Trend Analysis of Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Industry Part 10: From Symptomatic to Root Cause Treatment. The Future Development of the Industry may be Disrupted
Publishdate：2018-05-17 Views：13
The tenth trend in the energy conservation and environmental protection industry is to move from addressing the symptoms to addressing the root cause. The future development of the entire industry will also revolve around "standards" and "principles".
"Treating symptoms" means treating the head for headaches and the feet for pain; "Cure the root cause" is the direction for the future development of the entire industry. The best way to address environmental issues is to avoid pollution. What changes will occur in the energy-saving and environmental protection industry in a society with zero pollution or low pollution, zero energy consumption or low energy consumption? How should a company's development strategy be constructed? It can be said that this is the ultimate proposition for the development of the entire industry, representing the form of future social development.
Taking the solid waste industry and atmospheric treatment industry as examples, I will illustrate the correlation between addressing the symptoms, root causes, and the development of energy conservation and environmental protection industries.
Let's first take a look at the solid waste industry, taking waste incineration power generation as an example. Garbage incineration power generation is a typical investment driven industry, and its industrial chain is a well-known investment, construction, and operation model. At present, the task of the waste incineration power plant is to address the symptoms - to dispose of the waste generated by people's daily lives. Among them, harmless treatment is the purpose of garbage incineration power plants.
Let's take a longer look at the industry chain. Environmental sanitation is also a link in this industry chain, so the entire industry chain should consist of three major links: collection, transportation, and processing. The main purpose of collection and transportation is to gather the garbage generated by people for efficient treatment, but this process is not value-added. Therefore, it is usually called on everyone to sort the garbage in this stage, because not all the garbage thrown into the garbage bin is garbage, such as used plastic bottles, glass, paper scraps, etc., which can be reused resources. Burning them recklessly is also a waste of resources. This has led to a concept related to garbage, namely "resource utilization", which is to distinguish garbage into useful and useless categories. Useful garbage enters the resource recycling process, while useless garbage enters the garbage incineration process.
Think carefully, how much of the garbage we throw away is useful? Kitchen waste can be refined and composted, plastic bottles can be made into recycled fibers, waste paper can be made into pulp and recycled paper... There is not much waste that should truly enter waste incineration power plants. According to this logic, if garbage classification is done well, what we need more in the future should be the resource recycling industry, rather than the garbage incineration industry. Of course, this depends on social progress, legal improvement, and the improvement of national quality.
But this is not the end. If we elongate the industrial chain again, we will find that the complete industrial chain should include production (garbage), collection and transportation, and treatment. Whether it is resource recycling or waste incineration for power generation, they are both secondary treatments of household waste and essentially a process of addressing the symptoms. The true "foundation" of the industrial chain should be the process of generating household waste. In other words, the "fundamental" approach of the entire industry should be to minimize the generation of household waste as much as possible, which is the source of the industrial chain.
We put a plastic bottle into a dedicated garbage bin for collecting and storing plastic bottles, and we are aware that this bottle will enter a recycled fiber manufacturing plant. However, have we overlooked a question: should this bottle itself exist? According to media reports, from 2013 to 2015, Australian graphic designer Erin Rhods collected garbage in a small glass jar; Lauren Singer, who graduated from the Environmental Science program at New York University and lives in New York, only produced 350 grams of garbage in his 4-year life... They define themselves as "zero waste" living beings.
We advocate for the reduction of household waste, and the ultimate goal of reduction is to avoid generating waste, which is the fundamental solution. If most of us could be like "zero waste" lifestyle workers, even if we could achieve half of them, such as using eco-friendly bags, refusing to use cling films, etc., how many industries would change or even cease to exist as a result? How much change will society undergo? So the question for the industry to consider is: how long will it take to achieve refined classification of waste? How long will it take for people's lifestyles to undergo fundamental changes?
Similarly, let's take a look at the atmospheric governance industry. Like waste incineration power generation, the industrial chain of atmospheric governance is also an investment, construction, and operation model. Atmospheric governance is a highly mature sector in the entire energy-saving and environmental protection industry. The rapid development of small sectors such as desulfurization, denitrification, dust removal, and VOCs has continuously brought business opportunities to enterprises in the industry.
It is obvious that current atmospheric governance enterprises are focused on the treatment of exhaust gases generated by industrial enterprises, which is only a temporary solution. What we should consider is, why does it produce exhaust gas? The "foundation" of the entire industry chain should be to control the generation of front-end exhaust gas, find ways to use more scientific processes, high-quality raw materials, and more scientific formulas in the front-end, reduce exhaust gas in the production process, and after the exhaust gas is generated, try to recycle the effective components in the exhaust gas, forming a reduction and resource utilization of exhaust gas treatment, and finally harmless treatment.
Therefore, energy-saving and environmental protection enterprises with broad prospects in the future should be high-tech, heavily researched and developed, and able to effectively combine atmospheric governance and energy conservation, providing comprehensive solutions for industrial enterprises. These types of enterprises are different from those currently known as "environmental stewards". They are no longer simply providing industrial enterprises with treatment solutions for wastewater, exhaust gas, and waste residue, but delving into the entire chain of industrial enterprises to reduce waste gas generation from the source.
A more vivid example is a household air purifier. What is the future development prospect of this industry? We have provided a clear answer: this is an industry that should not exist, or rather a small and micro industry that only exists in a few specific contexts. When the blue sky and white clouds return, the household air purifier industry will naturally disappear, and "Beijing 60" has actually sounded the alarm for household air purifier enterprises.
In fact, there are still many segmented industries that can explore future development directions based on the approach of addressing symptoms and addressing the root cause. Overall, the foundation of the energy-saving and environmental protection industry lies in the production process, controlling pollution, and adjusting the energy structure. Solving the fundamental problems of the entire energy-saving and environmental protection industry requires a long process from quantitative to qualitative change, which requires the continuous accumulation of the power of the whole society. It is suggested that energy-saving and environmental protection enterprises with scale and technology advantages should invest in researching solutions to the fundamental problems of the industry as soon as possible. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to overturn the industry. (Environmental Entrepreneurship State)
The tenth trend in the energy conservation and environmental protection industry is to move from addressing the symptoms to addressing the root cause. The future development of the entire industry will also revolve around "standards" and "principles".
"Treating symptoms" means treating the head for headaches and the feet for pain; "Cure the root cause" is the direction for the future development of the entire industry. The best way to address environmental issues is to avoid pollution. What changes will occur in the energy-saving and environmental protection industry in a society with zero pollution or low pollution, zero energy consumption or low energy consumption? How should a company's development strategy be constructed? It can be said that this is the ultimate proposition for the development of the entire industry, representing the form of future social development.
Taking the solid waste industry and atmospheric treatment industry as examples, I will illustrate the correlation between addressing the symptoms, root causes, and the development of energy conservation and environmental protection industries.
Let's first take a look at the solid waste industry, taking waste incineration power generation as an example. Garbage incineration power generation is a typical investment driven industry, and its industrial chain is a well-known investment, construction, and operation model. At present, the task of the waste incineration power plant is to address the symptoms - to dispose of the waste generated by people's daily lives. Among them, harmless treatment is the purpose of garbage incineration power plants.
Let's take a longer look at the industry chain. Environmental sanitation is also a link in this industry chain, so the entire industry chain should consist of three major links: collection, transportation, and processing. The main purpose of collection and transportation is to gather the garbage generated by people for efficient treatment, but this process is not value-added. Therefore, it is usually called on everyone to sort the garbage in this stage, because not all the garbage thrown into the garbage bin is garbage, such as used plastic bottles, glass, paper scraps, etc., which can be reused resources. Burning them recklessly is also a waste of resources. This has led to a concept related to garbage, namely "resource utilization", which is to distinguish garbage into useful and useless categories. Useful garbage enters the resource recycling process, while useless garbage enters the garbage incineration process.
Think carefully, how much of the garbage we throw away is useful? Kitchen waste can be refined and composted, plastic bottles can be made into recycled fibers, waste paper can be made into pulp and recycled paper... There is not much waste that should truly enter waste incineration power plants. According to this logic, if garbage classification is done well, what we need more in the future should be the resource recycling industry, rather than the garbage incineration industry. Of course, this depends on social progress, legal improvement, and the improvement of national quality.
But this is not the end. If we elongate the industrial chain again, we will find that the complete industrial chain should include production (garbage), collection and transportation, and treatment. Whether it is resource recycling or waste incineration for power generation, they are both secondary treatments of household waste and essentially a process of addressing the symptoms. The true "foundation" of the industrial chain should be the process of generating household waste. In other words, the "fundamental" approach of the entire industry should be to minimize the generation of household waste as much as possible, which is the source of the industrial chain.
We put a plastic bottle into a dedicated garbage bin for collecting and storing plastic bottles, and we are aware that this bottle will enter a recycled fiber manufacturing plant. However, have we overlooked a question: should this bottle itself exist? According to media reports, from 2013 to 2015, Australian graphic designer Erin Rhods collected garbage in a small glass jar; Lauren Singer, who graduated from the Environmental Science program at New York University and lives in New York, only produced 350 grams of garbage in his 4-year life... They define themselves as "zero waste" living beings.
We advocate for the reduction of household waste, and the ultimate goal of reduction is to avoid generating waste, which is the fundamental solution. If most of us could be like "zero waste" lifestyle workers, even if we could achieve half of them, such as using eco-friendly bags, refusing to use cling films, etc., how many industries would change or even cease to exist as a result? How much change will society undergo? So the question for the industry to consider is: how long will it take to achieve refined classification of waste? How long will it take for people's lifestyles to undergo fundamental changes?
Similarly, let's take a look at the atmospheric governance industry. Like waste incineration power generation, the industrial chain of atmospheric governance is also an investment, construction, and operation model. Atmospheric governance is a highly mature sector in the entire energy-saving and environmental protection industry. The rapid development of small sectors such as desulfurization, denitrification, dust removal, and VOCs has continuously brought business opportunities to enterprises in the industry.
It is obvious that current atmospheric governance enterprises are focused on the treatment of exhaust gases generated by industrial enterprises, which is only a temporary solution. What we should consider is, why does it produce exhaust gas? The "foundation" of the entire industry chain should be to control the generation of front-end exhaust gas, find ways to use more scientific processes, high-quality raw materials, and more scientific formulas in the front-end, reduce exhaust gas in the production process, and after the exhaust gas is generated, try to recycle the effective components in the exhaust gas, forming a reduction and resource utilization of exhaust gas treatment, and finally harmless treatment.
Therefore, energy-saving and environmental protection enterprises with broad prospects in the future should be high-tech, heavily researched and developed, and able to effectively combine atmospheric governance and energy conservation, providing comprehensive solutions for industrial enterprises. These types of enterprises are different from those currently known as "environmental stewards". They are no longer simply providing industrial enterprises with treatment solutions for wastewater, exhaust gas, and waste residue, but delving into the entire chain of industrial enterprises to reduce waste gas generation from the source.
A more vivid example is a household air purifier. What is the future development prospect of this industry? We have provided a clear answer: this is an industry that should not exist, or rather a small and micro industry that only exists in a few specific contexts. When the blue sky and white clouds return, the household air purifier industry will naturally disappear, and "Beijing 60" has actually sounded the alarm for household air purifier enterprises.
In fact, there are still many segmented industries that can explore future development directions based on the approach of addressing symptoms and addressing the root cause. Overall, the foundation of the energy-saving and environmental protection industry lies in the production process, controlling pollution, and adjusting the energy structure. Solving the fundamental problems of the entire energy-saving and environmental protection industry requires a long process from quantitative to qualitative change, which requires the continuous accumulation of the power of the whole society. It is suggested that energy-saving and environmental protection enterprises with scale and technology advantages should invest in researching solutions to the fundamental problems of the industry as soon as possible. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to overturn the industry. (Environmental Entrepreneurship State)
