, or take a nap, while the car safely drives you to all the way to your destination.

Of course, this is only the beginning. Eventually, cars will also be electric, non-polluting, and maybe even fly!

In summing up, a resource based economy is hard to imagine from our existing mindset and what we are used to. It sounds to good to be possible. But why not? This might be the only solution we have if we want to survive as a species. Maybe we simply have to make it work.

Personally, I think RBE is more than possible. I think it is viable and a real solution for humanity. We are already half way there, with all the voluntarism that exists in the world.

The future is limitless. But only if we let go of the hoarding and self centeredness and look at what isreally possible when we abandon money an focus together on our common future.

Maybe we can look at a resource based economy as the worldtoday, only without money and property, the hopeless financial crisises, wars andbackwardsthinking, but with an emphasis on sharing, experimenting, exploring, collaborating and celebrating.

With a common effort, focussing on values and technology, we can do it. Why not?

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Will a Resource Based Economy Work?

The term resource based economy was coined by Jacque Fresco in The Venus Project as the name for what kind of economic system he envisions in the future. As there is a lot of talk about technology, design, architecture and the like this website tries to discuss the term resource based economy from a human perspective based on existing and possible future values on this planet. When this website was formed, one found almost nothing about a resource based economy online in spite of the websites of The Venus Project and The Zeitgeist Movement. This site was made to remedy that. Still, the term resource based economy can be replaced/overlapped by many other terms.

Resource Based Economy (RBE), Natural Resources Economy, Resource Economy, Moneyless Economy (MLE), Love Based Economy (LBE), Gift Economy (GE),Priceless Economic System (PES), Trust Economy (TE), Voluntary Collaborative Economy (VCE), Sharing Society, Resource Based Society, Moneyless Society, Love Based Society, Ubuntu, etc. etc. It is all the same thing. It doesnt really matter what we call it, as long as it has the basic notion of an economic system where no money is used, ownership and trade is abandoned and replaced with usership and giving and all resources (both human and planetary) are shared and managed properly. On this site we will mainly use the term Resource Based Economy. We could add Gift in the title (Resource Based Gift Economy), to emphasize that on a local micro level, we need to simply give and share our personal resources, while we at the same time, on a global macro level, manage global resources.

This site is dedicated to the development of a resource-based economy (RBE) on our planet. Here we can fantasize, visualize and imagine what RBE can be like in all aspects of life. From questions like Will there still be coffee shops, and who would work there? to How can RBE be implemented in the developing countries? and everything in between. RBE implies a million questions that needs to be answered before we can make this real. We need people in all categories to develop RBE. A main aim is to get this information out to people so the whole world can start to imagine and picture what a life in abundance without money can be like. This site can be used as a portal for initial introduction to the subject. We allow/encourage respectful duplication of this information.

What is a resource-based economy? Heres a quick definition:

A resource-based economy is a society without money, barter or trade, with the awareness that Humanity is One family and where technology, science and spirituality is used to its fullest to develop and manage the planets resources to provide abundance for everyone in the most sustainable way.

And heres an extended definition:

The continual emergence of a system of self imposed management of human and natural resources both locally and globally where money, trading and ownership is replaced by gratitude, sharing and usership in a way where everyones needs are met.

A resource-based economy uses the original meaning of the word economy, which used to bemanagement of material resources. In addition to material resources, we can put natural resources and human resources. It is a society without money with the earths resources shared where it is needed without any form of exchange, barter or payment. It is not a new communistic approach. Neither is it socialism or capitalism. Its beyond communism, socialism, feudalism, fascism, capitalism or any other ism. Its beyond any social system that has ever existed on this planet, at least in our awareness. In communism the state owns everything. In socialism the state owns something while the rest is privately owned. In capitalism everything is privately owned.

In a resource-based economy the worlds population doesnt own anything, but has access to everything. Anything ever needed, like food, clothing, housing, travel, etc. etc. is provided in abundance through the use of our updated knowledge, values and technology. Theres no state that is the owner of the resources, and nothing is privately owned. In RBE the worlds resources are considered the heritage of all the inhabitants of this planet, not just a select few. RBE is not a society where we will live in scarcity with few resources. It is not a society where a few control and distribute the resources. No, it is a totally new society where we let todays and tomorrows technology be developed to its fullest to work for us, and where we utilize knowledge about nature and technology to provide a life in abundance for everyone. It is a society where we truly have the option to take care of each other instead of struggling to survive.

It is a totally new way of life, unimaginable within todays value system, but still something most people truly long for in their hearts. It is a world where we can call ourselves Free and live with dignity and respect for each other, nature, the planet and the universe. It is a concept where value no longer is measured by money, but rather by the joy we feel, the contributions we make, and the development we take part in. It is a society where we utilize our minds and hearts in providing a healthy life for everyone, developing our knowledge about nature and technology, and using this in the most sustainable way.

Imagine a world without money, barter or exchange, where everything is provided for everyone, and everyone can pursue their own interests and dreams and live in the way they want. Be it moving closer to nature and grow your own garden of delicious vegetables, travel the globe and experience the wonders of the planet, make and perform your own music or collaborate with others to develop a new invention for the betterment of society. In a society where we dont have to think about money and profit, we can truly develop ourselves and the human race into something completely wonderful.

The monetary system doesnt work anymore and is obsolete. This is obvious when you look at todays world with increasing unemployment, financial crisis, endless consumption producing endless waste and pollution, not to speak of crime and wars. You could say money has outplayed its role on this planet. It produces greed and corruption through the profit motive we are all a slave to. The economy is falling apart, and everyone seems to be struggling to get richer and richer or just to make ends meet. The financial crisis has so far made over 200 million more people end up in poverty. Now, about 2 billion people in the world are considered poor. Poor countries that have received massive loans from the World Bank have become much poorer after receiving the loans, because of the interest. And they can only hope to pay it back. The collective external debt of all the governments in the world is now about 52 trillion dollars and this number doesnt include the massive amount of household debt in each country. How can we owe each other so much money??? Because we think we need it.

It turns out that its not money we need. We cannot eat money, or build houses with them. What we need is resources. Food, clothing, housing, etc. Money is just a hindrance in making the resources available for everyone. Imagine if there was no money. Right now. No money. Everything would still be there, wouldnt it? The trees, the mountains, the houses, cars, boats, air, grass, snow, rain, sun, animals, birds and bees and the people. Nothing has changed, really. Why? Because money doesnt really exist. Theres no money in nature. Its only an agreement between the worlds people, made up thousands of years ago as a means to control the world population. Instead of slavery, where one had to feed, house, nurse and guard the slaves, one invented money. With money everyone would have to fend for themselves, while the rulers created the currency, collected taxes and controlled the masses, like they do today.

It was a means of which people could trade stuff that they all needed. Labor, food, housing, etc. If it wasnt scarce, there was no need to charge for it. Like water and air. The rulers claimed ownership to land, and thus became the owners of this land. They could then charge others for using it and for stuff that was produced there, like it is today. And the property could be sold and inherited in the bloodline. Banks became invented, and eventually; loans. And now society has become addicted to it, like a drug. But, like a drug, money is something that we dont really need, we only think we do.

Where did the money come from in the first place? In the beginning it was based on rare metals, like gold and silver, and because of its scarcity it could be used as means of trading, instead of cows, hens, corn and other rather-impractical-to-carry-around stuff. Notice the word scarce. Common rock wouldnt have worked, because everyone would have had it. But today. where does the money come from? The answer is..: Nowhere. The money is not even printed anymore. Only 3% of the worlds money is in paper or metal currency, the rest 97% is electronic. New money today is made by the stroke of buttons on computer keyboards, like the one Im typing on now. And this is also how the banks make loans, and wants it payed back, with interest, which is not created in the system, makingbankruptcy inevitable for many companies, and now even countries.

In other words, debt is money. Its like taking a piece of paper, writing 1 million dollars on it, giving it to a poor bastard and say now you owe me 1 million dollars, and you have to pay it back with a yearly interest of 5%, thank you. This is how, in simplicity, it is done. The money today doesnt really exist. Its just an agreement that the whole world has bought into. And now were stuck in it in lack of a better system. Except, now we have a better option, a resource- based economy.

The economy goes up and down in booms and busts. People are getting rich out of nothing, or being struck bankrupt out of the same nothing. In a depression, shops can be full of what people need, but no one has the money to buy it. We are reduced to consumers, even though we are Human Beings. Governments try to control the economy by adjusting the general interest rate and by other means. We have to consume. Not too much, cause then we get inflation and a new economic bubble. But not to little either, then we get a recession because not enough people are buying the products that companies produce. So, its a fine balance. But really, a ridiculous balance. It leads to a lot of trouble for our selves. Overproduction in boom times, underproduction in recession times, pollution, war, corruption, crime, poverty, and withholding of technology because we have to squeeze what we can out of the oil, and other obsolete technology that gives us.money. Still, technology is advancing further and further and replacing jobs faster than we can say technological unemployment, which in itself is increasing year by year, replacing more and more workers by machines.

Machines are both helping us and taking our jobs. Jobs that are needed to get the money to buy things that the technology produces, so that the companies can get more money, to produce more things that you can buy, if you have the money You see? Its a scheme thats set to bust. But money is not what we really need. What we need is what we today believe only money can buy. We need the resources. We need quality of life. Not the money. The truth is that theres not enough money in the world to buy us out of this crisis, or if there was, the money would not be worth much. Since the world economy is based on scarcity, if there is too much money, they wont be worth enough to pay for what we need, the resources. If there is an abundance of money for everyone there would be no value in the money. Still, thats what the world leaders are trying to do today and has been doing for the last 40 years. Growing the economy and printing more money to pour into the system, so that banks can lend out more money, and companies can pay their debt, with more debt, with more money. Money, the thing that created the problem in the first place. The system is doomed for collapse. This is self evident.

Money and false scarcity makes us steal, lie, cheat, become greedy, corrupt and stingy. Actually, all of the worlds governments and people are corrupt, because corruption is a byproduct of money. Since with money, we are all doomed to think profit. Everyone from a single person to a big company. Everyone need to have some form of income. And the income has to come from someone else. Thus, we get greedy, and corrupt and separated from each other and nature, which is our true provider, not money. Its not people that are greedy and corrupt, it is not human nature, its the system that makes people this way. If there were no money, and we could get all we needed and wanted without from nature, technology and each other, there would be no greed, and no corruption. Human nature is by large a product of the environment. With abundance competition becomes obsolete. With abundance there wouldnt be any need to steal. With abundance we could focus on living our lives and develop society. It is about time we end the meaningless competition and start collaborating.

The real human nature is a collaborating one. Think about it. We naturally collaborate to build houses and bridges, develop software and businesses. Collaboration gives satisfaction while competition gives stress. Of course, we could still compete for fun, in games and sport. But when it comes to the development of society we see that competition only hinders progress. A lot of energy and resources is wasted in the pursuit of competing for market share. We dont need 100 different flat screens, we only need one, the best. In a resource-based economy the technological development will have come so far that we can produce anything specially requested by the individual, and in the highest quality, through the use of nanotechnology and computer based manufacturing. This is not science fiction, this technology is being developed now.

What about incentive? I hear you say. Why would people want to do anything, if it wasnt anything in it for them, like money? Well, I sit here now and write this, not because I earn any money on it, but because it gives me something else. The satisfaction of the feeling of helping people, helping society into a new world, that benefits all. And this is a feeling no money can buy. This, I think, is the reason for most of the worlds new inventions, like the radio, the light bulb, electricity, penicillin, etc. etc. Not money, but the need and urge to create and share with other people, and be a part of what is going on. Its no fun keeping all your creations for your self only. The fun lies in sharing with friends, family and the world.

Why do you do anything? I bet you want to do something in your life that you find interesting and fulfilling in some way, not just because you earn money on it. Most people have hobbies and interests that that they like to spend time on, and where no money is made. For many people, this is their reason for living. For many others, they keep their job because it is fulfilling.If it ONLY made you some bucks, or maybe, rich, you would feel really poor in the end. You would realize that money cant buy you happiness. Maybe for a while, but not permanent. So, its not really money that makes you do things, now is it. Its something else. Fulfillment. We all want to be fulfilled in our lives, and even today, money is only a small part of that.

What if you didnt need any money to get all you want today? What if you could get all you think you want today without any money? Travel anywhere you like, drive cool cars (non-polluting ones!), live in a nice place, have this and that new electronic device, go to concerts, eat good food, relax, study what ever you want for as long as you want, work with what you want, contribute to society, learn a new skill, teach a new skill. What would you do? No pursuit for money anymore But you dont need to own the car you drive, or the house you live in, or camera you use, as long as you have access to it as long as you need it.

Say you want to go on a boat trip. What if you could just book a seat on a boat, and go? Or, better yet, book a whole boat, a yacht, if you will, and sail away. It would be pretty boring alone, so you bring some friends along. Good. What about food? All the food you want is provided. So is clothing. And everything else. None of it is really yours, yet all of it is. Its everyones. It wont be like; hey, I need a pair of underwear, give me yours!. Of course not. There would be plenty of underwear, enough for everyone, in enough different colors and shapes. And boats. The beauty of it is that we dont need to own that boat. When were done with it, we return it, so someone else can use it. In a harbor on the opposite side of the globe, or where we picked it up. It doesnt matter. From there we have booked a car, or whatever vehicle we have in RBE, that will take us further on our trip.

Both the boat and the car is produced with the most ease of maintenance and use in mind. And they can maintain themselves in most ways, including taking themselves to a maintenance facility where other machines helps them with what they need. This way we dont need parking lots stuffed full of cars that are not in use, or harbors stuffed full of boats that are just lying there. There would be a good selection of cars and boats for everyone to choose from in many kinds of designs, fitting your taste and personality. And ALL of them would be yours to use! Not just one or two. They are ALL yours, orours.

There would be produced more than enough of all that people would demand, in fully automated factories and on personal 3D printers. And it would be produced to last. Not like today, where cars are actually produced to brake down, so that they can sell more cars, and keep a whole maintenance industry alive. No, in a resource-based economy there would be no point in making anything in poor quality. In a resource-based economy it would be most beneficial for everyone that every product is of the highest possible quality, and that all the planets resources are managed, developed and protected to the highest degree. And when we go by access rather than ownership, we wouldnt need more than a fraction of the amount of cars and boats and things we have today. Since non of the things are in use all the time, and we share the things we have, we, the environment and the planet will do with a lot less things, and a lot less waste, if any.

In the world today there are plenty of resources for everyone, if they are properly managed, that is. The monetary system makes us compete for the resources on the planet. A resource like oil is continually being pumped up because of the money it makes, instead of researching and developing new environmentally friendly energy, thus continuing to pollute the world. There is a lot of alternative development going on, though, but still, the oil is being pumped up to the last drop. And the green energy is also monetized. Streams, made from the rain, made from the evaporated water the sun is responsible for, are running down the mountain, and then the electricity it produces is charged for by the kilowatt-hour. So is the wind, and the tidal power, nuclear power and every other energy source on the planet today. Making the richer richer and the poorer poorer.

It cant go on like this forever. We have two choices. One is where globalization by corporations takes over, we are all chipped and controlled, and become the sheep that feed the never ending hunger of the few. Actually, this is not far from what it is like today. The interest you pay on your loans pays the interest the rich get on their money in the bank. I.e. they dont have to work, but you do.

The other choice is where money is abandoned and the worlds resources are distributed to where it is needed. This distribution is possible with todays technology. We can have a sensor and distribution system covering the whole planet, making it possible to monitor resources, supply and demand all over the world. We already have this system to a large degree, through satellites and other technology. We can also combine this with input from users.

In nature there is a natural abundance. Everything in nature is there for us to use and develop to the best for ourselves and humanity. It is only when the profit motive comes in everything is distorted. Then crops are thrown away because of profit, and land is overused. When we close the door on money and profit, we can easily produce more than enough food for everyone on the planet. When we take one seed from an apple and put it in the ground, we get a whole tree full of apples after a while. And with that we get more than enough seeds to plant more apple trees. And everything is provided for us by nature, all for free. No charge. And not much labour. We plant the seed at the right place and then it grows all by it selves. It only needs water, light, nurturing and time. And voila, we have apples. And this goes for every other plant on the planet as well. Its all there for us to utilize.

The day to day decision making can largely be computerized and be based on need and our input, with highly developed, self maintaining and self producing machines and robots combined with the loving care of humans. If there is a need and want for housing in a particular area, the houses will be built by machines in accordance to the specifications of the future inhabitants. If there is need for more of a particular food, that will be produced and provided. Already today cars can run by themselves only guided by GPS and sensors. Several hospitals use robots for inventory and logistics. Planes have had autopilots for years and can both take off, navigate and land by themselves. Factories produce all kinds of products faster and more efficient than any human being could ever do. Billions of big and small decisions are already taken for us every day by computers.

Still, politicians makes us believe that they know best what is best for us. Even though they havent got a clue about the science behind it, and what is measurable the best solution for society and the environment at any given time. Politics is not in our interest, it is only a smoke screen, made to distract us from what is really important. We can have a world of abundance for absolutely everyone as long as we skip the bickering of politics and really open our eyes for what we really need and how far technology and science has really come. The technological and scientific development has really passed societys values by far, and its time we catch up.

In a resource-based economy there would be no need to hold back on any new invention. No patents would be needed. Every new development that would be in the interest of humanity would be developed and shared as fast as possible. We wouldnt want or need to pollute the world more than absolutely necessary, if necessary at all. We would develop everything in a way that would maximize the quality of life for everyone. Humans, animals, insects, plants and the environment itself. Technology has come so far today that we can make it do almost anything. Technology is not to be feared. Technology is like a knife. It can be used to stab someone to death, or to cut bread. Technology itself is neutral. Its we who gives it its purpose and meaning. And theres no turning back.

Technology has come to stay. Imagine a life without cell phones, video, mp3 players, cameras, internet, satellites, electricity, modern hospitals, washing machines, cars, trains, planes, computers, lamps, running shoes, running water, loud speakers, windows, steel, dvd players, tooth brushes, dental floss, glasses, contact lenses and what have you. A car plant today is almost 100% automated. So are most other factories. Humans are only kept there to give the illusion that jobs are created and maintained. They are not really needed there. The machines can do all the work with todays technology. Humans are really only needed for some supervising. Technology could probably replace 99% of all human labor in a few years if we want that to happen.

This seems like a sad thing for many, but only if you need a job. In a resource-based economy automation is the liberating factor for people. It is so today as well, until the whole economy collapses, that is. Which it will, eventually. And now, imagine what tomorrows technology can do. Its we who creates it, and its we who will decide what it will do. Today, with the monetary system, technology is used for a lot of destructive development, like weapons. The weapons are largely produced to defend or conquer borders and property, two things that will not exist in a resource-based economy. Weapons are the byproduct of money, the monetary system. War is one of the most profitable activities on this planet. The monetary system produces war, and makes technology to be used destructively. In a resource-based economy with no money, barter, exchange, borders or passports, there would be no reason to produce weapons to defend borders and kill people for property and profit.

We are foreseeing a new worldwide social system where the worlds resources are considered the heritage of all the inhabitants of this planet. A new moneyless society with a resource-based macro economy and a gift micro economy. Imagine a world without money, barter or exchange of any kind, where everything is provided for and shared by everyone. Not uniformity, but individual freedom and expression will be its credo. True unity through diversity, and abundance for all would be its goal. And for ever openness to change and development its reality. Its not utopia, its just a new possible direction for society. No debt, loans,taxes, money, bills, accounting, laws, war, borders, passports, scarcity, stocks, financial crisis, poverty, corruption or hunger. But rather freedom, ingenuity, creativity, positive development, peace, love & understanding (yeah, yeah, cliche, but its true!), personal individual expression, abundance, prosperity, sharing and giving and true Unity for all the worlds people. Call it a dream, call it utopia, call it wonderland, or call it Evolution. This might just be the next step in the development of society.

Yes, the resource-based economy poses a million new questions, its not an easy fix. But its better than what we have. For the first time in history we have the possibility to communicate and collaborate across the planet and develop something that can really change the world. We could actually have a resource based gift economytoday, if everyone simply stopped using money.

We need all kinds of people from all over the world to help imagine and develop this new direction for Humanity together. Everyone from artists to scientists, executives to politicians, organizations to corporations and from citizens to governments. We need EVERYONE onboard on this flight. There is no us and them anymore. We are all in this boat together.

RBE was first brought up by Jacque Fresco with The Venus Project, started in Venus, Florida, USA. It was taken further by Peter Joseph through the Zeitgeist Movement. Zeitgeist means the spirit of the times. The Zeitgeist Movement is not a political or religious movement, but rather a grassroots movement for applied spirituality. Meaning that we seek to implement on this planet the core values of all the worlds religions and spiritual movements, like Oneness, unity, equality and freedom for all people. True freedom can only come when we see all people on this planet as the righteous, equal members of humanity, with equal access to all the planets resources. For this world to exist we have to update our values and views on life and how it can be.

Read and find out more here:

UBUNTU Contributionism

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com

http://www.thevenusproject.com

Check also all the links the links page.

We need everyone to know about this new possibility for Humanity.

Heres a list of suggestions to what you can do:

Tell your friends. Send them to this page for an initial introduction. You can use the save/share button below to post on Facebook etc.

Write in blogs and forums.

Write articles and send to media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television, internet) in all countries. Feel free to copy and use as much as the above article as you like. Get celebrities to support the movement.

Get the support of investors, companies and corporations. Dont rule this out, we all work with or for someone, and we are all trapped and want to get out, even corporate executives. There are also many investors that actually want to create betterment for Humanity.

Get the support of politicians. Give them a chance, some might get it.

Start more websites about the resource-based economy. The more we populate the web with it, the faster the message will get out.

Involve yourself in the Zeitgeist movement.

We allow and encourage respectful duplication of this information. Respectful means referencing this source. Thank you.

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About RBE | THE RESOURCE BASED abundance ECONOMY

There has been a longer discussion recently in this article whether a resource based economy will work or not. And the opposers argument was largely centered around a notion that in RBE there will be no contracts, that people can just walk away from their job, and that this will lead to a lack of mining ore. That we wont find people to work in the mines to dig up minerals needed for our social production as he calls it, to produce our cell phones and laptops, etc.

Of course, he does have a point. But not only in regards to mining ore, but in regards to the operation of the whole planet. I understand his concern as I have it myself. The complexity of the world we have today is extremely vast when it comes to the production of goods and services. Of course, mining of ore to extract minerals, is one of the aspects of this complexity. We have a huge production of different products that need everything from aluminum to plastics to glass to silicon to mention but a tiny percentage of the whole. And all of these minerals and raw materials are processed in a lot of different places and manufactured into a huge amount of different products. And this goes on on thousands of locations all over the planet.

All of the alternative solutions to the problems we have in the world today deal with solutionswithin the monetary system. We have recycling, carbon shares, cradle to cradle, environmental protection, and so forth. All of these deals with the industry and the monetary system staying as it is. Recycling means that we have to recycle the minerals and raw materials used in many of our products. Carbon shares is a monetary way for the society to be able to continue to pollute the environment, but it will cost a bit more for the polluter. Cradle to cradle means that industries produce everything with the termination and recycling of the product in mind, not using any harmful agents in the product. Environmental protection is the total of allmeasures taken in regards to protect the environment, but still within the monetary system.

All of these measures assumethat the monetary system, the industry, the free market and so forth stay largely as it is. With recycling, cradle to cradle and carbon shares thinking, we still think in terms ofcontinuousconsumption and unlimited economic growth.

It is understandable that the majority of people can not think in terms of changing the whole system, from the root and up, because it is very difficult to think that far out of the box.

We have all become used to our way of life, with tonnes and tonnes of different products inthousandsof different categories. And we all think that this has to go on. We all think that we need hundreds of different producers of cell phones, lap tops, cars, mattresses, guitars, etc. etc.

Yes, we, humans are an industrious race. We have ideas, we produce, we manufacture, we consume, and we do it all over again. This is who we are. Isnt it? Humans have proven to be full of ideas and ingenious solutions to many of the problems of being human. We are also very good at creating problems for ourselves, so that we can have yet more to solve. We constantly do this, and it seems to be human nature. And we all want to be free. Free to do what we want, travel where we want, think and say what we want, work with what we want and live wherever we want. Of course, this kind of freedom is limited to only a few in our world today.

My point and question is; How can/will a resource based economy work on a global scale, without it becoming a totalitarian system? For sure, none of us wants any global machinegovernment, even though that is what Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project proposes. We all wants to be able to make our owndecisions. So, how can it work, then? We are all so indoctrinated into thinking that if theres no penalty in terms of job loss, money loss, property loss and so forth, we cant get people to do what is needed in society.

We think that if everyone will be able to do whatever they want to do, then we will lack a whole lot of people to dig ore as our commenter puts it. No one will take on a dangerous job like going into the mines and dig out the urgently needed minerals to produce our cell phones, because when he/she gets everything he/she needs, he/she could simply walk away whenever he/she wants. Since there wouldnt be any binding contract (in terms of money/property/job loss) in a resource based economy, the whole of society would simply collaps.

Trust me, I truly, really and utterly understand this concern and this disbelief in a resource based economy.

The first time I heard about RBE, Iimmediatelygot a feeling that this is good, but at the same time, I couldnt get it to work in my intellectual analyzing mind. And thats why I started this blog. I felt strongly that RBE is possible, and not only possible, but the best alternative humanity has ever been able to choose. But I couldnt prove it. Because I too was totally indoctrinated in my mind in regards to thinking about money and property as givens. As something thats always been there, like air. It has taken me a couple of years to dedoctrinate myself into seeing how RBE can be possible.

So, back to our question. If we have no money or need for money, and everything is provided for everyone, what will make people work in the mines and do all the dirty work needed in our society? It is a very good question, and I am not sure that I can give a 100% answer to that. Because I dont know. I can only speculate and imagine, which I have done for a couple of years. And my answer goes like this:

Firstly, we have to think of RBE as a totally and utterly different society. We can not think of an RBE society with our monetary goggles. We have to take them off. We have to be able to imagine that the individuals on this planet can actually shift their way of thinking from a penalty based society to a freedom of contribution society where we do what we do because we want to contribute to society in meaningful ways. Many people think this way already and refuse to take jobs just to earn money but do what they do because of theirconviction in a different society. They have an inherent need to do something meaningful that truly contributes to this world.Thinking that there has to be a monetary penalty lurking in the background to get people to do what is really needed in society is seeing this with the old monetary goggles.

The truth is that the monetary reward is over rated in terms of production efficiency. There have numerous studies that support this. Take a look atDan PinksTED Talk about this phenomena and the animation made from it. What is shows is that higher incentives leads to worse performance. It sounds like a self contradictory statement, but when you think about it and see the background, it is not. And these results have been replicated over and over again bypsychiatrists, sociologists and economists. For simple, straight forward tasks, if you do this, then you get that, monetary incentives are great. But when a task gets more complicated, when it requires some more conceptual thinking, the monetary incentives dont work.

What the research continues to show is that money is a motivator only when it gets people to take on a job. After getting the job, there are other factors that leads to betterperformanceand personal satisfaction, and they are; Autonomy, mastery and purpose. Money only plays a part if the job doesnt pay good enough for people to make a living. As soon as people are paid enough, then these other factors are the important ones.

What this shows is that the true values within humans are not penalty centered, but rather centered around our previous notion of freedom of contribution. Autonomy is a vital value. People wants to feel that they have a freedom to choose what they do and how they do it. Mastery is an equally important value. To have enough education and experience to really feel that one masters and succeeds in resolving the tasks at hand. And last, but not least:purpose. We all have to feel a sense of purpose in what we do. It has to be meaningful. In other words, money, and the threat of a monetary penalty is not the reasons why people do stuff.

This shows to prove that people actually might be digging ore if there is a sense of autonomy, mastery and purpose in the job.

Then we come to the point where we have to take off the monetary goggles and put on the RBE goggles instead. When we have this totally brand new world and way of thinking, there would be so many things that would be different. Since people doesnt have to take a job because of money anymore, what would people do? Why would they do anything? Well, the formersection should give the answer. People would seek meaningful and purposeful tasks. We would seek tasks where we feel a sense of autonomy and mastery. I think we also can add several reasons why people would do stuff that the mentioned research doesnt show. Likeexcitement, interest and fulfillment.

So, meaning, purpose, mastery, autonomy, excitement, interest and fulfillment are what really drives people, and what will drive people in a resource based economy.

Now, back to digging ore. If this activity brings any of the above mentioned elements, people will do it. But, when we have a resource based economy, where most people have waken up from the continuous consumption cycle and where most people wants to contribute to the betterment of society, things like digging ore will not be as needed as before. Why? Because of several things. With the new mindset of humanity, consumption will go drastically down. Not so much new minerals and raw materials has to be dug up. Production will go down too, as products will be made to last and instead of postponing the release of new technology to maximize profit, the newest technology can be released right away, thus saving millions of tonnes of raw material that other wise would have been used in the never ending new products. And lastly, technology that digs ore will be developed, minimizing the need for human personell way down in the mines.

To see how a resource based economy can work, we can divide it into 4 categories:

1. The human values has changed, or rather, has become acknowledged.

2. Technology has become more and more developed, removing the need for humans doing dangerous andrepetitivetasks.

3. As a result of RBE, society as a whole has changed drastically.

4. The notion of property and ownership has changed.

The most important first step for RBE to work is the human values. As we see, people are intrinsically motivated by other things than money, like a sense of purpose and meaning. It is only todays need for money that locks people into a mind prison thinking that money is what motivates them, when it really is not.

So this is about education and awakening. For RBE not to be a totalitarian, global, machine based government, which non of us want, people have to wake up one by one into the truth of their own motivation. We, as individuals have to train ourselves and each other into thinking of why we are here and what we really want to do, not in terms of money, but in terms of what we feel as our true purpose here on the planet.

I am training myself everyday to think this way. And the way I do it is to tell my self that every thing I do, I do of service to the planet and humanity, service to others, and service to my self. Service to my self in terms of what I want to do here on earth. And, I have already had theepiphanythat being of service to others can be extremely fulfilling for my self. Thus, doing what I do the very best way I can do it, is a fulfilling thing. And this has nothing to do with money. What is funny, though, is that since I started thinking like this, I have had more to do in my business than ever before, which of course brings in much more money than ever before as well.

Of course, we can say that money is a means of gratitude, a flow of appreciation, going from one person to another. I am not opposed to that way of thinking. Far from it. It is just that money and property and the whole management of the whole planet has been so thoroughly fucked up by the money logic, that trying to think of a world totally without money and property would do us all very good. It certainly does me good. And I realize that as soon as I start to think in terms of money, Iimmediatelyget that old stressful feeling again. It is me not thinking about money but at my purpose of being of service that brings the money in! Because when I think that I dont need money, I become relaxed, and the law of attraction works in my favor.

And then, my friends, what would be the logicalconsequenceof this? Well, if all of us started thinking of our purpose, rather than money, and doing things out of purpose rather than money.we wouldnt need any money! When our purpose is to be of service, to give and share, then everyone will always have enough of everything ever needed.And low and behold, we would actually live purpose- and meaningful lives. Every one of us. No need to stress for more money, paying bills, pay taxes, take up loans, do accounting, pay insurance, and what have you.

For a resource based economy to work, more and more people on the planet have to wake up to this reality. It is a human choice that we have to do as individuals. There are already a whole lot of volunteers around the world working for non-profit volunteer organizations. So the notion is not new. The question is whether it will spread to the rest of society as well. But that a whole world could work for free for each other should be totally possible. At least when enough (critical mass) people realize the benefits of doing this, rather than toiling with money and all that it entails.

When the new value system is in place, when enough people realize the above mentioned, both people who now are in normal jobs, but also those who are in politics and those who run large corporations, the abandonment of money will be a reality. Then, with the profit motive gone, technology can be developed without the hindrances that patents and greed used to be for unlimited development.

When we can concentrate on developing the best technology for everyone in every circumstance, and we can truly let technology replace 99% of todays jobs. Jobs that now are kept open, since replacing them with technology would bedevastatingfor the economy. Today, millions of people still work in factories doning work that easily could have been replaced by machines, robots and technology. There are already a whole lot of machines and technology in place, but again and again, I see people closing the lid on cardboard boxes and other meaninglessrepetitivetasks easily replaceable by technology.

And back to the ore digging metaphor. I am pretty sure that this field is also one where technology and machines could do much more work then it does today, replacing the need for human personell in mines. Besides, when we truly make products to last, and human values have changed, we wont consume as much, and we will be able to recycle 100% of all waste, maybe extracting enough of what raw materials we need, not needing to dig much more holes in the planet. In other words, technology teamed with the new human values, will make the need for constantly new stuff much much less, and thus the need to constantly dig up new resources.

And to me, being a part of a world where we all try to maximise human and environmental potential and protection, rather than profit, and where we work to develop technology to serve these ends is very interesting and fulfilling.

It would also be a true investment in humanity and the planet. An investment where we strive to take care of the environment,build up the soil, educate all humans and build asustainableworld. A world we all can truly enjoy for the rest of our lives and for all coming generations.

Now, with the human values and the new focus ontechnologyin place, society will change drastically. We all work to fulfill our purpose in life, for our own and others betterment, to master new skills, to share our knowledge and experience and to have exiting and meaningful work. In a society with no money or propertywe can all truly care about each other with no secret agenda.

All humans will be educated to serve other humans and the planet itself. The population will automaticallystabilize when everyone understands that every person can not have more then one child in his/her lifetime, meaning maximum twochildren per family. When this is followed we will have a one birth per one death, securing a stable population on the planet. And this is made by individual choice, not by force. By choice, because people now are educated to see the whole picture, and their own place in it.

What used to be companies and corporations will transform to be hubs of knowledge within their respective fields. There can still be employees, but they wont be there because they need to collect a pay check. They will be there because it is their field of interest and ofexpertise, because they want to be there. To participate and collaborate. People can still start businesses, but not for monetary gain, but to work together on new solutions to old or new problems, to create works of art, to draw new buildings, develop new transportation or new types of energy, new medicines or what have you.It will be a purpose driven world, rather than a profit driven one. It will be a world where human potential is maximized in all aspects.

So then, what would the ore miners do? Maybe some of them have been working in the mine for years and years and know nothing else. Maybe these would want to continue doing what they do, but maybe a little less. Maybe take a long vacation, or only work a couple of days a week. Maybe this leads to adeficiencyofColtan for a while, but so what? So what if we dont get the new iPhone 5 this fall. So what if we dont get the newest flat screen 52 inches LED powered Full HD TV this christmas. So what!?

The only thing in this world that needs this is the never satisfied, always craving, always consuming, never stopping Monetary System that needs cyclical consumption, planned obsolescence and endless waste to exist. But WE dont need that. We are not consumers, it is this system that has made people this way. It is this system that needs us to constantly consume and crave more and more and more, and no wonder, cause if we dont, the whole system will collaps. Just like that. If we stop buying our cell phones, our cars, our flat screens, our new jeans, ourjewelry, our what have you, there will be no more monetary system. So, thats why we need an alternative ASAP. And here we are, discussing RBE.

Back to the ore miners. Some other of the ore miners might have thought of smarter ways to do things, might have ideas to ease the process of getting up that ore. But, he cant tell anyone about it, because if he does, he might loose his job. Because his idea is for a machine that can DO his job. But now, in the new resource based economy, that is exactly what he can do. Of course, the mining company doesnt need to earn money any more either, so they might also relax a bit, digging that ore.

They have now become a part of a globalcooperationof former mining companies, working together in coordinating what is really needed of mined minerals in the world. And the former ore miner workers idea to a new machine that can replace the humans needed down in the mine is welcomed with open arms. He becomes a part of the new global mining cooperation, working together with researchers, scientists andenvironmentalistson how to provide what is now needed of new minerals in a most planet friendly way.

Some of the other miners also wants to be a part of this and becomes a part of the global team. Then again, other miners might grab the opportunity to do something completely different. One of them had always had an interest for sociology, but never go to study it. He goes of to university. The university that is now open for everyone. And the learning is now strongly aided by new technology, facilitating the possibility for many more people to learn than ever before. Another one had wanted to travel the world. Off she goes, being able to go anywhere she wants for as long as she wants. She learns a lot on her trip, and wants to study anthropology to understandindigenouspeople better, and how they can contribute to the world. A third one had several inventive ideas for improving and cleaning contaminated water. He quickly finds other people within these fields where his ideas becomes picked up, improved, tested and used in the real world, improving water everywhere it is needed.

All former patents are now made public, for everyone to study and contribute to. All secrets ever held by governments are let out in the open. All borders are opened and totally free travel by every one made possible. New efficient, environmentally friendly, energy independent and healthy transportation, housing and cities are built all over the planet. And everyone can live anywhere they want, according to their own interest and need. Everyone can contribute in the fields that interest them the most. Everyone can educate themselves in new fields at any time. The world has become 100% efficient in terms of human satisfaction and development. The question is, what do you want to do?. Not in terms of money, but in terms of what is needed on the planet at any time and what theindividualfeel is fulfilling to spend his or her days on.

There is a natural coordination in this. When a beach is full, one goes somewhere else. When a field is full, when an area is full, when there is no need, one finds something else to do, elsewhere. And there will always be needs that needs to be met. And we meet them in our full ability. If it is too much, we say so and get more help. We all collaborate in this world.

Humanity has discovered its true purpose here on earth. It turned out that it is not to compete for imaginary money and to hoard property, but to build a better world together, so that everyone can participate in true challenges and feel true and lasting joy.

Property and ownership have, as money, been around for thousands of years, and has been the key building blocks in the development of the capitalist socio-economic system. So, what about property and ownership in RBE? I feel the thoughts float towards communism and other not-so-nice isms here. Shall we have no ownership and own no property in RBE?

I will make a distinction here between personal property and public property.Personal property is your movable items that you own, also called movable property. Public property is what today is dedicated to the use of the public, owned collectively by the population or the state.Today, one person can own vast amounts of land and other property as their private property. More and more state property is now also becoming privately owned. This has been the constant struggle between the capitalists and the state for millennia. The state and the public wants to have property available for itscitizens, while the capitalists wants to secure as much property for themselves.

In RBE, some different models can be discussed. Obviously, no one person can own huge amount of land, like there is today. Still, if a family or a person wants and needs some land to have a family domain to live on and to grow their own food on, this could beaccommodated. Then who would accomodate this, one might ask. In Jacque Frescos RBE, there wouldnt be any state. Instead, there would be computerizeddecisionmaking, determining the fate of humanity. I can not see this working on a large, global scale. For sure, computers can, and does, make a lot of day to day decisions. And for sure, they can and willdefinitelybe extended to make more societal decisions than they do today. But, many decisions will still have to be up to us, the humans. And not to forget, WE are the ones who will be programming the computers, based on what we want out of them.

I foresee some kind of coordination, where coordinators and informators are assigned to different areas on the planet. The persons will not have any deciding power, but will coordinate and inform, together with data technology, what is decided on a particular place. They will be coordinating and informing the community, so to speak. But the community will have constant voting power in all relevant areas. Not like today, where someone are elected, and you have to stick with that person for the remainder of the period. I say relevant areas, because some things can not be voted upon, like the best angle for the pillar under the bridge that is to be built. These types of decisions are up to the specialized personell.

Computers and coordination aside, back to the land. The Venus Project proposes to build completely new cities that would be 100% self sufficient in terms of energy and food production, and very efficient in terms of transportation, energy use and waste management. This is something that would be a naturalextensionof RBE, when the majority of humans starts to think not in terms of money, but in terms of the betterment of people and the planet. So, new and more efficient cities is a natural way to use the land. At the same time, existing cities will be optimized as much as possible in terms of energy use, transportation and waste management. Buildings and parts of cities that are too difficult to optimize, will be recycled into new uses.

Today we have a lot of farming on the planet. Outside our existing cities there are hectare upon hectare of fields of all sorts, producing everything from maize to potatoes and rice to grapes. Today, all of the production of food is dependent on oil, both for transportation, but also for fertilizers and pesticides. An lot of todays food production is simply thrown away to uphold the food prizes on the global marked. Too much bananas? Then we throw some mega tonnes away, so that the rest can be sold for a good prize. Today, millions of tonnes of food is thrown away every day, because unsold food rot away in supermarkets waste containers. At the same time our earth and soil and water gets contaminated with all the artificial fertilizers andpesticidesused to grow the food.

I RBE, the new cities will be 100% self sufficient in terms of food production, utilizing both hydroponics, aquaponics and permaculture principles, providing clean, safe, nutritious and locally produced food all year round with absolutely no use of artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Very little food will go to waste in RBE, and we will thus need to produce much less of it, than today. So, some land around the cities will be used for food production for that respective city. And since there is no competition between food producers, the food production can be optimized to the true need of the population, minimizing wasteful production and transportation.

Of course, there will be a lot of room for individual choice in RBE, much more than today, where individual choice is determined by ones money amount. If one wants to live on an old type farm, on the country side, one can do this. This is not problem. There is still plenty of land on the planet, and people who wants to live in wooden old houses, redecorate themselves and grow their own food, can do that. If they wants to combine and use the latest technology on their land, they can do that too.

Just as today, we will in RBE have three major categories of land:

1. Cities

2. Country side

3. Wilderness

In difference from today, we will all have access to all of it. Of course, if someone is using it already, and that use is needed, then that part of the land is taken. Just like when you come to a beach, you dont put your towel on top on someone elses. No you put your towel somewhere else on the beach. And if the beach is full, you go somewhere else, or come back another day. And property will be used purposefully. If there is a factor there, producing clothing or something else, then that property is used for that, just like today, except that no one own the factory, but all of us. Someone has responsibility over it, but no one owns it.

In todays world, we see that in many cases, things work better if they are privately owned and sold to the public. At the same time, privately owned corporations can be responsible for a lot of pollution and misbehaving. In other cases, public services work better than private. It seems like it all boils down to the individuals behind it. A corporation can be (quite) environmentally conscious, treat its employers well, and work pretty well for all parties. Still, it is totally binded by the demand of the owners and employees to make profit and go well economically speaking. This, more often than not, ruins the businesses possibility to act in a responsible way when it comes to the environment and to its employees.

Then we come to todays public services. Some work well, some work terrible. At least, there isnt as pronounced profit motive here, as with the privately owned corporations, so more regards can be given to environment and human health. But again, public services are also dependent on money, and thus, are also somewhat a slave to the profit motive.

Privately or publicly owned. What is best? Again, it seems like it boils down to the persons and the intent behind it. It is the individual persons with their stronger or weaker intent that drives the results in this.

Non of us wants a resource based economy to be a new totalitarian dictatorial system. So, back to our first premise, human values and human awakening. It all boils down to this. We, as individuals have to wake up andconsciouslychoose this new direction. We have to consciously choose to share our property and give it up as our own. We have to understand the value in RBE against todays system, and choose based on what works best.

Property is a mindset. As written in another article, we dont really own anything. Ownership is an illusion. We think we own things, we believe we own stuff, but really, we dont. At best, we can say that this is in my possession as long as I need it and use it. This is the only ownership we will ever have overanything. You have a pair of jeans. You might have bought them in a store, you might have gotten them as a gift, or you might have picked them up for free in a used clothes container or sharing market. In any case, you are in possession of them right now. You might lend them to a friend, you might give them away tomorrow, they might be ripped apart by your dog, you might loose them on a trip, or you might throw them away. In any case, when were they yours? Were yours when they were made at the factory? Are they still yours after you have given them away?

No, the notion of ownership and property is only a construction to make the capitalistic society work.Ownership and property has been tools to create the economy and the system we have today, the monetary capitalistic system. There is no real ownership in nature. There is only temporary use and respect for each other. As long as we respect each other, our personal space, then we will have no problems. You can keep a pair of pants for as long as you will, but they are never truly yours. You can walk in the forest, and as you walk on the path, you are using the path, but it is never your property.

So, how will property and ownership work in a resource based economy? It will work like it works in nature. You will own your creations, but not in a way that prevents others to use them and continue to develop them. You will own your pants, but only as long as you need and want them. You will own everything you need as long as you need it.In other words, all land will be public, but you can grow your own vegetables on a plot of land and take care of that as your own as long as you would like that. But you cant claim vast amounts of land as your own if you or your family doesnt need it. You will own your personal property for as long as you want and need it, and the rest will be public property.

In other words, all land will be public, but one can get designated areas to have for instance a family domain or to grow you own vegetables. In general, we will work together to use land and grow food in the most sustainable ways, with or without machinery.

Housing will also be common and open to anyone. Meaning that if you want to live one place for a longer period, you can do that for as long as you want. But if you want to move, you can do that too. And you dont need to bring all the furniture with you, since that will exist on the new place. To travel and visit other countries and cultures will also be much easier in a resource based economy.

In genreal, the distinction is between ownership and accessibility. It should be pretty clear by now, that when no one owns anything, but have access to everything, we all will have much much more access to all the things we today have limited or no access to. At the same time, a lot less would have to be produced of the same things.

Take cars, for instance. Today we have a vast amount of cars on the planet, and more are produced every single day. Still, most of them stands still for 90% of the time, not being in use. So, we have parking lots brim full of unused cars, because we all have to own one. When we instead ownnothing, but have access toeverything, we wouldnt need one tenth of the cars we have today. When we instead share cars, we can all have access to a lot more cars than when we all have to own one car each. We will even have access to cars we never dreamed of driving before.

When we share everyone gets more. Both of land, cars, travel possibilities, boats, clothing, furniture, technology and what have you. Our choices becomes virtuallyunlimitedin RBE vs. in todaysownershipsystem.

For example, Google (one of the new knowledge hubs in RBE) have developed technology for cars so that they can drive themselves (See video here).With this kind of technology, there wouldnt be any problem with sharing cars. One could have a car pool, where one could simply order a car, and the car would show up on your frontporch. You wouldnt even have to drive it if you didnt want to. You could get in, and relax with a good book, check out the scenery, or take a nap, while the car safely drives you to all the way to your destination.

Of course, this is only the beginning. Eventually, cars will also be electric, non-polluting, and maybe even fly!

In summing up, a resource based economy is hard to imagine from our existing mindset and what we are used to. It sounds to good to be possible. But why not? This might be the only solution we have if we want to survive as a species. Maybe we simply have to make it work.

Personally, I think RBE is more than possible. I think it is viable and a real solution for humanity. We are already half way there, with all the voluntarism that exists in the world.

The future is limitless. But only if we let go of the hoarding and self centeredness and look at what isreally possible when we abandon money an focus together on our common future.

Maybe we can look at a resource based economy as the worldtoday, only without money and property, the hopeless financial crisises, wars andbackwardsthinking, but with an emphasis on sharing, experimenting, exploring, collaborating and celebrating.

With a common effort, focussing on values and technology, we can do it. Why not?

Related

Read the rest here:

Will a Resource Based Economy Work? | THE RESOURCE BASED ...

Adopting circular-economy principles could not only benefit Europe environmentally and socially but could also generate a net economic benefit of 1.8 trillion by 2030.

Europes economy has generated unprecedented wealth over the past century. Part of the success is attributable to continuous improvements in resource productivitya trend that has started to reduce Europes resource exposure. At the same time, resource productivity remains hugely underexploited as a source of wealth, competitiveness, and renewal. Our new study, Growth within: A circular economy vision for a competitive Europe, provides new evidence that a circular economy, enabled by the technology revolution, would allow Europe to grow resource productivity by up to 3 percent annually. This would generate a primary-resource benefit of as much as 0.6 trillion per year by 2030 to Europes economies. In addition, it would generate 1.2 trillion in nonresource and externality benefits, bringing the annual total benefits to around 1.8 trillion compared with today.

This would translate into a GDP increase of as much as seven percentage points relative to the current development scenario, with an additional positive impact on employment. Looking at the systems for three human needs (mobility, food, and the built environment), our study concludes that rapid technology adoption is necessary but not sufficient to capture the circular opportunity. Instead, circular principles must guide the transition differently from those that govern todays economy. Pursued consistently, the economic promise is significant and the circular economy could qualify as the next major European political-economy project.

Europes economy remains very resource dependent. Views differ on how to address this against an economic backdrop of low and jobless growth as well as the struggle to reinvigorate competitiveness and absorb massive technological change.

Proponents of a circular economy argue that it offers Europe a major opportunity to increase resource productivity, decrease resource dependence and waste, and increase employment and growth. They maintain that a circular system would improve competitiveness and unleash innovation, and they see abundant circular opportunities that are inherently profitable but remain uncaptured.

Others argue that European companies are already capturing most of the economically attractive opportunities to recycle, remanufacture, and reuse. They maintain that reaching higher levels of circularity would involve an economic cost that Europe cannot afford when companies are already struggling with high resource prices. They further point out the high economic and political cost of the transition.

We looked at the issues to provide a fact base for decision makers contemplating the transition to a more circular economy. The insights of our report rest on extensive desk research, more than 150 interviews, economic modeling, the largest comparative study to date of the employment effects of a circular-economy transition, and deep analysis of three human needs that together account for 60 percent of European household spend and 80 percent of resource usemobility, food, and housing. The research and analysis yielded nine major conclusions.

In 2012, the average European used 16 metric tons of materials. Sixty percent of discarded materials were either put in a landfill or incinerated, while only 40 percent were recycled or reused. In value terms, Europe lost 95 percent of the material and energy value, while material recycling and waste-based energy recovery captured only 5 percent of the original raw-material value. Even recycling success stories like steel, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and paper lose 30 to 75 percent of the material value in the first-use cycle. On average, Europe uses materials only once.

The sector analysis also found significant waste in sectors that many would consider mature and optimized. For example, the average European car remains parked 92 percent of the time, 31 percent of food is wasted along the value chain, and the average European office is used only 35 to 50 percent of the time, even during working hours. And use cycles are short. The average manufactured asset lasts only nine years (excluding buildings).

In total, this way of producing and using products and resources costs Europe 7.2 trillion every year for the three sectors analyzed at depth in this report (mobility, food, and the built environment). Out of this total, actual resource costs are 1.8 trillion; other related cash costs, which include all other household and government expenditures on the three sectors, are 3.4 trillion; and externalities, such as traffic congestion, carbon, pollution, and noise, are 2.0 trillion (exhibit).

Exhibit

In the next decades, the digital and broader technology revolution could have the same disruptive impact on elements of the three sectors we studied as it has already had on many information sectors. The average cost per car-kilometer could drop as much as 75 percent, thanks to car-sharing schemes, autonomous and driverless driving, electric vehicles, and better materials. In food, precision agriculture could improve input efficiency of water and fertilizers by at least 20 to 30 percent, and combined with no-tillage farming, it could reduce machinery and input costs by as much as 75 percent. In buildings, industrial and modular processes could lower construction costs by 50 percent compared with on-site traditional construction. Passive houses could reduce energy consumption by 90 percent.

If these new technologies and business models are so promising, shouldnt Europe just let this development run its course? Probably not, for two reasons. First, the public sector and policy makers strongly influence these sectors todayfor example, through infrastructure investments, public transport, zoning laws, building standards, and agricultural subsidies. If technology deeply changed these sectors, current public interventions might not optimally steer future outcomes at a system level. Europe faces a real risk that urban planning, mobility systems, and food systems wouldnt be able to integrate the new technologies effectively, with much structural waste remaining.

Second, rebound effects will be significant. Resource-productivity increases in the sectors in our study have historically met an elastic demand response. When relative prices decrease, consumers use more individualized transport, floor space, and food. This volume effect for the three study sectors could be 5 to 20 percent by 2030, which would increase prosperity, but, if not managed well, could exacerbate externalities and resource challenges.

With these drawbacks, the study finds, the current development path could decrease the total cost in the three sectors by 0.9 trillion annually by 2030 versus todayor a reduction of 12 percent, from 7.2 trillion to 6.3 trillion.

When well integrated, the new technologies and business models could address much of the structural waste in mobility, food, and buildings and create new consumer choices. Increasing utilization and longevity would have significant economic upside and would go far toward avoiding negative system effects.

The report calls this notion growth within because it focuses on getting much more value from the existing stock of products and materials. Growth within could be an important source of additional consumer utility and growth for Europe. This circular economy would provide multiple value-creation mechanisms decoupled from the consumption of finite resources. The concept rests on three principles: preserve and enhance natural capital, optimize yields from resources in use, and foster system effectiveness (minimize negative externalities).

Pursuing this opportunity in an ambitious way would represent a big shift in Europes economic priorities. Today, Europe has no established metrics for the utilization of key infrastructure and products, for their longevity, or for success in preserving material and ecosystem value. Articles, policy seminars, statements, and targets for these topics are rare, compared with the pervasive focus on improving flows, as measured by GDP.

This report includes indicative benefit curves to suggest how much various circular-economy levers could reduce European resource use and what the economic effects could be. While the results of such modeling are indicative, rely on multiple assumptions, and call for more research, pursuing opportunities that are already profitable or will likely be profitable within the next five years could reduce annual net European resource spend in 2030 as much as 32 percent, or 0.6 trillion versus today.

These resource benefits also come with a significant economic multiplier effect. Benefits in other related cash costs could be as much as 0.7 trillion. Externality costs could decrease as much as 0.5 trillion. This makes the total annual benefit 1.8 trillion by 2030, twice the benefit of the current development path. The current total costs of 7.2 trillion would be decreased to 5.4 trillion.

The modeling also suggests that benefits would continue to grow rapidly as we approach 2050. Regenerating, sharing, optimizing, looping, virtualizing, and exchanging for new and better technologies seems especially powerful.

The modeling for 2030 suggests that the disposable income of European households could be as much as 11 percentage points higher in the circular scenario relative to the current development path, or 7 percentage points more in GDP terms.

The increased GDP results arise from increasing consumption and from correcting market and regulatory lock-ins that prevent many inherently profitable circular opportunities from materializing fully. The results are higher than those reported from most other recent studies on the economic impacts of a circular and resource-efficient economy. For instance, the recent report Study on modelling of the economic and environmental impacts of raw material consumption, conducted by Cambridge Econometrics and BIO Intelligence Service, concluded on a slightly positive GDP impact. The main reason for the difference is that the report assumes a substantially higher pace of technology change in the big product and resource sectors going forward compared with what has been observed in the pastor with the reasons explained abovewhereas most other reports assume a similar pace as witnessed historically.

This project included the largest academic metastudy to date on the relationship between employment and the circular economy. The review of 65 academic studies indicates that, while more research is needed, existing studies point to the positive employment effects occurring in the case that a circular economy is implemented. This impact on employment is largely attributable to increased spending fueled by the lower prices expected across sectors and to the labor intensity of recycling activities and higher-skilled jobs in remanufacturing. But not all would benefit from the economy-wide impact of the circular model on growth and employment. Some companies, sectors, and employment segments are likely to not act quickly enough and would lose out. If European leaders decided to shift toward a more circular economy, managing the transition would have to be a top priority.

A circular economy would decouple economic growth from resource use. Across the three study sectors, carbon emissions would drop as much as 48 percent by 2030 (31 percent on the current development path) and 83 percent by 2050 (61 percent on the current development path), compared with 2012 levels. Electric, shared, and autonomous vehicles, food-waste reduction, regenerative and healthy food chains, passive houses, urban planning, and renewable energy would be the principal sources of emission reduction across the three sectors.

Today, materials and components constitute 40 to 60 percent of the total cost base of manufacturing firms in Europe and often create a competitive cost disadvantage. Europe imports 60 percent of its fossil fuels and metal resources, and the EU has listed 20 materials as critical with respect to security of supply. In the circular scenario, primary-material consumption measured by car and construction materials, synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, agricultural water and land use, fuels and nonrenewable electricity, and land for real estate could drop as much as 32 percent by 2030 and 53 percent by 2050.

The transition would involve considerable costs, such as R&D and asset investments, stranded investments, subsidy payments to promote market penetration of new products, and public expenditure for digital infrastructure. While it is hard to find an appropriate cost comparable for such an economy-wide project, some examples could shed light on parts of the needed transition. For example, the British government has estimated that creating a fully efficient reuse and recycling system would cost around 14 billion, which would translate into 108 billion scaled to a Europe-wide level. The renewables transition in Germany cost 123 billion in feed-in tariffs to renewable plant operators from 2000 to 2013. It remains to be assessed to what extent these costs are additional relative to other development scenarios and to what extent they could act as a stimulus. For instance, the European Commissions agenda for establishing a digital single market and an energy union could create the core infrastructure for a regenerative and virtualized system.

Shifting to the circular model could contribute significantly to achieving Europes growth, employment, and environmental objectives, as shown above. It also offers an opportunity for renewal, with many previously underleveraged opportunities coming into focus. This means Europe could simplify governance and achieve structural reform. In its most ambitious form, making the transition to a circular economy could even become the second major European political economy project, after creating the internal market.

Shifting to the new model starts with acknowledging the systemic nature of the change. All sectors and policy domains will be affected, and aligned action is required. Such a shared agenda could contain four building blocks:

Essential enabling technologies are maturing and scaling fast. Investments in transitioning to a circular economy could deliver a stimulus to the European economy. Europe is in the midst of a pervasive shift in consumer behavior. Business leaders are implementing product-to-service strategies and innovative business models. At least for now, resource prices are easing, paving the way for correcting market and regulatory distortions.

Building a circular economy would require a large and complex effort to address the hurdles and transition costs associated with all of the major opportunities. The effort would require action at the local, national, regional, and global level. The extensive analysis conducted for this report remains indicative and requires further work, but it does suggest that a circular economy could produce significant societal, economic, and environmental outcomes, while acknowledging the transition cost.

Download the full report on which this article is based, Growth within: A circular economy vision for a competitive Europe (PDF2.5MB).

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Europes circular-economy opportunity | McKinsey & Company

An economy (from Greek "household" and o "manage") is an area of the production, distribution, or trade[1], and consumption of goods and services by different agents. Understood in its broadest sense, 'The economy is defined as a social domain that emphasizes the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the production, use, and management of resources'.[2] Economic agents can be individuals, businesses, organizations, or governments. Economic transactions occur when two parties agree to the value or price of the transacted good or service, commonly expressed in a certain currency. Monetary transactions only account for a small part of the economic domain.

Economic activity is spurred by production which uses natural resources, labor, and capital. It has changed over time due to technology (automation, accelerator of process, reduction of cost functions), innovation (new products, services, processes, new markets, expands markets, diversification of markets, niche markets, increases revenue functions) such as, that which produces intellectual property and changes in industrial relations (for example, child labor being replaced in some parts of the world with universal access to education).

A given economy is the result of a set of processes that involves its culture, values, education, technological evolution, history, social organization, political structure and legal systems, as well as its geography, natural resource endowment, and ecology, as main factors. These factors give context, content, and set the conditions and parameters in which an economy functions. In other words, the economic domain is a social domain of human practices and transactions. It does not stand alone.

A market-based economy is where goods and services are produced and exchanged according to demand and supply between participants (economic agents) by barter or a medium of exchange with a credit or debit value accepted within the network, such as a unit of currency.

A command-based economy is where political agents directly control what is produced and how it is sold and distributed.

A green economy is low-carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive. In a green economy, growth in income and employment are driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.[3]

Today the range of fields of the study examining the economy revolve around the social science of economics, but may include sociology (economic sociology), history (economic history), anthropology (economic anthropology), and geography (economic geography). Practical fields directly related to the human activities involving production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services as a whole, are engineering, management, business administration, applied science, and finance.

All professions, occupations, economic agents or economic activities, contribute to the economy. Consumption, saving, and investment are variable components in the economy that determine macroeconomic equilibrium. There are three main sectors of economic activity: primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Due to the growing importance of the economical sector in modern times,[4] the term real economy is used by analysts[5][6] as well as politicians[7] to denote the part of the economy that is concerned with the actual production of goods and services,[8] as ostensibly contrasted with the paper economy, or the financial side of the economy,[9] which is concerned with buying and selling on the financial markets. Alternate and long-standing terminology distinguishes measures of an economy expressed in real values (adjusted for inflation), such as real GDP, or in nominal values (unadjusted for inflation).[10]

The English words "economy" and "economics" can be traced back to the Greek word (i.e. "household management"), a composite word derived from ("house;household;home") and ("manage; distribute;to deal out;dispense") by way of ("household management").

The first recorded sense of the word "economy" is in the phrase "the management of conomic affairs", found in a work possibly composed in a monastery in 1440. "Economy" is later recorded in more general senses, including "thrift" and "administration".

The most frequently used current sense, denoting "the economic system of a country or an area", seems not to have developed until the 19th or 20th century.[11]

As long as someone has been making, supplying and distributing goods or services, there has been some sort of economy; economies grew larger as societies grew and became more complex. Sumer developed a large-scale economy based on commodity money, while the Babylonians and their neighboring city states later developed the earliest system of economics as we think of, in terms of rules/laws on debt, legal contracts and law codes relating to business practices, and private property.[12]

The Babylonians and their city state neighbors developed forms of economics comparable to currently used civil society (law) concepts.[13] They developed the first known codified legal and administrative systems, complete with courts, jails, and government records.

The ancient economy was mainly based on subsistence farming. The Shekel referred to an ancient unit of weight and currency. The first usage of the term came from Mesopotamia circa 3000 BC., and referred to a specific mass of barley which related other values in a metric such as silver, bronze, copper etc. A barley/shekel was originally both a unit of currency and a unit of weight, just as the British Pound was originally a unit denominating a one-pound mass of silver.

For most people, the exchange of goods occurred through social relationships. There were also traders who bartered in the marketplaces. In Ancient Greece, where the present English word 'economy' originated, many people were bond slaves of the freeholders. The economic discussion was driven by scarcity.

In Medieval times, what we now call economy was not far from the subsistence level. Most exchange occurred within social groups. On top of this, the great conquerors raised venture capital (from ventura, ital.; risk) to finance their captures. The capital should be refunded by the goods they would bring up in the New World. Merchants such as Jakob Fugger (14591525) and Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici (13601428) founded the first banks.[citation needed] The discoveries of Marco Polo (12541324), Christopher Columbus (14511506) and Vasco da Gama (14691524) led to a first global economy. The first enterprises were trading establishments. In 1513, the first stock exchange was founded in Antwerpen. Economy at the time meant primarily trade.

The European captures became branches of the European states, the so-called colonies. The rising nation-states Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain and the Netherlands tried to control the trade through custom duties and (from mercator, lat.: merchant) was a first approach to intermediate between private wealth and public interest. The secularization in Europe allowed states to use the immense property of the church for the development of towns. The influence of the nobles decreased. The first Secretaries of State for economy started their work. Bankers like Amschel Mayer Rothschild (17731855) started to finance national projects such as wars and infrastructure. Economy from then on meant national economy as a topic for the economic activities of the citizens of a state.

The first economist in the true modern meaning of the word was the Scotsman Adam Smith (17231790) who was inspired partly by the ideas of physiocracy, a reaction to mercantilism and also later Economics student, Adam Mari.[14] He defined the elements of a national economy: products are offered at a natural price generated by the use of competition - supply and demand - and the division of labor. He maintained that the basic motive for free trade is human self-interest. The so-called self-interest hypothesis became the anthropological basis for economics. Thomas Malthus (17661834) transferred the idea of supply and demand to the problem of overpopulation.

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions starting in the United Kingdom, then subsequently spreading throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human history; almost every aspect of daily life was eventually influenced in some way. In Europe wild capitalism started to replace the system of mercantilism (today: protectionism) and led to economic growth. The period today is called industrial revolution because the system of Production, production and division of labor enabled the mass production of goods.

The contemporary concept of "the economy" wasn't popularly known until the American Great Depression in the 1930s.[15]

After the chaos of two World Wars and the devastating Great Depression, policymakers searched for new ways of controlling the course of the economy. This was explored and discussed by Friedrich August von Hayek (18991992) and Milton Friedman (19122006) who pleaded for a global free trade and are supposed to be the fathers of the so-called neoliberalism. However, the prevailing view was that held by John Maynard Keynes (18831946), who argued for a stronger control of the markets by the state. The theory that the state can alleviate economic problems and instigate economic growth through state manipulation of aggregate demand is called Keynesianism in his honor. In the late 1950s, the economic growth in America and Europeoften called Wirtschaftswunder (ger: economic miracle) brought up a new form of economy: mass consumption economy. In 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith (19082006) was the first to speak of an affluent society. In most of the countries the economic system is called a social market economy.

With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the transition of the countries of the Eastern Block towards democratic government and market economies, the idea of the post-industrial society is brought into importance as its role is to mark together the significance that the service sector receives at the place of the industrialization, as well the first usage of this term, some relate it to Daniel Bell's 1973 book, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, while other - to social philosopher Ivan Illich's book, Tools for Conviviality. The term is also applied in philosophy to designate the fading of postmodernism in the late 90s and especially in the beginning of the 21st century.

With the spread of Internet as a mass media and communication medium especially after 2000-2001, the idea for the Internet and information economy is given place because of the growing importance of ecommerce and electronic businesses, also the term for a global information society as understanding of a new type of "all-connected" society is created. In the late 00s, the new type of economies and economic expansions of countries like China, Brazil, and India bring attention and interest to different from the usually dominating Western type economies and economic models.

The economy may be considered as having developed through the following Phases or Degrees of Precedence.

In modern economies, these phase precedences are somewhat differently expressed by the three-sector theory.[citation needed]

Other sectors of the developed community include:

There are a number of ways to measure economic activity of a nation. These methods of measuring economic activity include:

The GDP - Gross domestic product of a country is a measure of the size of its economy. The most conventional economic analysis of a country relies heavily on economic indicators like the GDP and GDP per capita. While often useful, GDP only includes economic activity for which money is exchanged.

An informal economy is economic activity that is neither taxed nor monitored by a government, contrasted with a formal economy. The informal economy is thus not included in that government's gross national product (GNP). Although the informal economy is often associated with developing countries, all economic systems contain an informal economy in some proportion.

Informal economic activity is a dynamic process which includes many aspects of economic and social theory including exchange, regulation, and enforcement. By its nature, it is necessarily difficult to observe, study, define, and measure. No single source readily or authoritatively defines informal economy as a unit of study.

The terms "under the table" and "off the books" typically refer to this type of economy. The term black market refers to a specific subset of the informal economy. The term "informal sector" was used in many earlier studies, and has been mostly replaced in more recent studies which use the newer term.

The informal sector makes up a significant portion of the economies in developing countries but it is often stigmatized as troublesome and unmanageable. However the informal sector provides critical economic opportunities for the poor and has been expanding rapidly since the 1960s. As such, integrating the informal economy into the formal sector is an important policy challenge.

Economic research is conducted in fields as different as Economics, Economic sociology, Economic anthropology, or Economic history.

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Economy - Wikipedia

A resource-based economy would make it possible to use technology to overcome scarce resources by applying renewable sources of energy, computerizing and automating manufacturing and inventory, designing safe energy-efficient cities and advanced transportation systems, providing universal health care and more relevant education, and most of all by generating a new incentive system based on human and environmental concern.

Many people believe that there is too much technology in the world today, and that technology is the major cause of our environmental pollution. This is not the case. It is the abuse and misuse of technology that should be our major concern. In a more humane civilization, instead of machines displacing people they would shorten the workday, increase the availability of goods and services, and lengthen vacation time. If we utilize new technology to raise the standard of living for all people, then the infusion of machine technology would no longer be a threat.

A resource-based world economy would also involve all-out efforts to develop new, clean, and renewable sources of energy: geothermal; controlled fusion; solar; photovoltaic; wind, wave and tidal power; and even fuel from the oceans. We would eventually be able to have energy in unlimited quantity that could propel civilization for thousands of years. A resource-based economy must also be committed to the redesign of our cities, transportation systems, and industrial plants, allowing them to be energy efficient, clean and conveniently serve the needs of all people.

What else would a resource-based economy mean? Technology intelligently and efficiently applied, conserves energy, reduces waste, and provides more leisure time. With automated inventory on a global scale, we can maintain a balance between production and distribution. Only nutritious and healthy food would be available and planned obsolescence would be unnecessary and non-existent in a resource-based economy. As we outgrow the need for professions based on the monetary system, for instance lawyers, bankers, insurance agents, marketing and advertising personnel, salespersons, and stockbrokers, a considerable amount of waste will be eliminated. Considerable amounts of energy would also be saved by eliminating the duplication of competitive products such as tools, eating utensils, pots, pans and vacuum cleaners. Choice is good. But instead of hundreds of different manufacturing plants and all the paperwork and personnel required to turn out similar products, only a few of the highest quality would be needed to serve the entire population. Our only shortage is the lack of creative thought and intelligence in ourselves and our elected leaders to solve these problems. The most valuable, untapped resource today is human ingenuity. With the elimination of debt, the fear of losing ones job will no longer be a threat. This assurance, combined with education on how to relate to one another in a much more meaningful way, could considerably reduce both mental and physical stress and leave us free to explore and develop our abilities.

If the thought of eliminating money troubles you, consider this: if a group of people with gold, diamonds and money were stranded on an island that had no resources such as food, clean air, and water, their wealth would be irrelevant to their survival. It is only when resources are scarce that money can be used to control their distribution. One could not, for example, sell the air we breathe or water abundantly flowing down from a mountain stream. Although air and water are valuable, in abundance they cannot be sold. Money is only important in a society when certain resources for survival must be rationed and the people accept money as an exchange medium for the scarce resources. Money is a social convention, an agreement if you will. It is neither a natural resource, nor does it represent one. It is not necessary for survival unless we have been conditioned to accept it as such.

Are we ready to start up a resource based economy?

Can we convince everyone to start a resource based economy?

We believe that a resource based economy can be an amazing change for humanity, but can we convince everyone that we can have a society without the want to become rich or motivated?

We guess as with other systems we talk about its not for everyone. You have to be a highly aware human in order to live in a resource based economy as it is created for you to be your very best and to live a life of full human expression.

A resource based economy sees what is best for humanity and takes that direction. It is very opposite to todays system where corporate interest and profit chooses the road that humanity takes together.

Will a resource based economy have to be implemented with force? NO!! You have to start in the small and what we believe is that every idea has to elevate people its way. So lets start a resourced based economy and then let those who want to live in it do so! A real revolution gives people options, that is why we propose as many solutions as possible as people are different and should be able to choose their destiny without socially engineering them towards your solution!

Learn more

To learn more go to this website!

Do you like the resource based economy? Well its time to meet and connect with others that love this great economic concept: http://thevenusproject.com/ and http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/

Learn more on the Venus project YouTube Channel:

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Resource Based Economy | The Economic Truth

ASTANA Kazakhstan launched 258 projects worth 1.7 trillion tenge (US$5.1 billion) in the first two years of its second five-year industrialisation plan. The plan is meant to diversify the countrys economy and boost domestic production.

Photo credit: primeminister.kz

Kazakhstans First Vice Minister of Investments and Development Alik Aidarbayev reported on the countrys progress in its State Industrial and Innovative Development Programme for 2015-2019 during an Aug. 22 press conference.

In line with the industrialisation road map, we continue launching new ventures, creating and preserving jobs. We unveiled 258 projects worth 1.7 trillion tenge (US$5.1 billion) since the beginning of the second five-year plan in 2015. We created 21,000 jobs. Since the beginning of this year, 32 projects worth 489 billion tenge (US$1.47 billion) were commissioned, providing jobs to 3,900 people. Over the industrialisation years, [since 2010] 1,060 projects amounting to 5.1 trillion tenge (US$15.33 billion) were launched creating 100,000 jobs, said Aidarbayev.

One of the key goals of the programme, according to the vice minister, is the diversification of the predominantly resource-based Kazakh economy and the subsequent increase of the processing industrys share in the domestic market.

Our economy needs diversification and this programme has been working for several years now. The results are evident and every year we are witnessing the growth of the processing industry. It constitutes 12 percent of the current [gross domestic product] and 30 percent in the economy in general, added Aidarbayev.

A rapidly growing sector in the domestic economy, the processing industry also serves as a main driver of industrial growth, according to Aidarbayev.

Within seven months of 2017 the real growth in the processing industry was 6.3 percent, while production grew 5.3 percent. The volume of exports totalled $6.2 billion, which is 27.8 percent more than in the same period last year. This is due to the favourable conditions in international markets and expansion in new foreign markets. The amount of investments in the processing industry is estimated at 411 billion tenge (US$1.24 billion) in the first half of 2017, which shows a 2.7 percent increase compared to the same period last year, noted the vice minister.

The industrialisation programme allowed the country to produce 500 different commodities previously not produced domestically, including passenger and freight cars, electric locomotives, x-ray equipment and pharmaceutical products.

One hundred projects worth more than one trillion tenge (US$3 billion) are to be implemented by the end of this year.

Read the rest here:

More than 250 projects worth $5.1 billion launched in first two years of industrialisation plan - Astana Times

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is working to ensure that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector increases its 12.6 per cent contributions to the nations Gross Dometic Product (GDP) this year.

NITDA, through its Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIIE), is already grooming some technology startups that would aid the countrys match towards the enthronement of a knowledge economy.

According to the Director-General, NITDA, Dr. Isa Pantami, at the weekend, in Lagos, NITDA is unleashing digital economy potential to deepen GDP contribution by making ICT play a key role in all aspects of the economy.Pantami said NITDA is organising the StartUP Nigeria programme, the sixth edition, where a number of startups pitched their ideas and IT solutions to angel investors.

The tech Startups that pitched included Acounteer, TheFarmyard, BeatDrone, Six, Nicademia, Livekampus, Comestibles Nigeria, Novael, TapPay, SwiftCheckup and Middleman.com.ng, which is an ecommerce platform connecting buyers and sellers while providing other auxiliary services.

Pantami said, ICT is not only indispensable for developing new products and services but also for ensuring the survival of any business in the competitive world by providing ample opportunities for growth and profitability.

According to him, the Nigerian startup ecosystem, with proper regulations and support, has capacity to become the strong catalytic force for sustainable economic growth across nations.He said that NITDA has since commenced processes for proper regulation and development, crucial for supporting the startup and entrepreneurs ecosystem in the country.

The NITDAs interwoven roles are relevant for the country to achieve its purpose of creative transformation of knowledge and ideas into new products, processes, or services meeting market needs, which culminates in successful enterprises, Pantami said.

He stated that the competitiveness of any economy in the long term depends on innovation potential of the economy gained through entrepreneurship and effective technology transfer, especially now that revenue from the oil and gas industry is on downward trend.Pantami warned that Nigeria cannot remain an oil and gas-based resource based economy, as every projections show other countries are making a turn away from oil.

The NITDA DG said, StartUPNigeria held in Lagos is a prelude to GITEX 2017, as NITDA tends to select the best startups to represent the country. This is critical in helping even the regulatory aspects of the IT sector. We identify with startups that need our technical, financial supports to push their solutions forward.

We believe Lagos is home to innovative startups; thus, we intend to assist them improve on their works. The truth is this: our country relies solely on oil and gas sector; in UK for instance by 2040 they intend to ban diesel or petrol cars, so our reliance on oil is disturbing.

We have to move from oil resource to knowledge-based economy. ICT has the answer to this. The contribution of 12.6 per cent of ICT to GDP is second to oil at the moment, but will soon takeover. India depends on ICT as $143 billion annual comes from ICT; Nigeria accounts for 180 million with 60 per cent young people who are addicted to ICT.

The DG explained that the winners from StartUp Nigeria programme, being held across the country, would later represent Nigeria at this years Gulf Technology Exhibition (GITEX) in Dubai to pitch their innovative ideas to global investment community.

Earlier, Acting National Coordinator of OIIE, Dr. Amina Sambo Magaji, thanked the exemplary leadership of the NITDA DG and the management for giving OIIE platform to meet with startups and solve needs in the ecosystem.

She said that OIIEs vision to drive ICT innovation and entrepreneurship through policies, initiatives, partnership and programs implementation by focusing on socio- economic impact, competitiveness, and sustainable & inclusive growth, was carefully crafted to ensure the startups are impacted positively.

She said the Office is not relenting on its focus, amongst others, on innovation and entrepreneurship by fostering a more innovative digital economy through turning new ideas and inventions into products and technologies that spur job growth and competitiveness while promoting economic development.

21 Jul Telecoms

4 Aug Technology

8 Aug Technology

16 Aug Telecoms

17 Aug Telecoms

2 days ago Telecoms

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NITDA targets increase in ICT contribution to GDP - Guardian (blog)

I started my professional career in the federal government, in the U.S. EPA. I was proud of our work in Washington and proud of our country. In the years since, I always thought our national government was capable of doing better, but mostly considered its dysfunction to be the result of conflicting interests and the role of money in politics and the media. I looked elsewhere for progress and found it everywhere. Then came President Trump: For most of the past seven months Ive found the federal government disheartening and threatening, but unsurprising. Last week all of that was replaced with shame. I was deeply ashamed of the behavior of Donald Trump as he made excuses for the racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and sexist fiends marching in Virginia. It was the worst behavior I have ever seen from an American president. The president is our head of state and our head of government. He is both king and prime minister. As the head of state, his job is to represent the American people and their values. Last week he failed in performing that function; he abdicated his position as head of state.

What do the rest of us do in the face of this onslaught? He is the duly elected president, and although how long he remains in office is difficult to predict, his legitimacy as president is real. Last week we saw a little bit of what we do. Corporate leaders ran away from his advisory councils and even Republican elected leaders took him on. There will be more of this to come because Donald Trumps greatest talent is calling attention to himself. He will do whatever it takes to get noticed and most of us cannot help but watch what he is doing. However, I am coming to the conclusion that our energies would be better spent elsewhere. The federal government is too important to ignore, and so we need to continue to stay engaged, but a higher proportion of our effort should be devoted to our communities, businesses, institutions, cities and states.

The school year will soon begin and millions of American children will return to classrooms. Teachers will engage with students, coaches will inspire kids, and parents will cheer from the sidelines. Our hospitals will heal the sick with technology that continues to progress, smartphones will provide us with even more distractions than they do today, and new technology will help move us toward a renewable resource-based economy. In my home city, teenagers will help a mom carry her babys stroller up the subway stairs, someone will carry groceries to an apartment for an elderly neighbor, and people will see something and say something. We will try to keep each other safe and secure in a world that really is better than the media wants us to believe.

It also means that we need to stop waiting for the federal government to come to our rescue and fund the aging infrastructure that is crumbling in our communities. We will need to generate our own revenues to maintain subways, build bridges and tunnels, repave roads, build water and waste systems, modernize our electric grid, and expand air and seaports. This will require taxes, user fees, and public-private partnerships. Investing in the future means that we defer some gratification today so our children can benefit in the future. Extreme income inequality will not be addressed by the federal tax code and so whatever adjustments can be made will take place by the market and by state and local actions.

The absence of a federal government will make it more difficult for poorer states to invest in the future, unless they can develop a strategy that attracts capital and wealth from the outside. Here in New York City, we have the wealth needed to invest, but are suffering from political posturing and preening by our mayor and governor. Our need for a well-maintained subway system is now being held hostage to their national political ambitions. But despite their dispute, New Yorkers have the ability to generate the funds we need and our attention should be focused on crafting a deal that allows our mass transit system to be maintained and expanded.

While racists may march with torches in Virginia, we see the new multi-racial, multi-national America taking shape on our sidewalks, in our school yards, in social gatherings, and in all of our public spaces. Despite the efforts to turn back the clock to an imaginary America, our demography and mass social change have made this entire nation the gorgeous mosaic that my colleague Professor David Dinkins called New York City a quarter century ago. Most people have friends from different parts of the world and of different races and ethnic backgrounds. Most of our family stories are immigration stories. All four of my grandparents were immigrants. The global economy and world wide web have led to increased global travel and immigration. As a nation that still has a history of welcoming immigrants, America has become more diverse over the past half century. According to DVera Cohn and Andrea Caumont of the Pew Research Center:

Americans are more racially and ethnically diverse than in the past, and the U.S. is projected to be even more diverse in the coming decades. By 2055, the U.S. will not have a single racial or ethnic majority. Much of this change has been (and will be) driven by immigration. Nearly 59 million immigrants have arrived in the U.S. in the past 50 years, mostly from Latin America and Asia. Today, a near-record 14% of the countrys population is foreign born compared with just 5% in 1965. Over the next five decades, the majority of U.S. population growth is projected to be linked to new Asian and Hispanic immigration. American attitudes about immigration and diversity are supportive of these changes for the most part. More Americans say immigrants strengthen the country than say they burden it, and most say the U.S.s increasing ethnic diversity makes it a better place to live.

The demonstrators in Virginia were seeking to resist this emerging reality and prevent this change from occurring, but most Americans and most communities embrace diversity. Immigration presents challenges, but American communities have always been built by people from different places coming together, finding common values and sharing the ideas, beliefs, food and customs they brought from their former home. Mayor Dinkins image of the gorgeous mosaic is appropriate here. Close up, each tile in the mosaic is distinct and identifiable, but when you step back and see how the tiles fit together you see a beautiful picture that has its own grace and logic. That is the American community that most of us see every day. It may not be visible from the penthouse of Trump Tower or the ballroom of Mar-a-Lago, but it is both the American dream and, for the most part, the American reality.

The recent effort to focus immigration on highly skilled workers misses the point. Yes, we want scientists and engineers from other nations. But we also want ambition, drive, daring and leadership. My grandfather, Ben Cohen, was a baker and a carpenter. He was not well-educated. But all five of his children turned out to be successful professionals. Wed like more Albert Einsteins but we need more Ben Cohens. In the coming decades, this nation can maintain its dynamism, as it has in the past, by being the last best hope of humanity. By being a gathering place for those yearning to be free. That was not the spirit of those carrying torches and chanting disgusting slogans, but it is the American spirit at its best. Despite the chaos that has enveloped the White House, we can take comfort in the day-to-day functioning of our American communities.

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Resisting White House Chaos By Building Community - HuffPost

Nobody has officially declared that they're running for the leadership of the B.C. Liberal party.

But privately, party members are telling me that four MLAs and one MP are preparing campaigns to replace Christy Clark, who stepped down earlier this month.

There's no obvious frontrunner, which will make this contest more fun to watch from the sidelines.And there's no indication yet that the interim leader, Rich Coleman, or the former finance minister, Mike de Jong, are going to seek the top job.

Here are the possible contenders in alphabetical order, along with their strengths and weaknesses:

The former education minister is best known in Vancouver for firing the local school board and for trying to force the district to sell the Kingsgate Mall. It's not going to serve him well in B.C.'s largest city, but it might win him some support in other areas of the province.

First elected in 2013, Bernier was previously a two-term mayor of Dawson Creek and a one-term city councillor. According to his biography, he worked for 20 years in the natural gas industry.

Strengths: A folksy public speaker, Bernier would be popular in the 250 area code of mainland B.C. where there's a large number of party members. He might come across to them as the most likable leadership candidate.

Weaknesses: The B.C. Liberal government's record of funding education was pretty dismal in comparison to other provinces. Bernier's government was also blown out of the Supreme Court of Canada for its approach to negotiating with teachers.As a former education minister, he will have to wear this if he leads his party into a general election.

Plus, he's a huge supporter of the natural gas industry just as forest-fire-weary voters are becoming increasingly conscious about climate change. Many won't buy claims anymore that natural gas is a bridge to a cleaner future, particularly if Andrew Weaver remains leader of the B.C. Greens.

The Straight was the first to mention in print the possibility of the former corporate lawyer and rookie MLA becoming the next B.C. Liberal leader. A long-time party member, Lee worked for former justice minister and prime minister Kim Campbell many years ago.

Lee is the antithesis of Clark with his low-key demeanour. He's served on a bunch of nonprofit boards and chaired Peter Ladner's first campaign for Vancouver city council. This makes him remarkably well-connected.

Strengths: He will appeal to centrist B.C. Liberals hoping for the party to perform better in Metro Vancouver. Lee is also not stained by the B.C. Liberal record and he would probably hold his own discussing various public policies during leadership debates.

Weaknesses: Lee doesn't set the house on fire with his speeches. Party members might feel he's too boring to defeat a happy warrior like Premier John Horgan.

Plus, his inexperience as an elected politician might lead the media to treat his candidacy less seriously than the others. And one of his biggest problems is that most party members live outside of the Lower Mainland.

The former high-tech executive was appointed transportation and infrastructure minister immediately after being elected as an MLA.And transportation policies in the Lower Mainland led directly to the downfall of the B.C. Liberal government.

But Stone still represents a new generation. He's from a mid-size B.C. city that's making a transition from a resource-based economy to one more reliant on other goods and services. Given the number of party members residing outside of the Lower Mainland, he'll probably be among the frontrunners.

Strengths:Stone was born in 1972, which means he'll likely be the youngest candidate in the race. He could be the preferred candidate of libertarian young tech workers, which are growing in number. He's also articulate and he'll look the best on TV, which counts for a lot in politics these days.

Weaknesses:Stone was the frontman on the George Massey Tunnel Replacement Project, the plebiscite defeating much-needed transit and transportation improvements, and even the politically suicidal move to bring ride-sharing to the Lower Mainland by the end of this year.

While these policies might have all made sense to a guy who regularly drives the Coquihalla and is comfortable programming his smartphone, they alienated local mayors. Ride-sharing also ticks off South Asian voters in constituencies that swing back and forth between the NDP and B.C. Liberals. This record as transportation minister raises questions whether he has sufficient political intuition to become premier.

Watts is the former mayor of Surrey and likely has the highest name recognition of any of the potential candidates listed here. Since sidling up to Stephen Harper and becoming a Conservative MP, she's fallen off the radar somewhat.

Her tenure as mayor was marked by massive public investments to turn Surrey City Centre into the region's second major downtown. So far, the results have been mixed, though the growth of the SFU campus, the creation of a new KPU campus and new library, and the promotion of a high-tech zone called Innovation Boulevard will probably pay decent dividends over the long term.

Watts has a certain magnetism when she enters a room full of supporters. But it's an open question whether she has sufficient public-policy depth or an understanding of the nuances of the province to defeat a politician as intelligent as Horgan. Watts's campaign flyer about terrorism during the last federal election campaign might make some B.C. Liberals question her intellect.

Strengths: Watts will have a fully formed political machine geared up from day one of the campaign. She'll be seen as a new face on the provincial scene. And she may be able to mobilize the politically influential South Asian community to come on-side with her because she wasn't associated with the disastrous ride-sharing idea promoted so eagerly by Stone and former cabinet minister Peter Fassbender.

Weaknesses: Watts is a federal Conservative, which will alienate federal Liberals within the party, of which there are many. She's not going to win over former B.C. Liberal voters who switched allegiance to the B.C. Greens because of Clark's environmental record. And she's not likely to help the party make a breakthrough on Vancouver Island, where the B.C. Liberals were nearly shut out this year.

The former minister of advanced education managed to avoid controversy even as the former finance minister, de Jong, was treating postsecondary institutions and students with a great deal of disdain. Wilkinson is a former corporate litigator with a medical degree, which makes him far more educated than his former party leader.

But will his upper-crust, downtown Vancouver sensibility be political poison in the 250 area code?

Strengths: If Wilkinson can keep his chippy side in check, he can be a strong debater. As leader, he has potential to raise lots of money. And he's not tied to the federal Conservatives, unlike Watts. He's also brighter than some of the others named above.

Weaknesses:It's hard to see how Wilkinson, a Rhodes scholar, is going to appeal to blue-collar workers, who've become a key part of the B.C. Liberal base under Clark's leadership. We've had boring premiers before and one of them, Bill Bennett, won three terms in office.

But in this modern age of social media and 24-hour news cycles, it's hard to imagine someone with Wilkinson's charisma deficit ever igniting passion among the masses. Plus, he hurt himself with environmentally inclined free enterprisers by thrashing the City of Vancouver's efforts to make the city 100 percent reliant on renewable energy by 2050. It's not smart if you want to appeal to younger urban voters.

Link:

5 candidates to watch in the as-yet undeclared BC Liberal leadership race - Straight.com

What is The Venus Project?

The Venus Project is an organization that proposes a feasible plan of action for social change, one that works towards a peaceful and sustainable global civilization. It outlines an alternative []

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Visit Roxanne Meadows live at the Research Center in Florida.

Participate in a Seminar lecture and go on a tour around the research center.

Get together with Roxanne and get all your questions about The Venus Project and a Resource Based Economy answered.

There are many ways to help The Venus Project. First and foremost is to become aware of this new direction and learn about it as much as you can.

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The Venus Project

I started my professional career in the federal government, in the U.S. EPA. I was proud of our work in Washington and proud of our country. In the years since, I always thought our national government was capable of doing better, but mostly considered its dysfunction to be the result of conflicting interests and the role of money in politics and the media. I looked elsewhere for progress and found it everywhere. Then came President Trump: For most of the past seven months Ive found the federal government disheartening and threatening, but unsurprising. Last week all of that was replaced with shame. I was deeply ashamed of the behavior of Donald Trump as he made excuses for the racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and sexist fiends marching in Virginia. It was the worst behavior I have ever seen from an American president. The president is our head of state and our head of government. He is both king and prime minister. As the head of state, his job is to represent the American people and their values. Last week he failed in performing that function; he abdicated his position as head of state.

What do the rest of us do in the face of this onslaught? He is the duly elected president, and although how long he remains in office is difficult to predict, his legitimacy as president is real. Last week we saw a little bit of what we do. Corporate leaders ran away from his advisory councils and even Republican elected leaders took him on. There will be more of this to come because Donald Trumps greatest talent is calling attention to himself. He will do whatever it takes to get noticed and most of us cannot help but watch what he is doing. However, I am coming to the conclusion that our energies would be better spent elsewhere. The federal government is too important to ignore, and so we need to continue to stay engaged, but a higher proportion of our effort should be devoted to our communities, businesses, institutions, cities and states.

The school year will soon begin and millions of American children will return to classrooms. Teachers will engage with students, coaches will inspire kids, and parents will cheer from the sidelines. Our hospitals will heal the sick with technology that continues to progress, smartphones will provide us with even more distractions than they do today, and new technology will help move us toward a renewable resource-based economy. In my home city, teenagers will help a mom carry her babys stroller up the subway stairs, someone will carry groceries to an apartment for an elderly neighbor, and people will see something and say something. We will try to keep each other safe and secure in a world that really is better than the media wants us to believe.

It also means that we need to stop waiting for the federal government to come to our rescue and fund the aging infrastructure that is crumbling in our communities. We will need to generate our own revenues to maintain subways, build bridges and tunnels, repave roads, build water and waste systems, modernize our electric grid, and expand air and seaports. This will require taxes, user fees, and public-private partnerships. Investing in the future means that we defer some gratification today so our children can benefit in the future. Extreme income inequality will not be addressed by the federal tax code and so whatever adjustments can be made will take place by the market and by state and local actions.

The absence of a federal government will make it more difficult for poorer states to invest in the future, unless they can develop a strategy that attracts capital and wealth from the outside. Here in New York City, we have the wealth needed to invest, but are suffering from political posturing and preening by our mayor and governor. Our need for a well-maintained subway system is now being held hostage to their national political ambitions. But despite their dispute, New Yorkers have the ability to generate the funds we need and our attention should be focused on crafting a deal that allows our mass transit system to be maintained and expanded.

While racists may march with torches in Virginia, we see the new multi-racial, multi-national America taking shape on our sidewalks, in our school yards, in social gatherings, and in all of our public spaces. Despite the efforts to turn back the clock to an imaginary America, our demography and mass social change have made this entire nation the gorgeous mosaic that my colleague Professor David Dinkins called New York City a quarter century ago. Most people have friends from different parts of the world and of different races and ethnic backgrounds. Most of our family stories are immigration stories. All four of my grandparents were immigrants. The global economy and world wide web have led to increased global travel and immigration. As a nation that still has a history of welcoming immigrants, America has become more diverse over the past half century. According to DVera Cohn and Andrea Caumont of the Pew Research Center:

Americans are more racially and ethnically diverse than in the past, and the U.S. is projected to be even more diverse in the coming decades. By 2055, the U.S. will not have a single racial or ethnic majority. Much of this change has been (and will be) driven by immigration. Nearly 59 million immigrants have arrived in the U.S. in the past 50 years, mostly from Latin America and Asia. Today, a near-record 14% of the countrys population is foreign born compared with just 5% in 1965. Over the next five decades, the majority of U.S. population growth is projected to be linked to new Asian and Hispanic immigration. American attitudes about immigration and diversity are supportive of these changes for the most part. More Americans say immigrants strengthen the country than say they burden it, and most say the U.S.s increasing ethnic diversity makes it a better place to live.

The demonstrators in Virginia were seeking to resist this emerging reality and prevent this change from occurring, but most Americans and most communities embrace diversity. Immigration presents challenges, but American communities have always been built by people from different places coming together, finding common values and sharing the ideas, beliefs, food and customs they brought from their former home. Mayor Dinkins image of the gorgeous mosaic is appropriate here. Close up, each tile in the mosaic is distinct and identifiable, but when you step back and see how the tiles fit together you see a beautiful picture that has its own grace and logic. That is the American community that most of us see every day. It may not be visible from the penthouse of Trump Tower or the ballroom of Mar-a-Lago, but it is both the American dream and, for the most part, the American reality.

The recent effort to focus immigration on highly skilled workers misses the point. Yes, we want scientists and engineers from other nations. But we also want ambition, drive, daring and leadership. My grandfather, Ben Cohen, was a baker and a carpenter. He was not well-educated. But all five of his children turned out to be successful professionals. Wed like more Albert Einsteins but we need more Ben Cohens. In the coming decades, this nation can maintain its dynamism, as it has in the past, by being the last best hope of humanity. By being a gathering place for those yearning to be free. That was not the spirit of those carrying torches and chanting disgusting slogans, but it is the American spirit at its best. Despite the chaos that has enveloped the White House, we can take comfort in the day-to-day functioning of our American communities.

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Resisting White House Chaos By Building Community | HuffPost - HuffPost

Nyarai Kampilipili and Kizito SikukaCorrespondents The event had nothing to do with the annual Womens Month that is celebrated here in South Africa every August to remember the sacrifices and contribution of women to the struggle for social equality.

Rather, the sight of Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and Dr Stergomena Lawrence Tax addressing the media ahead of the 37th SADC Summit in South Africa was a clear affirmation that women continue to make a positive contribution towards deepening regional integration and sustainable development in southern Africa.

Nkoana-Mashabane is the incoming chairperson of the SADC Council of Ministers, while Dr Tax is the Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

In fact, Dr Tax is the first woman to assume the top post at the SADC Secretariat, and since her appointment at a summit in August 2013 in Lilongwe, Malawi has exhibited that performance is key and not gender in holding key decision-making positions.

Based in Gaborone, Botswana, the SADC Secretariat is the principal executive institution of SADC, responsible for strategic planning, facilitation and coordination and management of all SADC programmes, activities and projects. The SADC Council of Ministers oversees the functioning and development of SADC by ensuring that regional policies are properly implemented.

In this regard, both Nkoana-Mashabane, who is the South African International Relations and Cooperation Minister and Dr Tax carry the responsibility of making sure the benefits of belonging to a shared community in southern Africa continue to be enjoyed and impact on the lives of SADC citizens.

During her one-year tenure as Council of Ministers chair, Nkoana-Mashabane is expected to provide guidance to the SADC Secretariat on the implementation of regional programmes, while Dr Tax will ensure that the decisions of the 37th SADC Summit are implemented over the next 12 months.

This will include making sure that the momentum built since 2014 in terms of the implementation of the industrialisation agenda is maintained as part of regional efforts to transform from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based one that is able to add value to its own natural resources and compete strongly on global markets.

SADC has over the years made significant progress towards promoting gender equality and equity in the region.

In fact, gender equality is firmly rooted in the Declaration and Treaty that established the shared community of SADC, and member states fully realise that equality and empowerment of both women and men is crucial for the attainment of sustainable development.

This is clearly reflected in the constitutions of most SADC countries that provide for the creation of legal frameworks that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender and other differences.

Some countries have also legislated affirmative action and quota systems that guarantee the participation and representation of women in political and other decision-making positions.

According to the SADC Gender and Development Monitor 2016, four member states are among the top 20 countries in the world with the highest number of women in parliament and other key decision-making positions.

These are Seychelles, South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique, followed closely by Angola, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

In the education sector, gender gaps in literacy levels continue to close, with Botswana, Lesotho, Seychelles and Swaziland having higher literacy rates for women compared to men.

The Revised SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, which was approved at the 36th SADC Summit held in the Kingdom of Swaziland in August 2016, aims to align the protocol with provisions of other instruments such as those relating to the Sustainable Development Goals, Agenda 2063, and the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap.

The revised protocol provides for the empowerment of women, elimination of discrimination and attainment of gender equality and equity through enactment of gender-responsive legislation and implementation of policies, programmes and projects.

The 37th SADC Heads of State and Government Summit is scheduled for 19-20 August, and will deliberate on a wide range of issues, including exploring ways of harnessing the potential of the private sector to contribute to the industrialisation agenda and sustainable economic development in the region.

The theme for the summit is Partnering with the private sector in developing industry and regional value-chains.

At the summit, South African President Jacob Zuma will assume the rotating SADC chair from King Mswati III of Swaziland.

Prior to the SADC Summit, there will be a Double Troika meeting on August 18 to discuss the general political situation in the region. sardc.net

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Women drive Sadc integration agenda - The Herald

Mark Ansermino, left, and Guy Dumont were working on a device in 2005 to aid people monitoring patients during surgery. Ward Perrin / Vancouver Sun

A deceptively simple device invented at the University of B.C. is saving lives in the worlds most impoverished places.

Called the Phone Oximeter, it clips onto a persons fingertip and is connected by wire to a smartphones audio port. By measuring blood-oxygen levels and heart and breathing rates with unprecedented simplicity, portability and affordability, its enabling easier diagnosis of illness in Mozambique, Pakistan and Uganda.

How it came to be at UBC reveals the magic of universities.

Fifteen years ago, electrical engineer Guy Dumont, an expert in creating intelligent automated systems, met Mark Ansermino, an anesthesiologist who wanted to improve measurement of vital signs during surgery. From that first encounter between two complementary faculty members, a string of inventions followed.

The Phone Oximeters genesis at a university was no accident. UBC, like so many of its peer institutions, attracts experts in diverse fields. Brought together into a larger community, they sometimes share ideas and wind up doing things they could never achieve or even dream of achieving on their own.

But when that lightning does strike, its often by accident or the result of occasional get-togethers. If only we could make such interactions a regular feature on our campuses, imagine the ingenuity that would spring forth.

Now we are now doing just that, with UBCs latest creation: a school of biomedical engineering.

This new cluster of faculty and students, a joint venture of the faculties of medicine and applied science, will break down antiquated academic boundaries. We want to replicate many times over the genius of the Phone Oximeter applying an engineering mindset to disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

That could mean medical devices like the Phone Oximeter. But it also means extending engineering into realms that most people have a hard time grasping: the splicing of genes, the rearrangement of proteins and the cultivation of stem cells, which can be coaxed into repairing or even replacing damaged tissues or organs.

This is a squishier world than many engineers are used to. But its governed by the same physical principles that all engineering students must master. And its just as yielding to their quantitative approach and creative design skills, which offer new solutions to societys major health challenges, including cancer, neurological disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

UBC is the first university in Western Canada to recognize the importance of this burgeoning field with a school of its own. And we are doing it at a propitious time, as B.C. diversifies its resource-based economy by cultivating a vibrant tech sector, and as the province joins the University of Washington in creating the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative, emulating the success of such regional tech hubs as Silicon Valley, North Carolinas Research Triangle and Bostons Route 128 Corridor.

To fulfil even part of that tech-based vision, higher education must position itself several steps ahead by preparing students to readily enter that economy from the moment they graduate, and to play leading roles in both established companies and new ventures. Playing catch-up isnt an option we need to cultivate the talent now or risk having that vision wither for lack of local talent.

The Phone Oximeter, invented at the University of B.C., clips onto a persons fingertip and is connected by wire to a smartphones audio port. By measuring blood-oxygen levels and heart and breathing rates with unprecedented simplicity, portability and affordability, its enabling easier diagnosis of illness in Mozambique, Pakistan and Uganda. Handout / PNG

Clearly, there is a demand for such training. The faculty of applied science started offering masters degrees and doctorates in biomedical engineering a mere seven years ago, and applications have increased steadily to almost 200 in 2016.

The new school will provide those students expected to number about 90 this year with a distinct, high-profile home, signalling to future students our commitment to be a leader in this field. In the years ahead we hope to extend the talent pipeline even further by offering bachelors degrees in biomedical engineering as well.

That higher profile will also help attract the most promising or sought-after biomedical engineering faculty. In fact, it already has: Peter Zandstra, most recently of the University of Toronto, has joined UBC to become the schools first director.

Zandstra wont need much help finding his way around he spent five years at UBC earning his doctorate in biotechnology and chemical engineering. But we recruited him for his ingenuity in growing stem cells, his mathematical modelling to predict how stem cells behave and how they can be controlled, and his success in generating human tissue for drug testing or treatment. On top of all that, he has proven leadership skills, honed from his experience steering large academic research groups and startup companies.

Joining him in the months and years ahead will be seven other new faculty members, along with 20 current faculty members jointly appointed from their current departments, including electrical engineer Tim Salcudean, who has proudly ignored the obsolete divisions that once separated him from his medical colleagues.

Salcudean is advancing two innovations that have already transformed patient care: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound. He is making those technologies more revealing by bringing digital analysis to images that are now mostly eyeballed. He is also making them more useful by superimposing MRI and ultrasound images onto magnified images of a surgical field, so surgeons can see underneath the tissue on which theyre operating, and thus spot patches of cancer that would normally be hidden.

These arent an academics theoretical musings. Thanks to UBCs partnerships with the provinces health system, Salcudean has been able to team up with UBC urologist Peter Black to successfully test ultrasound and MRI image-guided techniques on 27 patients with prostate cancer. Based on those results, there are plans for more.

We cant simply leave those kinds of advances to the random happenstance of the occasional symposium or accidental meeting. The stakes in terms of lives saved or quality of life are too high.

Our new school of biomedical engineering will bring health scientists, clinicians and engineers together on a daily basis and provide them with the space and the tools to collaborate. Just as important, it will bring graduate students and medical students into that collaboration to learn from it, emulate it and, we hope, take it in directions that we havent yet imagined.

Dermot Kelleher is dean of the faculty of medicine and James Olson is interim dean of the faculty of applied science at the University of B.C.

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Link:

Opinion: UBC erases boundaries between engineering and health - Vancouver Sun

Transcript

PAUL FLANAGAN: Arguably for too long PNG has placed too much emphasis on getting the resource part of its economy going well. So focussing on large LNG projects, or copper and gold projects. But that really hasn't delivered improvements in well being for the vast majority of people in PNG. An alternative approach is to take a more people focussed development line which would try and build on its extraordinary cultural diversity, the strength of its ecosystems, and use that as a path to tap into the incredible potential of its people to have a different development to what PNG has faced previously.

DON WISEMAN: Why is it that there has been so little return from oil, gas and minerals?

PL: A long term feature of countries that go down a path of resource dependence is the somewhat well known Resource Curse. And the Resource Curse comes through in a few different ways. In some ways it is the focus in development towards those big projects rather than those that are more inclusive. It comes through because there is more opportunity for corruption and graft that can come through those big projects. But a more hidden and sinister one is that it tends to lead to overvalued exchange rates. It pushes up the exchange rate which means it's good for people importing in urban areas but it means a large part of the economy that could be otherwise exporting things that might be tapping into more local, cultural traditions. You know local PNG fashions and things like that - they're priced out of the international market just because that country is exporting some much LNG and gold and other produce. So dealing with the exchange rate is going to be a very credible and one of the simplest tools one can take to try and improve development outcomes.

DW: You've talked about how the effect of this focus on developing mineral resources and oil and gas, has been the creation of dual economies in a sense.

PL: Very much dual economies and it tends to be there is not much linkage between the traditional economy and the resource-based economy. Now PNG could have a really strong agricultural sector, one would think, in terms of exporting things such as coffee and cocoa to much greater levels. But they face price competition and the incentives for people who front up to sell coffee at the local factory, they don't actually get that much kina for each US dollar, once again because of this overvalued exchange rate that can sort of really hinder development. What can really build up the linkages between those parts of the economy is if the tax regime is taking enough tax out of the resource sector and distributing that back into the local economy through improved infrastructure or through improved health and education outcomes. We know PNG is actually taxing its resource sector quite lightly, relative to that faced by most other countries. So once again that is an area that can be looked at. But that will take probably 5-10 years to put into effect because of binding agreements already with existing projects.

DW: So in the current circumstances, the economy is a grim state, how do you get the exchange rate down?

PL: In some ways that can be a straight decision from the Bank of Papua New Guinea, just in the same way as when it appreciated the currency by nearly 20 percent back in June 2014, it could decide overnight to depreciate the currency once again by 20 percent. One has to be careful with that because there would be potentially imported inflationary impacts and one needs to ensure that staples such as rice and that don't jump through the roof immediately. And there can be some action taken to try and bring those price increases through time. Any of these sort of adjustments are difficult in terms of their impacts but in terms of putting them into place, fixing up the exchange rate is much, much easier than trying to do something such as Budget repair, which would involve other difficult things. Such as looking at tax increases on consumers or wage earners. Bringing more targets as to where you cut expenditure, more options there, but once again some pretty difficult choices because of some capacity and other limits that PNG faces. So it is always a world of hard choices given how far PNG has gone down this slippery economic slopes, but there are mechanisms to pick things up again and one of the best and easiest of those is improving the exchange rate, making it more competitive, allowing PNG to really enter into the Asia-Pacific century.

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PNG encouraged to end dependence on gas, oil and gold - Radio New Zealand

BEIJING Sometimes, when considering the orgy of spending that is Chinas start-up scene, its fun to imagine the pitch meetings.

Its like Uber, but for beds.

Bed sharing?

I know it sounds funny but

Take my cash.

That exact exchange did not happen. But it may not be far off. Chinese authorities recently shuttered a service that let people pay to sleep in windowless pods. There were questions about hygiene, according to local reports.

Perhaps there should be more questions. Flush with cash and buoyed by a billion-dollar boom in bike sharing, Chinas venture capitalists have gone sharing mad, funding companies that allow users to share items including washing machines, basketballs and umbrellas.

In some ways, the enthusiasm makes sense. Chinas vibrant but tightly regulated tech sector has been booming, with sharing leading the way. Chinese ride-hailing (and -sharing) giant Didi bought out Uber China. Airbnb is fighting Chinese rivals to win a piece of the home-share market.

The countrys top leaders know they must shift from manufacturing and resource extraction to a service-based economy powered, in part, by the Web.

To help things along, the state has thrown money into the start-up scene and nurtured homegrown tech companies, in part by keeping others out. (Sorry, Google.) It has also used its vast propaganda apparatus to cheerlead for local start-ups, waxing poetic about umbrella sharing, for example.

In April, a commentary in the Peoples Daily, a Communist Party-controlled newspaper, calleda Chinese umbrella sharing start-up a sign of progress in public service and a show of human care, releasing the warmth of the city. The company later made headlines when nearly all of its 300,000 umbrellas went missing.

At a 2016 tech conference, Robin Li, chief executive of the search engine Baidu, suggestedthat the sharing economy is in tune with Chinas socialist ethos. Both, he said, focus on distribution according to need.

The new, government-run Sharing Economy Research Centerestimates that the sector grew 103 percent in 2016, with deals close to $500 billion. The researchers predicted an annual growth rate of 40 percent in the years ahead. By 2020, the sharing economy will account for 10 percent of the countrys gross domestic product, the center said.

And yet, nobody seems sure what sharing economy means.

Gao Shen, a partner at Phoenix Tree Capital Partners, said there are two things going on.

Companies such as Didi and Tujia, a Chinese house-sharing firm, took existing resources cars, homes and made them available to others for a fee. Many of the new, self-described sharing start-ups do not useidle resources, he said.

If a company orders a bunch of new bikes or umbrellas and lets people rent them with their phone, is that sharing? Or is it renting with your phone?

A Chinese government newswire recently covered the launch of a shared washing machine service. Theres also a shared drying service. Anywhere else, they would be called laundromats. Or, perhaps, laundromats where you pay with your phone.

Along the same lines, is a phone-activated, two-person karaoke booth in a mall a karaoke share, or just a smaller and louder version of the status quo, plus phone?

Whats more, not everyone seems to understand the meaning of rent.

Like the umbrella company, Chinese bike-sharing start-ups have struggled to keep up with theft and vandalism, with one company, Wukong, reportedly losing 90 percent of its bikes in about six months.

In some cases, companies are launching products that seem like less convenient versions of things that already exist a fact that does not seem to stop the funding.

Andy Xie, an independent economist in Shanghai, said the rush of investment feels a lot like a bubble. In the past four, five years, every year there is something different to speculate on, he said.

Beijing, a city with free workout machines in public parks, now has shared gyms, a.k.a, outhouse-size workout pods activated by your phone. Investors are betting that people will pay for the chance to sweat and jiggle in a small glass box on the street.

A recent Peoples Daily write-up described the opening of the worlds first shared bookstore. Again, you can imagine the pitch.

Shared bookstore? ... That sounds a lot like a library.

Better, its a library where you pay with

Sold.

Yang Liu and Shirley Feng reported from Beijing.

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Why Didi Chuxing is buying Uber in China

A Chinese umbrella-sharing start-up just lost nearly all of its 300,000 umbrellas

Apple, Amazon help China curb the use of anti-censorship tools

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By Gabriel Agbeja Abuja The Federal Government says it will intensify effort in promoting competitiveness in raw materials and products development in the country.

Dr Ogbonnaya Onu , the Minister of Science and Technology made this known during a world news conference on Thursday in Abuja.

Onu said that the idea was to confront and defeat challenges posed by growing shifts in global production and trade patterns.

He said that the effort would aid the nation to conserve its scarce foreign exchange and stimulate global competitiveness that would be derived from a resilient domestic capacity in a diversified economy for the good of all.

It is also noteworthy that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the new policy guidelines for planning and execution of programmes, projects and contracts with science, engineering and technology components.

This will help our nation develop necessary local capacity needed for us as a people to look inwards to seek solutions to our numerous problems, he said.

According to him, the guidelines are designed to drastically reduce capital flight, promote local capacity, strengthen local manpower development, encourage indigenous technology capacity, enhance national self -reliance and restore national pride.

Related Story: Expert Urges FG to Unlock Oil, Gas Potential

Onu said that FEC had also approved new Road Map for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) as new key for Nigerias future sustainable development.

He said that the implementation of the road map would help the economy adjust to the path of sustainable growth to quicken the pace of recovery in short term and accelerate sustainable growth in the medium and long terms.

We are convinced that the new road map will help Nigeria deepen the processes of effectively deploying STI as the engine of growth in a diversified economy.

This will help our great nation move in a new difficult but ultimately rewarding direction that will help us make a major shift from a resource based to a knowledge based, innovation driven economy. (NAN)

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FG ready to deepen effort in promoting competitiveness in raw materials - SundiataPost (press release) (blog)

By Amadu Kamil Sanah, GNA

Accra, Aug. 16, GNA - Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister of Communications, said Government was keen on establishing a digital economy which would improve efficiency of government business.

She said the Ministry of Communications was currently implementing a number of projects under the e-Transform initiative namely e-Immigration, e-Parliament, e-Procurement, Tertiary Institutions Connectivity Programme and e-Justice to achieve that goal.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful who said at the inauguration of the Board of Directors of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) in Accra, urged the Board to be proactive and efficient in its operations to ensure success in their endeavour.

The Board, which is chaired by Dr Mohammed-Sani Abdulai, include, Mr Jeffrey Konadu Addo, NITA Acting Director-General, Mr Gerard Nana Kwakwa Osei-Tutu, Dr Gezer Osei Yeboah-Boateng and Mr Emmanuel Mensah-Bonsu.

Other members are Mr Albert Antwi-Boasiako, Ms Ama Daaku, Mr Kwasi Agyei Tabi, and Mr. Ernest Andam Brown.

Section 9(1)(a) of the NITA Act, Act 771, 2008, enjoins members of the Board to submit to the Agency a written declaration that includes details of their shareholdings, debentures or other interests in a company whether directly or indirectly owned, public or charitable appointments as well as directorships held by the member.

The Act also enjoins members to inform the Agency of any change in respect of that members shareholdings, debentures or other interests in the company whether directly or indirectly owned by the member, and not knowingly make a false declaration.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said the successful implementation of the e-Transform initiative depended on the efficient management of NITAs infrastructure and call on Board and management to work to ensure high service level attainments.

She said the Ministry of Communication have set a target to enforce the usage of Government Domain name across all Government Agencies and Department for the transaction of official business and NITA is expected to facilitate the achievement of the target.

The Communications Minister said to be able achieve all these targets, NITA needed to operationalise its regulatory mandate which has not been done since the law was passed in 2008.

She said Governments intended to scale up the use of technology at all levels to facilitate the implementation of an Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-led socio-economic agenda for which reason, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo has constituted the Board to deliver on this mandate guided by the principles in the NITA Act of 2008 (Act 771 and Act 778).

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful said the President, in constituting this Board, considered the diverse expertise and experience of members and have no doubt that members would implement innovative strategies to resolve the challenges of the Agency and transform it into an effective organization capable of leading the implementation of the Digital Ghana Agenda.

She said Government has made significant investment in building an extensive ICT infrastructure that has been placed in the care of NITA and expected that this will be managed efficiently and profitably.

The Public Services Commission has approved the administrative structure and scheme of Service to enable NITA engage qualified professionals into the Agency. I entreat the Board to support the management in its effort to build the requisite capacity for the agency.

In view of the urgency of attracting and retaining requisite skilled manpower to manage government IT assets, I urge the Board to reengage the Public Service Commission to improve upon the conditions of service of your staff, she said.

The Minister said, her outfit have informed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies to seek NITAs input before acquiring any IT solution, application, platform or device to ensure the interoperability of the government IT architecture to end the culture of working in silos.

She urged the board to expedite work to ensure effective discharge of its mandate by Setting the standards for all IT applications, systems, devices procured by MMDAS, Enhance your regulatory functions as soon as possible by passing and implementing the requisite LIs and Establish Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) to ensure secure online transactions, enhance delivery of online services and enhance e-government implementation, mindful of the ongoing work in this regard.

They are also to Establish an effective customer complaints unit to address complaints from the public and MDAs on the quality of its service, develop an effective marketing strategy for use of the National Data Centre as a secure and safe infrastructure for data storage, Manage Governments broadband infrastructure effectively to provide efficient services to its client and Recover subscription fees and charges for the supply of Bandwidth to MDAs.

Dr Abdulai assured the Minister of the Boards commitment to re-position NITA by building its human resource based to promote the government digital economy agenda.

He said the Board recognised the importance of ICT in a growing economy and that the responsibility of building a quality service delivery would be achieved through revisiting NITAs business strategy and leverage the Community Information Centres to become learning centres of its various locations.

NITA was set up under the National Information Technology Act (Act 771) of 2008 and mandated to regulate the deployment of ICT, Promote standards in technology applications and ensure high quality of technology service among government agencies at the national, regional and local levels in a harmonized manner.

It is also to Promote private sector partnership in ICT deployment, ensure security of networks at all times, advise the Ministry on policy review in the ICT sector and Investigate, resolve disputes between license holders under the Electronic Transactions Act referred to the Agency by license holders and to certify all agencies established under the Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772).

GNA

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Government is keen on establishing a digital economy - Minister - Ghana News Agency

Moon Stone International Investment S.A. from Luxemburg is a company, which has come to realize that proper waste management is a new industry for the future for those who will recognize this opportunity.

Luxembourg (PRWEB) August 14, 2017

In recent years, efficient use of resources and a low-carbon society have become the focus of global discussions on the transition to a circular economy. Transition to a circular economy is one of the fundamental development challenges of our society, which will have an ever more important role in the future due to its environmental and climate impacts, and because of the economic potential deriving from it. Therefore, the transition to a circular economy cannot only be a vision, but is a necessity. Circular economy connects several concepts, such as green growth, the green economy, industrial symbiosis, resource efficiency and sustainable development. With wider or narrower focus, the common goals are generally three: to improve the efficiency of resource use, to ensure resilience of ecosystems and to strengthen social equity. Global demand for natural resources is rising steeply. In the 20th century, the world's population increased by 4 times, economic output by 40 times, consumption of fossil fuels 16 times, and water consumption by 9 times. The same trend will continue in the future. By 2050, the global population will increase to 9.6 billion people, and it is clear that the linear economic model will soon come to its limit as it is based on the exploitation of natural resources and the increasing production of goods with a short lifespan.

The Seventh Environmental Action Program of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union for the period up to 2020 sets out the priority objectives to be achieved during this period. With this environmental action program, the EU has committed itself to further strengthening its efforts to protect our natural capital, promote low carbon growth by effectively using resources and innovation, and protecting the health and well-being of people - while respecting the natural limitations of the planet. The program contains nine priority objectives and tasks that the EU must undertake to achieve by 2020, among which a special focus is on improving resource management.

According to Eurostat data, most EU countries are still ineffective in terms of material productivity because they use too many natural resources for the unit of GDP generated, which puts them in an extremely precarious situation in the long run from a competitive point of view. The reason for this is the overwhelming inheritance of the surviving linear model of thinking in the economy and service activities (acquired, used, discarded). We need to start thinking about how to set up a circular economic system in which raw materials, water, energy and other resources will circulate, as they circulate in nature. By introducing the circular economic system, the company will be a step closer to not considering environmental policy as a factor of limiting growth, but as a key development opportunity for a new development paradigm.

The notion of "circular economy", in which nothing is discarded, is crucial in seeking to increase the efficiency of resource use. Prevention and preparation for the reuse and recycling of waste enable the company to acquire substances or materials from existing, already produced sources. This reduces the need for natural resources, and consequently reduces the use of energy and the negative impacts on the environment. Therefore, when introducing circular economy, there is no question if, but only when the economies of the countries will do so.

Moon Stone International Investment S.A. from Luxemburg is a company, which has come to realize that proper waste management is a new industry for the future for those who will recognize this opportunity. Expert studies and operational experience of the company show that the limited processing of only certain waste by a certain technology reduces the possibility of their processing into new usable materials, the scope of the possibilities of implementing certain services is limited, while lower added value and lower operating profit are achieved. On the contrary, the combined processing of waste from different areas of their production by combining different processing methods gives the greatest possible degree of their conversion into new useful materials, the maximum extent of service delivery, unsurpassed development opportunities and the achievement of higher added value and higher operating profit. And all of this is the strategic business goal of Moon Stone International Investment S.A. from Luxembourg, which has its own business model for the efficient management of material resources based on circular economy policy as a new economic model for resource management.

Moon Stone International Investment S.A. Is mainly focused on handling large masses of waste from construction, mining, industry, energy, utilities and debris of inland water bodies. Among municipal waste, priority is given to the treatment of sludges from wastewater treatment plants, the remains of so-called unusable heavy fractions after mechanical biological treatment of municipal solid waste, and ashes resulting from the thermal treatment of alternative fuels from treated waste. The use of recovered waste as new materials, composites and soils is primarily intended for the implementation of earthworks, focusing on the implementation of remediation of degraded areas in the past, improving the quality of soil for agricultural production and for new provincial construction, with an emphasis on the implementation of measures for the construction of flood protection for threats to the operation of high flood water.

In the strategy of its operation, the company does not use the words "disposal or incineration of waste" since it is at all times looking for recycled waste with comprehensive project support at the highest level for its predominantly strategic clients under its own patent procedure and its own business model for useful permitted re-use for the purpose of implementing the circular economy strategy - efficient resource management.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/08/prweb14586830.htm

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Circular economy - Effective resource management | Benzinga - Benzinga