stephenhinton

A deep dive into the Swedish transport system’s chances of defossilizing.

A look at the passenger miles produced in the Swedish transport system reveals some interesting statistics. When you add the CO2 emissions per transport type you get even more interesting insights.

The graph below comes from the transport statistics authority for transport within Sweden. And the nature protection agency.

In terms of CO2 emissions, the one transport type that dominates is the one that produces a greater proportion of emissions than the proportion of passenger miles. The reverse is true of rail transport. It produces the second largest number of passenger miles and a miniscule proportion of emissions.

What does this mean for policy? Just looking at the diagram, if you want to reduce CO2 fast, then policy must be aimed at the private combustion engine car. And using the advantage of rail. Where rail cannot be used, the bus is much better than the private car.

The sea results are interesting. Boat transport is very effective, but we are looking at the ferry system included in the figures. It may well be that we need to investigate further as ferries take cars as well.

The graph would have looked different for the 1950s. The chart below shows what has happened to transport in Sweden since then: it’s been automobiled! Swedes are using the same amount of rail and bus travel as they did in the 50s – and the population has grown from 7 million to 10.5 million!

Sweden went rapidly from a rail, bus and other transport method society (MC, moped, walking, cycling) to a nation whose transport method was predominantly by car.

Maybe there is clue to how Sweden can defossilize in this, and it will have to do with building a society where people don’t actually need to take the car. How did it work in the 1950’s? I can’t believe life was that harsh. This is definitely a line to investigate more.

Some things spring to mind: towns had a lot more local shops. And people did not work all hours, so they could use public transport with routes that coincided with work hours. Or, if they worked shift, they lived close to their work.

Of course, people will feel badly hurt if their car is taken away, this needs careful planning! What could you offer instead? How about a green transition basic income with a free electric taxi card topped up to say 10,000 kms a year?

Do put your ideas in the comments section.

How to use Real Capital and its valuation to inform policy

Link here to the full briefing on Research Gate

The table above gives an example of how to use Real Capital accounting to clarify policy. Policy is an asset, liability is shortfall and equity is performance against policy. Find more explanations in the video and briefing.

Is it possible to present information in a rational way, to policy makers, that does not need financial information to be useful to policy makers? Could scientists do this without becoming economists? In an era where scientific advancements shape our understanding of the world, the gap between science and politics remains a significant challenge. This divide often results in politicians struggling to effectively process scientific information and translate it into sound policy decisions – leaving it to economists.

The video explains the main content of the methodology brieifing

Applying Real Capital to the Circular Firm

Several thinkers (including, for example, Boyd 2020 and Hazel Henderson) have suggested that the concept of real capital – or multi-capital – be introduced into the political economy to aid decision-making at policy level as well at corporate level. This may overcome one of the failings of standard economics: Policy makers often rely on economists to provide their decision bases. However, one of the failings of standard economics when preparing decision bases for policy makers, is that anything that cannot be valued in money is seen to have no value or little value. The Earth does not send a bill for the use of its atoms so the stewardship of the material world is left out. Without a comprehensive valuation framework, policy makers and strategists are likely to miss the full picture by just relying on monetary values and make decisions that could be detrimental to society, counter to the intentions of the policy.

This article gives a general explanation of the category of real capital that is built capital, and how to use its valuation in preparing decision bases. The Real Capital approach gives a more robust decision basis, helping identify long term investment needs and policy that steers investment and activities to avoid capital degeneration and promote capital regeneration.

Peace Starts with You: the Peace Education Program online

From the Academy of Investors in Peace, in cooperation with the Prem Rawat Foundation, comes an online version of the Peace Education program.

Investors in Peace, where I am helping out, are continually developing, to encourage more people to do more for peace – for themselves, each other, the Earth and future generations. It all starts with inner peace.

Not degrowth, but economic maturity

Economic growth sounds great! But as with all growth you have to ask yourself what it will look like when it’s fully grown. So too with the “economy”. I’m not talking about the monetary system that produces tokens and circulates these tokens around between citizens, companies, governments and back. I’m talking about the arrangement for keeping a roof over your head, food on your table and a load of other essential services.

The ABC of supply chains. Allocation of common pool assets and services based on them.

Earlier posts explained that the Swedish system of classifying organisations according to the products they produce (SNI) is useful as a tool to study the workings of the supply chains. The classification is connected to a lot of data collected about Swedish companies. This section covers the concept of allocation – that is about how much of common pool resources each type of industry takes up, and how much of the total need is filled by the respective companies. We will explore the theory in this part. The aim is to develop approaches that better inform policy making.

The “C” of the ABC of supply chains is the keystone of circularity

The last article explained that, if you are looking to develop policy to drive the circular economy, then it is useful to divide supply chains up in their industrial classification. You need to look at one in particular, the keystone holding it all up – C, manufacturing. And in manufacturing, you need to focus on built capital – the capability and performance of the actual infrastructure used in manufacturing.

The ABC of Supply Chains shows the disconnects killing the planet

Fortunately for us, Sweden keeps a pretty comprehensive set of statistics ¹ on how its industry performs. It takes a while to retrieve them and put them together at the highest levels, but the exercise reveals som particular insights about how the developed world works. You could say that supply chains represent the workings of the global super organism. When you look at the system from above, you see some glaring disconnects. It gives a good idea of who is doing what to the planet, and who is earning the money from it. They are definitely different industries, if not different people.

A carbon dioxide balance sheet for Sweden

Based on official statistics it is possible to put together a high-level balance sheet for Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions and uptake. It does raise some interesting questions as to how the statistics are set up, but let us look at the overall picture – to better understand how the country can fulfil its ambition to be climate neutral by 2050.

Real Capital – an explainer

Explainer: what is real capital. Real capital refers to resources used in producing goods and services without being entirely consumed. It encompasses natural, built, social, and human capital. Mature real capital has the capability to provide necessary services to the intended population. Evaluating the maturity level of capital can guide policy decisions and determine the interplay of different capital types, investment needs, and development goals.

Real capital defined

Real capital is defined as:

Something that is used in the production of
goods and services to society, but not used up.

Note that capital is necessary but not sufficient to provide services. The capital is utilised in the production system. There are several categorisation methods, but I prefer the following as described in the table below: