Stuart Hart States Imposing Guilt On The Top Of The Pyramid Will Not Encourage A Leap Forward

Ali Goheer - 5 November, 2007 Format for printing

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To get on a renewable energy path or a soft energy path as Amory Lovins would say, is of enormous importance for us and again the natural tendency is to want to say well you know, you rich people at the top of the pyramid, especially Americans, you need to get your act together, you know you need to cut your energy consumption, stopping driving the big SUV ... and all of that's true, right, but it's primarily guilt tripping, right which I don't think has proven to be very effective, it's not a very effective means of accomplishing the goal. So what I like to think about in this great leap downward, this great leap to the base of the pyramid and when I say downward I don't mean it in a pejorative way, I'm talking only about income level right, not about intelligence or enthusiasm or energy or anything else of those at the base of the income pyramid, but the idea of taking the great leap means that you have to kind of set aside all of the previous kind of business models that you had come to know and love because it takes a clean sheet approach and the only place where you can really point to that so far are in you know small companies or NGOs. The tendency for companies at the top of the pyramid has been to try to ram it into the top, so that includes you know, look at solar, look at fuel cells, look at wind, look at... you know you name the technology. Micro turbines, the tendency has been to try to ram that technology into the top of the pyramid where they run into enormous barriers. Sun cross grid system which gives the existing utilities and energy companies a huge advantage, perverse subsidies for fossil fuels that make it exceedingly difficult to penetrate for entrepreneurs ... I mean really hard right.