TOMORROW’S ANSWERS TODAY
THE AKZONOBEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 2
Mixing talent
The new AkzoNobel
Too often we hear it would be impossible. That it
cannot be done. That someone’s tried it before. At
the new AkzoNobel, we believe the future belongs
to those smart enough to challenge it. That’s why we
love developing new ideas, like the micro-surfacing
emulsifier we’re supplying to rapidly growing Asian
cities, which allows roads to be repaved in half the
time. Like asking if painting boats with a coating as
smooth as whale skin would improve fuel economy –
and then creating the product to prove it. This is the
kind of ambition which defines us. This is why we
come to work. To deliver Tomorrow’s Answers Today.
To see our complete brand portfolio please visit akzonobel.com
The A team
WELCOME JOHN McLAREN
It was Oscar Wilde who said “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied
with the best.” It’s a fitting way to welcome you to this second edition of
A Magazine, because I must confess to having a certain affinity with those
famous words uttered by the Irish playwright, poet and incorrigible wit.
Why this sudden diversion into the literary realm? Well, I’m delighted to
say that A Magazine recently won a coveted Bronze Cube, awarded annually
by the influential Art Directors Club in New York. Regarded by many as being
the Oscars of the design world, the distinctive cubes are notoriously tricky
to win, so naturally all those involved with our launch edition in October last
year are delighted to have been recognized with such a prestigious honor for
creative achievement.
The whole team worked extremely hard to ensure that we met the
highest possible standards. But that was only the beginning and hopefully
this second edition will prove that we intend to keep on pushing ourselves
to bring you the best possible quality in all areas. Because when it comes
to communication, only the best will do. That, after all, is what providing
Tomorrow’s Answers Today is all about.
So what can you look forward to in this second edition? We’ve loosely
themed the content around color, so many of the features take that as a
starting point. We also hear from AkzoNobel CEO Hans Wijers, who explains
the fascinating concept of creative destruction. Shipwrecks, frozen seabeds
and Barbie also get a look in. It is, dare I say, a cocktail that even Oscar would
have gone wild over.
Enjoy the issue, there are some great stories and visuals, and remember
that free subscriptions are open to everyone via akzonobel.com/A
Chief Editor
David Lichtneker
AkzoNobel
Design and
Art Direction
Pepe Vargas
AkzoNobel
Design Consultancy
Angus Hyland
Pentagram
Corporate Director
Communications
John McLaren
AkzoNobel
Head of
Corporate Branding
Berry Oonk
AkzoNobel
Traffic Manager
Sarah Roozendaal
AkzoNobel
Publisher
Akzo Nobel N.V.
The Netherlands
Editorial address
A Magazine
AkzoNobel Corporate
Communications
PO Box 75730
1070 AS Amsterdam
The Netherlands
E-mail
[email protected]
Printing
Tesink, Zutphen
The Netherlands
Corporate Director Communications
Additional
photography
Getty Images, Coca-Cola,
FriGeo, The Vasa Museum
You can subscribe to
A Magazine and download
digital versions by visiting
akzonobel.com/A
Opinions in this magazine
do not necessarily represent
those of AkzoNobel, and
AkzoNobel accepts no
responsibility for these
opinions. While the information in this publication is
intended to be accurate, no
representation of accuracy
or completeness is made.
Contents
6
Giving deforestation the bird
The story of a reforestation project thriving
in the unlikely concrete jungle of Sao Paulo.
10
Now it’s personal
How personal expression has evolved into
a sophisticated art form, including an interview
with design visionary Bruce Mau.
20
Sea change
Several industry experts evaluate how close we
are to harnessing the power of the oceans.
28
Turning a blind eye
The color-blind are rarely catered for in society,
but the situation could slowly be changing.
32
Appetite for destruction
AkzoNobel CEO Hans Wijers shares his thoughts
on the seismic theory of creative destruction.
36
Women strike back
A Dutch artist, a top executive and the age-old
problem of women battling for career equality.
42
The curious case of
the depolymerizing warship
How science is helping to unravel the mysteries
hidden in the wreck of a 17th century warship.
48
Identity crisis
We highlight a new study which aims
to bring color back into our cities.
54
Building the future
The world might well be in a recession, but Asia
continues to grow and attract investment.
56
Leader of the pack
Admit it. You’ve rarely given the humble can
a second thought. Allow us to enlighten you.
60
The big freeze
A new method of removing contaminated
material is giving pollution the cold shoulder.
62
The big picture
Find out why two world class performers joined
forces to push the boundaries of technology.
WORDS Jim Wake
A special project is underway in Brazil dedicated to restoring and protecting
the native ecosystem of a forest right in the middle of one of the most densely
populated areas in the world.
This seven-color tanager bird is the Tangará Reserve’s mascot, a species which inhabits the forest
around the Mauá site. [Photography by Arthur Grosset; arthurgrosset.com].
AkzoNobel employees
and their families are playing
a role in the tree removal and
reforestation process
The feasibility study identified
1,600 eucalyptus trees per
hectare, as opposed to the
recommended average of 400
native trees per hectare
The Tangará project is one of
the biggest urban reforestation
projects in Brazil
Permanent monitoring of the
new forest (both flora and
fauna) is in place to ensure no
environmental damage is caused
More than 80 species of birds
live in the forest, while there are
more than 160 varieties of flora
Look beyond: reservaTangará.com.br
9
B
razil’s sprawling megalopolis of Sao Paulo is home
to nearly 20 million people, who inhabit an area of
about 8,000 square kilometers. And within that
urban tangle, the municipality of Mauá houses more
than 40
00,000, crowded onto just 62.6 square kilometers –
more than 6,500 people per square kilometer.
Suc
ch a high population density obviously means that
there is not a whole lot of green space, but on the south
west co
orner of the city, a small 100 hectare oasis has escaped tthe fate which has befallen most of the rest of the
surrounding land.
A fo
ormer plantation, it just happens to form part of the
site occ
cupied by decorative coatings manufacturer Tintas
Coral. T
The actual production facilities, however, take up just
30 of the
e 100 hectares. Most of the rest is occupied by dense
eucalypttus forest, planted in the middle of the 20th century.
Thatt, in principle, is a good thing. But eucalyptus is not
an indigenous tree. In fact, all along Brazil’s Atlantic coast, the
indigeno
ous Atlantic Forest which once predominated over
more tha
an a million square kilometers has been devastated to
make wa
ay for both industrial agriculture and urban settlements.
Less tha
an 10 percent of these valuable ecosystems have been
preserve
ed, and much of what remains is under threat from
further e
encroachment. But on the Tintas Coral site, a project is
now und
derway to restore the original Atlantic Forest.
Tinta
as Coral became part of AkzoNobel following the
acquisition of ICI in 2008. The brand has a long tradition of
social e
engagement and a strong commitment to corporate
social rresponsibility, highlighted by the various programs
launche
ed for the benefit of employees and the surrounding
commun
nity. The proposal to restore the native ecosystem of
the forest surrounding the site originated in 2005. The head
of the Attlantic Forest Foundation – an organization which had
previoussly worked with Tintas Coral on environmental education projjects in the community – was visiting the site, and he
suggestted a plan of action.
“Whe
en he saw the size of the forest the idea of launching thiss project was born,” explains Sueli Freitas, former
AkzoNo
obel Decorative Paints Corporate Communications
Manage
er for Latin America. “We thought it was a great idea
and invitted the University of Sao Paulo to conduct a feasibility
study. T
The results indicated that we have almost 300 plant
and anim
mal species on the site, including many that are rare
or endan
ngered.”
The forest also includes a small lake which supplies
the currrent AkzoNobel Decorative Paints plant with water.
It turned
d out that the eucalyptus trees were not only putting
a strain on the watershed which fed the lake, but also putting
excessive demands on the fragile balance of the site’s soil and
subsoil. The environmental conservation project therefore has
an additional business angle. Eliminating the dry eucalyptus
forest will also reduce the risk of fire.
“The plan,” continues Freitas, “is to gradually replace those
eucalyptus trees with native trees of the Atlantic Forest and
create a reserve, which we’ve named the Tangará Reserve
after a brilliantly colored bird which is native here. It’s a
pioneering project,” she adds. “All over the world, people are
destroying native forests and planting them with soy beans
and other crops, but here, we are reversing that process by
taking commercial wood and replacing it with native species.”
Biologists at the University of Sao Paulo – Brazil’s leading
environmental studies institute – are playing a major role in the
project, offering advice on how the restoration project should
proceed and monitoring its progress. The 70 hectares to be
restored have been divided into three tranches, with the first
tranche having been cleared in early 2007. Planting of socalled “pioneer” trees followed several months later. The first
trees to be planted were fast-growing trees that will provide
the shade to allow other trees and secondary plants to follow.
Fruit trees will also be introduced into the new forest to attract
birds and bats.
Of course, a forest doesn’t grow overnight. Experts say
that the return of a forest environment will be evident in about
five years. Within ten years, a dense forest should take hold.
A relatively mature forest will take another ten or 15 years.
Such has been the impact of the initiative that officials from
the Sao Paulo State government have also taken an interest
in the project. They think it could serve as a model for other
projects to safeguard water supplies, with a particular eye
on a lake which supplies water to a significant portion of the
Sao Paulo region, which is also surrounded by a non-native
eucalyptus forest.
One of the unusual features of the Tangará project is that,
at least during the first several years, it will be self-financing.
The costs to clear the old forest and re-plant with indigenous
species should be covered by the proceeds realized from the
sale of the recovered eucalyptus wood, which will be sold
primarily for pulp. There is also more to the Tangará Reserve
project than environmental restoration, as it will be open to
communities and schools for educational and recreational
purposes, as well as being made available for study by the
scientific community. “We are a kind of oasis here, surrounded
by cities,” concludes Freitas. “Our thinking is that this project
can be a valuable gift to the local community.”
11
WORDS David Lichtneker
There was a time when expressing your individuality meant doing something extreme like
dying your hair several colors or tattooing your tongue. Those options are still available, but in
the style conscious 21st century, personalization has become something of an art form.
W
hen Henry Ford uttered that immortal phrase
about customers buying his Model T in any
color they wanted – as long as it was black – the
concept of personalization was virtually alien.
It was the 1920s, a time when being an individual and
expressing your personality was hardly the rage. One glimpse
at photographs of the time proves the point, because it wasn’t
just Ford’s fabulous automobiles that all looked strikingly
similar. People also looked alike, mainly due to the fact that
there was almost no difference in their clothes, hats, or even
their facial hair come to think of it.
Times changed, however, and individual expression
gradually started to have more influence on how people lived
their lives. The 1950s, for example, saw popular music begin
to heavily impact fashion and youth culture, a trend which
has continued every decade since. So for more than half a
century, it’s been hairstyles (beehives, Mohicans, quiffs, bubble perms), shoes (platforms, Doc Martins, beetle crushers)
and clothes (hotpants, flared trousers, mini skirts) that have
mostly allowed people to really give an outward sign about
who they are on the inside. While considered too extreme
for most, the ancient art of tattooing also warrants a mention,
along with body piercing, which is a more recent – yet often
just as outrageous – form of self-expression.
Other industries were also quick to catch on, realizing that
personalization wasn’t restricted to outlandish clothes, hair
and make-up. Cars are a classic case in point. Manufacturers
were soon offering customers new models, different colors
and optional extras, so Ford’s mantra didn’t last long. This
more customer-oriented approach to selling and marketing
goods rippled rather than snowballed, with some industries
being more suited to embracing various degrees of customization and finding it far easier to introduce than others.
Fast forward to the 21st century and one sector which
has lagged behind somewhat where personalization is
concerned is finally starting to shift into overdrive. The market
for personal electronic equipment has exploded over recent
years, with sales of mobile phones, handheld devices and laptops reaching unprecedented levels. But while the technology
behind them has also been accelerating at a frightening rate,
the focus on certain aspects of their design has been less intense.
For example, you don’t have to think back too far to remember
when all mobiles were black (Ford would have been pleased)
and all PCs were that incredibly bland cream color. Then a
spark was ignited and suddenly mobiles were available in
different colors. “Skins” started to appear and the possibilities
for pimping your phone became endless. Now, the age of the
fully customized computer has dawned. The plug has well
and truly been pulled on all things vaguely magnolia colored.
Laptops no longer have to be that dull slab of tombstone grey.
Your computer can become an extension of your personality.
It was Michael Dell who broke the technical mould when
he started building PCs to order from his dorm room. He soon
dropped out from university as a teenager and went on to set
up his own company, which is now the mighty Dell Inc – the
number one PC provider in the US and the number two worldwide. Following their CEO’s lead for offering groundbreaking
personalization, Dell recently entered the customized design
arena with a bang, a transformation which has been led by a
man specifically hired to make Dell’s computers look irresistibly cool and desirable.
“Our industry has gone over a tipping point whereby for
most people the days of the utilitarian PC are dead,” explains
Ed Boyd, who is Vice-President of Design at Dell’s Consumer
Products business. “If you think about it, ten years ago, to
have a PC in the home was something special. It was almost a
Look beyond: dell.com/designstudio
luxury if a family could afford to buy a PC and use it. The products have now evolved from that utilitarian phase of ownership
to a level where they are devices that you use frequently every
day. The new day has dawned – the birth of the truly personal
device that people take with them wherever they go. And it’s
not just a nice to have, it’s become a necessity. There’s this
need to make it fit your style, to tailor it to your needs, because
it’s with you everywhere you go. If you look at related markets,
such as the automobile, cell phone and fashion industries,
you see this trend as well, so it only makes sense that it’s
happening now in the PC industry.”
The customization of Dell’s portfolio has been evolving ever
since the company was established – last year their consumer
group doubled the number of products it offers. But the real
evolution is taking place in the area of design, specifically the
ease with which customers can now stamp their own mark
on new personal equipment, such as having a design printed
on the lid of your laptop. “We’ve spent a lot of time redesigning
our products so that they are more hip and relevant and are
more directed towards different consumer groups,” continues
Boyd, an industrial designer who used to conjure up ideas for
new sunglasses and shoes for Nike.
“Carrying on Michael’s tradition, we’ve also added a high
degree of personalization into each of our platforms so that you
can truly customize the products to suit your liking. Whether
that is color, software or content, all aspects of the product
are being considered. We feel that it’s a natural extension from
our inception as a company and we’re pretty excited about it.”
Dell isn’t the first manufacturer to offer a personalized
design service for laptops. The desire to be different has
fueled a huge surge in demand, so much so that it has now
13
gone mainstream and is no longer the preserve of the young
and streetwise. But even though Dell wasn’t the quickest out
of the blocks, what it does offer is unique within the industry.
Via their jazzy online Design Studio, customers can select
customized artwork from a dizzying gallery featuring exclusive
work created by some of the world’s most renowned artists,
including Mike Ming, Bruce Mau and Tristan Eaton. Orders
are then processed individually, remaining faithful to Dell’s
philosophy of creating truly personalized products.
What’s also special about the design service offered
by Dell is the method used to apply the artwork to the
laptop. Many companies use stickers, transfers or supply predesigned computers which are decorated and manufactured
in huge batches. Dell however, takes a different approach.
Using pioneering technology and products supplied by
AkzoNobel, their on-demand service employs a hi-tech
diffusion process which is easy to use, allows laptops to be
customized to order and produces stunning results.
“The finish and quality we are achieving is amazing,” says
Boyd. “The strong collaboration we have with AkzoNobel has
enabled us to make great strides and build the on-demand
customization that we now offer. When the artists see the
results and the level of quality we are producing they’re absolutely thrilled. It took a long time for us to build the on-demand
capability from an operational perspective, but now we’re
ramping that up, things are getting very exciting.”
Alex Maaghul, head of AkzoNobel’s Specialty Plastics
business – which supplies Dell with the products and technology used to apply the personalized designs – agrees that
customization is gathering momentum. “Personalization is
getting stronger,” he notes. “In the world of consumer electronics,
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15
everything is getting smaller and more personalized. Everyone
is coming out with personalization per region, per gender, per
culture. With the pace of technology slowing down, appearance and how products make people feel is becoming
increasingly important.”
The first customized laptop Dell produced using the
AkzoNobel technology was an ultra-cool World of Warcraft
special edition. But now any laptop in any of Dell’s consumer
groups can be personalized via their Design Studio, which
offered more than 100 unique pieces of spectacular art in
its first incarnation. The second generation version will offer
considerably more, with artists from all over the world now
keen to get involved. “Artists are discovering that this is a
great way to get global exposure, because obviously we sell
products all over the world,” adds Boyd. “So they are regularly
approaching us and the level of creativity we’re seeing is
overwhelming. We’re realizing that the possibilities are infinite,
particularly when we unleash the talent that we are now
working with.”
Such has been the success of Dell’s move to personalized design – they customize more than 20 million laptops
a year – that laptops are only just the beginning. “Why stop
at laptops?” Boyd goes on. “You will see personalization
on our desktops in the very near future, as well as on our
smaller, more mobile devices. So the level of customization we
currently offer will also be available on a much broader
array of products. Ultimately you’ll be able to do pretty much
whatever you want to do.”
It makes you wonder though. If he’d been alive today,
what color would Henry Ford have chosen?
PIXE
EL PE
PERFECT
Although Dell uses several AkzoNobel
products across its portfolio, the on-demand
personalization service offered by its Design
Studio relies on very specific technology.
There are various ways of applying designs
to laptop lids, but none as flexible, versatile
or effective as Pictaflex.
Part of AkzoNobel’s Specialty Plastics
business, Pictaflex is the name given to the
company’s digital imaging transfer technology,
which uses a process known as diffusion.
The whole process – which is carried
out at Dell’s own facilities or supplier
factories using materials and equipment
supplied by AkzoNobel – only takes a
matter of minutes, with the added bonus
of no topcoat being required once the
process has been completed.
“There are other technologies being used
within the industry, but none of them allow for
the on-demand production of one-off items,
or lot size one as it’s known,” explains Alex
Maaghul, head of the company’s Specialty
Plastics business. “That’s one of the distinct
advantages of the Pictaflex technology which
gives us a real competitive edge. Plus the
results it produces are stunning.”
Its use isn’t restricted to laptops,
however. Pictaflex can be used to decorate
and customize items as large as desktop
computers, while AkzoNobel is already
supplying the technology to Logitech for use
on their mouse range. Work is also ongoing
with a number of major OEMs (original
equipment manufacturers) in the wireless
and consumer electronics markets. “There’s
a very big potential market for us,” adds
Maaghul. “Demand for customization is
growing at a tremendous rate and there
are many areas for us to explore.”
Pictaflex is just one of the many
products and services provided by
Specialty Plastics through its own
design center. Based in Belgium, its work
encompasses far more than simply supplying
coatings and related technologies. “It’s great
having cool technology such as Pictaflex,
but we also take a design approach to
everything we do,” says Maaghul. “We do
a whole range of work for our customers,
including graphic design, product design,
color design, styling, textures and trend
analysis. We lead the industry with our
color and styling forecasts and a large
percentage of the colors and special effects
out there in the marketplace actually come
from us.”
Maaghul also points out that they are
starting to get involved with customers
and their products at the design stage.
“We’re doing a lot of work on color, styling
and graphics, particularly during the early
phases of product development. Because
I believe that product design and color
design influence each other. You can have
the best color design on one product, but on
another product it just won’t work. So you
have to get it right as early as possible.”
As for the future of customization,
Maaghul reckons the possibilities are
endless: “I don’t think there’s an end to it.
Technology isn’t like what it used to be,
on computers especially, it’s starting to
slow down. The value, therefore, is in the
entire package. It’s all about the appearance and how people feel, and I think it’s
going to continue. It’s going to get stronger
because that’s where they will achieve
their main marketing edge. In my opinion,
personalization can continue to advance
far more than technology.”
17
Humanity stands on the verge of an unprecedented period of
possibility. The tools at our disposal to progress and innovate
and distribute solutions around the globe are greater than
at any time in history. So says design visionary Bruce Mau,
whose burgeoning international reputation is outpaced only
by his expansive drive to make the world a better place.
Born in Canada, Mau is widely regarded as a master of
his art, having combined creative genius and unconventional
thinking with a self-confessed upstart sensibility to secure his
place as one of the most sought-after designers on the planet.
So he was a natural choice for Dell when they went looking
for big names to produce something unique for their online
Design Studio. He’s also precisely the right person to quiz
about the rise and rise of personalization.
“I think it’s a response to the super-saturated condition of
distribution we now have, which means you can virtually find
everything everywhere,” observes Mau. “For example, I can
go into a Gap store in Capetown and it’s got exactly the same
stuff in it as a Gap store in Santa Monica. That creates a situation where people are looking for a unique kind of expression.
They want to find their own voice within that context.”
However, work carried out by his studio for Prada highlights
the fact that it’s not just the consumer electronics industry
which is tackling the personalization issue head-on. “I did
some work on their strategy for dealing with ubiquity,” explains
Mau. “They had got to the point where they had hundreds
of stores around the world, but no matter which one you
went into, they were essentially the same. That culture of
branding produces a weird kind of placelessness, where
you travel to Milan and have more or less the same feeling
you’d get in Toronto. It’s kind of dishearteningly similar.
What developed out of the work I did was the notion of
the epicenter. The idea that you can make distinctive
experiences in different places. So the Prada epicenter in
Tokyo became radically different from the Prada epicenter
in New York or LA.”
18
Photography: Robert Harshman / robertharshman.com
19
Look beyond: brucemaudesign.com
Mau’s creation for Dell’s Design Studio came via a linkup with (Red), an organization which has tapped into our
collective power as consumers and transformed it into a
financial force to help others in need. “What (Red) has done is
terms of innovating the approach to charitable work is brilliant,”
states Mau. “We have done a lot of work ourselves on how
people are collectively confronting global challenges and what
they are doing is really inspirational.” As for the actual design
created for Dell (called Healing Patterns), the idea behind
it had joint influences. “We looked for a link between what
Dell does and what (Red) does,” continues Mau. “There’s a
kind of informational interface in terms of the scientific work
that’s being carried out by them, so we used that as our
starting point.”
Established in 1985, Bruce Mau Design almost defies
categorization. The homepage of their website perhaps best
sums up their philosophy: “It is not about the world of design,
but the design of the world.” It’s clear then, that this is no
ordinary design studio. For a start, its whole reason for being
is based on a so-called Incomplete Manifesto, described
online as “an articulation of statements exemplifying Bruce
Mau’s beliefs, strategies and motivations.” The man himself
elaborates: “We knew we were doing something very different
to the way most design was being conducted. So it was
important for us to send as clear a message as possible
about what our intent was. We want people who come to
work for us and with us to know exactly what we are trying to
do and we want them to be excited by it.”
That excitement level went up several notches when
in 2004 – just a year after setting up the Institute Without
Boundaries education initiative – Mau launched Massive
Change. Originally devised as an exhibit on the future of
global design for the Vancouver Art Gallery [pictured opposite
and on the previous spread], it became a runaway success,
spawning a book, a website and an ongoing project with a
clear goal of “exploring the legacy and potential, the promise
and power of design in improving the welfare of humanity.”
Adds Mau: “Massive Change really changed our lives. We
initially set out to answer a question and produce an exhibition
Back cover: New Tokyo Lifestyle Think Zone by Bruce Mau
about design. It was quite a straightforward project. The question was: what is the future of design? In the process of exploring that question and trying to find an answer, we developed
a methodology which has really changed the way we live and
work. Essentially, what happened is that we spent about 20
person years of research trying to answer that question. In the
course of answering it, we met several hundred of the world’s
great innovators. We looked for people who are changing the
world and we looked for people who are solving problems
that in some cases have vexed us since the beginning of time.
We tried to understand what they are doing and how they are
doing it. It was a really radical, eye-opening experience.”
He goes on: “We saw that contrary to a general mood of
pessimism and cynicism, what was actually taking place was
one of the most cultural and scientific transformations in human history. We talked about what we called the revolution of
possibility, distributing tools and power to people around the
world. We discovered that we’re witnessing an acceleration
of possibilities. In the course of doing all that, we realized that
as designers, the capacity we have to integrate new possibilities for science and technology into culture is just staggering.
Once you see that, you can’t go back.”
One of the key learnings Mau took from Massive Change
was the fact that design and innovation is a collaborative activity, it’s not about a singular solution. “Take the Pictaflex technology AkzoNobel supplies to Dell,” he notes. “It must have
a whole team behind it. They probably come from a whole
range of disciplines and creative practices and collectively
they were able to develop it. Individually, they couldn’t possibly
have made it happen. So we shouldn’t think of design as a
singular enterprise.”
But what of that future that is so integral to Massive
Change? When he looks back on his achievements, how will
Mau know if he’s fulfilled his ambitions? “In many ways I still
feel like I’m just getting started. But in the long run, I hope that
we will have engaged our possibilities. That when I look back
and talk to my children about what we did, I hope I can say
that we were in the game. That we were fully committed and
were doing the best that we could.”
26
38
WORDS Jim Wake
Anyone who has ventured into the surf knows just how much power
the sea packs. But so far, it has not been converted into any viable
marine energy projects. The tide, finally, seems to be turning.
27
61
23
C
ast your mind back to the 1970s. The industrialized
world was suffering from the effects of the oil crisis
set off by the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the ensuing
Arab oil embargo. Oil prices had skyrocketed and
the economies in the industrialized west – Britain in particular
– were in disarray.
A young South African engineer named Stephen Salter
had taken up residence at the University of Edinburgh in
Scotland and assembled a team around him to explore a
promising alternative to petroleum – wave energy. He experimented with several technologies and ended up designing a
device which bobbed up and down as it absorbed the energy
from waves and could convert the up and down motion into
electricity with remarkable efficiency.
The device became known unofficially as Salter’s Duck
(officially, it was the Edinburgh Duck). Salter, still an emeritus
professor at Edinburgh, recalls that it was a very exciting time.
But despite the device’s ingenuity and the promising results
during scale model testing in wave tanks, Salter’s Duck never
made it out of the lab. Salter and many others claim that wave
power was sabotaged by vested interests in the mainstream
power industries, especially in the nuclear industry.
“The better we made it, the less they liked it,” he says. “We
realized pretty early on that there was a great deal of politics
in the background and that we had opposition.” State funding for the Duck was withdrawn in the early 80s, ostensibly
because it was not deemed a viable and cost-efficient technology. But much of the argumentation against the Duck has
since been proven at least flawed and, some would argue,
quite possibly deliberately inaccurate.
Thirty-five years later, Salter still believes in the Duck, and
in marine energy in general (a variant on the Duck idea is
now getting serious consideration as a desalination device.
So why is it that so much attention and so much money is
directed towards wind and solar, while wave and tidal energy
schemes get very little attention or funding?
“Well, one of the reasons is that you can start the others on
a small scale,” Salter explains. “People could make their own
water heaters, put them on a roof and all you needed was a
ladder and a screwdriver. With wind turbines, you could have
a school kid making something that would turn around then
put it up in the garden. The first step is very much smaller. For
marine applications, the first step is embarrassingly expensive. It might get easier later on, but your first big jump is hard.”
He says that the most efficient technologies need to come
down in cost by a factor of two to be competitive, but adds
that this is not actually very much. In fact, the likely increase in
the cost of traditional energy should help to make wave and
tidal options more attractive. Salter additionally points out that
wind energy has been exploited for thousands of years. Solar
energy, to a lesser extent, has also been exploited, if only in
designing buildings to take advantage of the heat from the
sun. Of course, tidal energy has been exploited on a small
scale over the years, but very few large-scale projects have
ever been constructed.
In fact, around 75 years ago, the US government actually
built a small town to develop a project in northern Maine to
exploit the enormous tidal range of the Bay of Fundy (up to
17 meters), but the project was abandoned. In the 1960s, the
first large-scale tidal power plant was completed on the estuary of the Rance River in Brittany, France. The plant, which
traps the tidal flow behind a dam and then uses traditional
hydropower technologies to turn turbines, has a capacity of
240 megawatts. The same tidal forces that the Americans
hoped to harness in the 30s in Maine were finally exploited
in nearby Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, in eastern Canada
in the 80s.
Only recently have less traditional tidal power schemes
started to crop up all over the world. In 2003, for example,
a prototype turbine was installed at a depth of 50 meters in
Kvalsundet off the northern coast of Norway, near Hammerfest.
Last year, a company named Verdant Power installed a
turbine in New York City’s East River (actually another tidal
channel) after two embarrassing failures when the turbine
blades broke. The demonstration project is delivering power
to a local supermarket, but the company hopes to eventually
create a “field” of turbines that would generate 10 megawatts
and power 8,000 homes. A company called Marine Current
Turbines has also installed a tidal turbine in the Strangford
Narrows off the coast of Northern Ireland which generates
1.2 megawatts. They have plans to develop a 10.5 megawatt
project off the coast of Anglesey in Wales.
There appears to be at least as much activity in the field of
wave energy, with a wide range of schemes under investigation. Some float on the surface, some are fixed to the seabed.
But as Salter notes, the start-up costs are enormous, and
the harsh marine environment has always been a serious
obstacle to cost-efficient exploitation. In Scotland, which has
a long tradition of industrial innovation (think James Watt), as
well as enormous potential as a producer of wave and tidal
energy, a test center called EMEC (European Marine Energy
Centre) was established in 2004 in Orkney. Its aim is to provide the considerable infrastructure that developers require to
“get wet as easily as possible,” as EMEC’s Managing Director
Neil Kermode puts it.
EMEC has developed both a wave test site and a tidal
test site with support from the UK Department of Trade and
Industry, the Scottish government and the European Union.
Leading marine energy firms can hook their devices up to
electrical cables plugged into the power grid to test their
efficiency, as well as their resilience. “We’ve set a couple of
world records,” states Kermode with some pride. “EMEC was
24
the first place ever to generate energy to the grid from a deep
water wave energy machine. We’re the first place in the UK
to have generated energy from the tides and we’re the only
accredited laboratory for testing wave and tidal machines in
the world.”
One of the machines tested at EMEC was a long, narrow,
articulated device called Pelamis – named for a common type
of sea snake which it vaguely resembles. Pelamis is tethered
to the seabed but floats on the surface and more or less
rides the waves. The bending of the joints drives pistons that
pump high-pressure oil through hydraulic motors, turning the
generators to produce electricity. After successful testing in
Orkney, Pelamis Wave Power installed the first deep water
wave farm in the world off the coast of Portugal in 2008 and
began generating power to the Portuguese electrical grid.
The company has recently had a run of bad luck. The
Australian infrastructure firm Babcock and Brown – the operators of the Portuguese project – collapsed as a result of the
global financial crisis, while the Pelamis machines suffered
from “technical issues”, as Business Development Director
Max Carcas delicately puts it. “They are nothing that wouldn’t
be expected in a project of this nature and we’re in the process of addressing them.” Carcas adds that the company is
also in discussions with “interested parties” to take over the
project from Babcock and Brown.
In the meantime, Pelamis is set to test a larger and more
robust version of the original device and has signed an agreement with utility megacorp E.ON to provide these second
generation “P2” machines for a wave farm off the northern
coast of Cornwall in south-west England. The wave farm
could eventually use as many as seven Pelamis wave power
generators for a capacity of 5 megawatts.
EMEC will also be providing the facilities for the testing
of several other wave and tidal generators over the next
few years. One of the most promising is a machine called
Oyster, developed by Scottish firm Aquamarine Power. Unlike
Pelamis, each Oyster unit – with generating capacity of 300
to 600 kW – would be fixed to the seabed at a depth of ten
to 12 meters. As its name suggests, it opens and closes in
response to waves. But instead of generating power on board,
the movements of the huge hinge drive a hydraulic system
which powers onshore generators via lengthy hydraulic lines.
Testing is scheduled for later this year.
Salter fears that firms could be in too great a hurry to go to
open sea implementations of technologies that are extremely
complex, expensive and subject to huge forces and extreme
conditions. “What I’d like to see is a component test raft, where
you’d have sub-assemblies and bearings and seals and bits
of cables and belts and hydraulic rams. You’d anchor the raft
to give you the right chemical and biological exposure. Open
sea testing is very good way to prove that you have got it right,
but not the way to find out what you did wrong.”
Whatever differences there may be about approach, the
big question remains, can marine energy really become a major component of our energy supplies in the future? Carcas,
who obviously believes it can, says that government has an
important role to play in creating the financial incentives to
encourage development and investment. “Even if the will is
there to access the resource – and we have a large-scale
resource which is virtually untapped – you still have to invest
to produce. There’s no reason for people to be early adopters
unless the politics are such that there’s an equivalence of return to give energy companies a financial basis for investing.”
Kermode says that – at least in Scotland – the political
will does exist. “There’s an absolute determination from the
Scottish government to make the most of the marine energy that’s here around Scottish waters. It looks as though
Scotland could obtain four or five times its own electricity
needs from wind, waves and offshore tides.”
One way the government is encouraging investment is by
issuing extra Renewable Obligation Certificates – which work in
a similar way to carbon trading rights – to wave and tidal energy
producers. Conventional energy producers have obligations to
increase their renewable energy production in the coming decade, and their support of marine energy through the purchase of
the ROCs would count towards meeting their obligations.
If Scotland can succeed in developing its marine energy
resources, it will mean that when the country’s North Sea oil
runs out, it will have an alternative export. Kermode adds that
it’s not just energy that can be exported, but expertise as
well. “The government recognizes that there’s been a lot of
high-powered and well-paid jobs in the oil industry selling
expertise gained in Scotland, and they wish to do exactly the
same thing with marine energy skills. There is also intellectual
property associated with the technologies that make these
things work, so there’s a definite recognition that there’s a
unique and time-bound opportunity here.”
When the oil crisis of the 70s faded, much of the momentum to develop alternative energy resources was lost. Whether,
as Salter believes, because of those with vested interests
sabotaging alternatives, or simply because of economic
realities, is unclear. Now, with global warming aggravated by
the burning of carbon-based fuels, growing demand from
developing countries, and the stark realization that oil and
gas supplies are finite, there are more reasons than ever to
seriously explore and exploit alternatives – and not even the
skeptics deny the huge potential of marine energy.
“I have no doubt that we’ll be operating in a variety of conditions and niches in ten years’ time,” insists Kermode. “And
I’m quite sure that 50 years from now, we’ll have much bigger
machines which will be the equivalent of the ‘whispering giants’ in wind energy – exploiting slower currents and bigger,
longer ocean swells.” Whether Salter’s Duck will be part of the
mix is not at all clear, but Salter himself eventually exited the
field of marine energy saying he’d “wasted too much time” on
it. He now is working on methods to reduce global warming
by increasing the reflectivity of clouds over the world’s oceans.
He looks back at the years he spent in marine energy
research with more than a little bitterness. “We had enough
money for about six years, but the rest of the time we were
fighting a sort of miserable underground rearguard action and
were always worried about whether we could pay the bills
for the staff.” Given adequate support, he remains convinced
that “we really could have had it ready to go.”
25
WIND
D OF CHANGE
The economic footprint of the energy
industry has always been enormous.
Entire societies rose and fell on the backs
of industries such as coal and oil, and each
new development in energy has had huge
spin-off effects in terms of supporting
industries and technologies.
Through our Marine and Protective
Coatings (M&PC) business and its
International Paint brand, AkzoNobel
has been one of the leaders in providing
coatings to support the offshore oil
and gas industry, as well as developing
advanced antifouling coatings for the
shipping industry. It’s no big surprise
then, that we are playing an active role
in providing coatings in the rapidly
growing field of renewable energy.
“The most prominent alternative
energy field at the moment is wind energy,”
says Worldwide Protective Coatings
Power Market Manager Jamie O’Brien.
“International Paint is very active in the
market. We are certainly in the top two in
the world.” As more and more wind farms
are being constructed offshore, he adds
that customers are looking for more durable
coatings, and M&PC is well positioned to
meet their needs.
“Because of our history of association
with oil and gas exploration, we’ve got a
huge amount of experience in marine
coatings and offshore environments,”
he explains. “And for immersed structures,
we’ve obviously got proven solutions.
International basically built its reputation
on marine vessels, and in the protective
coatings side of the business, in offshore
oil and gas installations.”
It’s clearly not a very large step then
to the wave and tidal energy markets, and
M&PC is already a major player in a fledgling
industry. “With wave and tidal, you have
concerns about bio-fouling, where fouling
equipment reduces efficiency and the
viability of a system. At International Paint,
we have foul release coatings which
prevent the build up of algae, barnacles
and other organisms without the release
of toxic materials into the environment.
Our Intersleek® range of products fit the
green profile of these marine energy
technologies and we’re actively promoting
the line for these applications.”
In fact, AkzoNobel is providing coatings
to both Pelamis Wave Power for its Pelamis
Wave Energy Converter and to Aquamarine
Power for its Oyster Wave Power system
(see main article). The Pelamis P2 machine
is 180 meters long and four meters in
diameter. Typical wave farms consist
of an array of Pelamis machines. “If things
develop as we hope,” says Pelamis
Business Development Manager Max
Carcas, “this should be a very interesting
business stream for AkzoNobel.”
That may be an understatement.
With Europe, the US and China all setting
ambitious targets for renewable energy by
2020 (Scotland has set targets of 31 percent
renewables by 2011 and 50 percent by
2020, including 10 percent from marine
energy), there’s little doubt that the entire
renewables field should remain a growth
market for many years to come.
27
When we think about generating energy, we usually think
about large public utilities and giant power stations that are
connected to the electrical grid. But many leading alternative
energy advocates favor a radically different approach – local
networks and even self-sufficient independent systems.
Probably the most outspoken supporter of small-scale
energy is Amory Lovins, the co-founder and Chief Executive
Officer of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He’s been arguing for
alternative energy and alternative energy policies since the 1970s.
Originally viewed by many as a brilliant but annoying crank, he
has doggedly continued to push for sustainable energy policies, winning over many critics and skeptics who dismissed his
views when he first came to prominence with a paper called
Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken back in 1976.
Lovins advocated “soft” technologies, which he hastened
to insist did not mean “vague, mushy, speculative or ephemeral, but rather flexible, resilient, sustainable and benign.” In
particular, he argued for energy supplies that were renewable,
diverse, flexible and relatively low-tech, appropriate in scale
to the needs and scale of the energy users and matching
“energy quality” to end-use needs. By that, he meant not
burning coal at a plant 1,000 miles away from the end-user,
converting the energy into electricity, losing much of it along
the way, and then using it eventually to heat a home – which,
he said, was “like cutting butter with a chainsaw.”
Lovins says that the most promising energy technology
of all is energy efficiency – machines and houses that use
and waste less energy. But he remains a strong believer in
decentralized systems and technologies such as small-scale
wind turbines and co-generation which have, by definition,
a very local component. Lovins even has mild praise for
George W. Bush who, as governor of Texas, signed into law
a provision which encouraged the installation of rooftop solar
cells by making it easier for homeowners to sell any excess
electricity they produced to the power grid.
Another strong advocate of distributed energy systems
is Bill McKibben, who wrote early on about the dangers of
global warming, and has been a frequent critic of “big oil”.
McKibben says that in the US in particular, in addition to its
environmental impact, the oil economy has had serious social
consequences. “Cheap oil has eroded communities,” said
McKibben in a recent interview. “We’re the first people with
no practical need for each other. Everything comes from a
great distance through anonymous and invisible transactions.
We’ve taken that to be a virtue, but it’s as much a curse.”
Americans, claims McKibben, have half as many friends
today as they did 50 years ago, but because they are so
spread out (among other reasons), they use twice the energy
that Europeans do. “That level of disconnection,” he told a TV
interviewer in 2007, “turns out to have been a mistake and
one of the ways to remedy that is to rebuild those kinds of
economies that cause us to depend a little more on each
other, and at the same time cause us to use a hell of a lot less
fuel and deter global warming as well.”
Lovins’ Rocky Mountain Institute says that small is not only
beautiful, but profitable. “Centralized electricity systems with
giant power plants are becoming obsolete. Smaller, decentralized electricity supply sources are cheaper, cleaner, less
risky, more flexible and quicker to deploy.” Both McKibben
and Lovins also point out that the failure of a large system has
much greater consequences than when there is an isolated
failure in a distributed system.
WORDS Brian Guest
Grass isn’t green, blood isn’t red. Welcome to the forgotten world of the color-blind. Millions of people
around the world suffer from the condition, but their visual impairment is rarely taken into account.
Occasionally, however…
W
ay back in 1993, the eminent neurologist and
writer, Oliver Sacks, traveled to Micronesia. He
was drawn by intriguing reports of an isolated
community of islanders on the Pacific atoll of
Pingelap who were born totally color-blind.
In his compelling and highly engaging book, The Island of
the Colorblind, he describes life in this colorless world for a
group of islanders afflicted by achromatopsia, an extremely
rare congenital disorder affecting more than 5 percent
of the population on Pingelap and the neighboring island
of Pohenpei.
Often unable to read or discern fine detail, the islanders
were effectively banished from a life outside in the sunlight
because they were painfully sensitive to bright light. But Sacks
found that they had developed acute compensatory skills;
a highly evolved language based on the perceptions of tone,
luminance and shadow, and lived fulfilling existences, albeit in
a virtually heightened state of reality.
A literary success, Sacks’ account chronicled the lives of
a tiny group of visually-impaired people afflicted by a rare inherited disorder – one in 100,000 people are affected – known
in medical terms as rod monochromacy. This group represents the truly color-blind because they’re only able to see life
in black and white.
Although primarily an anthropological study, the book’s
popularity turned the spotlight on the far larger, but often
invisible, group of less acutely color-impaired people known
in the public mind as “the color-blind”. A group who, according to Dr Rafael Caruso, MD, are ill-served by common
preconceptions about the condition.
29
“Let’s begin by putting one thing straight,” he explains from
his National Eye Institute office at The National Institute of Health
in Bethesda, Maryland, in the US. “The term color-blind is a
misnomer. Most people called color-blind have more or less
normal color vision, only it’s defective in some way or other.
They can discriminate between hues, but not in the same way
that people with normal color vision do.”
About one in 20 people are color deficient – in the US that
is 11 million people in a total population of 310 million. Color
deficiency is either congenital (it affects 6 to 8 percent of
males), or it is acquired. Most of those afflicted, however, are
born with the defect. If a man is born with a color deficiency
– which is normally inherited from the mother – he will pass it
on to his daughters, who will be carriers.
The human eye is able to see normal color vision when
light stimulates the millions of receptor cells in the retina
known as rods and cones. “Color vision is mediated by three
types of cones in the retina,” adds Dr Caruso. “The cones
allow us to perceive color during the day. The rods mediate
night vision, but cannot distinguish color.”
There are about 130 million of these receptors, of which
seven million are involved in color vision. The three types
of cone essential to normal color vision respond either to
short wavelengths of light (blue sensitive), medium wavelengths of light (green sensitive) or long wavelengths of light
(red sensitive). Color deficiency – or as it is commonly known,
color-blindness – occurs when there’s an imbalance in the
combination of the three.
Of the congenital deficiencies, more than 99.9 percent
involve an inability to discriminate between red and green.
Daltonism, as this condition is known, is named after John
Dalton, a leading 18th century chemist who famously
described blood as bottle green, considered a laurel leaf a
good match for red sealing wax and generally was known for
the faulty application of color in his work. Paradoxically, red
and green sensitive people can often discriminate objects
that normally sighted people cannot. Color defective pilots
are often able to see camouflage that normal color vision
pilots fail to see.
The second category, or “acquired” color deficiency, is
primarily due to common retinal diseases such as diabetic
retinopathy, age-related macular disease and optic nerve
disease. The aging process, which leads to a yellowing of the
lens in some people, is another common cause of color deficiency.
Looking ahead, Dr Caruso doesn’t expect any seismic
developments in the treatment of people with common color
deficiencies, although gene therapy looks promising with
trials ongoing in Philadelphia and London for a possible
treatment for an inherited retinal disease that may pave the
way for treating common red/green color deficiency. For the
moment though, the medical world is relying on new technology and techniques to help improve the lot of color deficient
people, as well as raising public and industry awareness
about these conditions.
“Filters and other aids can help the color defective see
things better, but they’re not cures,” says Caruso. “So obviously we’re looking for industry and the professions to think
long and hard about the ways that they can make life easier
for these people, either in the processes they use, the products they make, or the designs they come up with. We would
just like to see a more inclusive approach regarding what are
essentially very common conditions.”
It’s this clarion call for help that AkzoNobel’s Sikkens®
brand has responded to. Sikkens – a global player in architectural coatings – in cooperation with Blind Color (a Dutch
advisory bureau), has devised a revolutionary new tool for
architects, designers and anyone else involved in the design
process to reference the selection of color on the color-blind
at the design stage.
The Color Blindness Converter, which uses two simple disks
with various displays, enables design professionals to immediately gauge whether selected color combinations represent a
problem to people exhibiting red/green deficiency, as well as
providing designers with a guide to which color schemes can
easily be distinguished by people with the same condition.
The man behind its development is former Global Brand
Manager at Sikkens International, Frans Boumans. Two years
ago, he was approached by Meinhard Noothoven van Goor,
director of Blind Color. His mission (being severely color-blind
himself) is to change attitudes among designers, architects,
engineers and civil servants regarding the obstacles that face
color-impaired people in their everyday lives. This could involve simple things ranging from the design of traffic lights,
maps, logos and train signals to urban street signage and
coherent directions in public buildings. Blind Color suggested
working together and Sikkens was immediately interested.
“If you claim to be the leading color authority in the country,
then you have to stand up and be counted when this type of
request comes in,” says Boumans. “This is particularly the
case when it concerns a group of stakeholders who are actually being disadvantaged because of color choices. It also
came as a big surprise to us that so many people were
affected by the condition, so it represented a real opportunity
for us as a brand to do something for people who are actually
disabled by color.”
Adds André Koster, Communications Manager at Sikkens
Paints: “We targeted architects and designers because they
are at the beginning of the design process for color schemes
for construction projects such as buildings, hospitals and
airports. We’ve had a positive response from architects, but
what really took us by surprise was that most of them had
never really thought about considering people who might
have a color impairment in their designs. If you pardon the
pun, it was a real eye-opener for them.”
For Sikkens, the introduction of the Color Blindness
Converter – which has been distributed to architects and
designers in Europe and the United States – achieves two
goals. First, it sends a message to all its stakeholders that as
a business it’s not afraid to embrace all the issues confronting
its customers around the subject of color deficiency. At the
same time, the converter provides Sikkens with a tool to help
customers improve their businesses and deliver better products that they will ultimately be more satisfied with.
“People with a color deficiency are customers too,”
concludes Koster. “It’s true the tool has a strong corporate
social responsibility element to it, but one thing we’d like to
emphasize is that it was not designed for people with some
kind of handicap. No, there’s a very positive element and that
concerns clarity and aesthetic choice for people with a minor
impairment to what is otherwise normal sight.”
THE TOP TEN DA
ANGE
ERS FOR
R THE COLOR-BLIND
Fire extinguishers
The red and green pressure
signals on fire extinguishers
are invisible to the color-blind
Emergency stop buttons
Generally speaking, emergency
stop buttons in trains, escalators
or on any piece of heavy or
dangerous equipment are red.
Operators are rarely, if ever,
tested for color blindness, which
could have serious consequences
Mountain or skiing siignage
The color-blind need to take
extra care if they are keen
mountain climbers, skiers or hill
walkers. Red cross signs against
a mountain to warn of an abyss
are actually invisible against
a green backdrop. Likewise,
the red flags used to warn of the
end of a ski piste are similarly
invisible against any trees that
might be in the background
Car dash
hboards
Critical red signals used on black
indicators such as the fuel tank,
speed, engine temperature or oil
gauge are imperceptible to the
color-blind
Brake and tail lights
These vehicle lights,
especially on certain eastern
European trucks or on vintage
cars, are completely invisible
Cycle lane markings
For some color-blind people,
the red street markings that
denote cycle paths are visible
as grey
Traffic lights
s
With the color-blind unable to
differentiate between red and
green, even the most routine
traffic maneuver represents
significant risk when approached
under neon streetlights,
or against green shrubbery
Central heatting systems
Each domestic boiler seems to have its
own ideas as to where the red “off” and
green “on” buttons should be placed.
Without any kind of universal code, where
say red is always at the top, this represents
unnecessary danger and confusion to the
international color-blind community
Railway crossings
In certain countries such as the Netherlands,
the red lights used at railway crossings are
invisible, unless LEDs are used. Also, red lights
are not always at the top, unlike traffic lights,
which again makes them very hard to distinguish
Medical pills
No hard and fast rules exist for
the color coding of pills, which
for the color-blind adds a whole
new level of danger to every trip
to the medicine cabinet
FO
OR
WORDS Hans Wijers
PHOTOGRAPHY Shinichi Maruyama PORT
TRAIT Maarten Corbijn
It was Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter who popularized the theory of
creative destruction. But what is it and why is it so relevant today? We asked
AkzoNobel’s CEO – a former Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs and firm
believer in the concept – to explain.
35
C
“
reative destruction is basically a kind of cleaning
mechanism in economic life. It means that innovations from the past have come to an end in terms of
adding value to society; they have been overtaken
and replaced by new approaches and ideas. It’s simply the
natural end of something which used to be very good.
History has shown that creative destruction occurs in cycles
or waves. The concept assumes that from time to time, a new
major trigger will drive growth. A new technology emerges which
substitutes previous ones. A simple but effective example is
what happened with horses. At one time, man relied heavily on
physical horse power. Eventually, they were replaced by cars and
other forms of motorized transport. We still use horses, obviously,
but for very different things.
The story of the encyclopedia is another great example.
Selling them used to be a flourishing business and buying a
new set was a big family event. When the age of the home
computer dawned, Microsoft created a simple CD version
which was often given free as part of a software package.
The publishers of the printed encyclopedias weren’t too
impressed with the quality, so were not unduly worried.
But they misunderstood the market. They didn’t realize that
people were no longer bothered about having this beautiful row
of books. The CDs offered exactly what they wanted, access
to knowledge. The publishers completely missed the potential of the technology and the real needs of the consumers.
So creative destruction is driven by competition and entrepreneurial thinking. Innovations are the source of creative
destruction. Which means it’s inevitable, because there’s no
progress without constant renewal.
In many ways, you almost need an economic recession
to really see the concept at work. What’s happening now,
during these times of global economic turmoil, is that we are
seeing weaknesses within some institutions because they are
exposed to completely different circumstances. Weaknesses
that have been hidden by a favorable climate. But things won’t
change overnight. There is always a phase of chaos. The old
institutions may collapse and die, but the new ones are not fully
developed. So there’s generally a period of stagnation while the
new solutions and approaches prepare to take off. If we use
the example of the automotive industry again, suppose cars
were to be powered by electricity. You’d need a completely
different infrastructure to “refuel” them. Because the necessary scale in manufacturing certain solutions would be lacking,
they would be far too expensive. Which means they would
not be as accessible for the mass market as the old technology. Hence this period of chaos as the new technology
establishes itself.
This does, of course, mean that large companies have to
ask themselves important questions. Do we have technologies
somewhere that could actually cannibalize the key technologies
on which we base our current organization? Are we involved in
those? Do we have the mechanisms in the company to make
sure that we have our antennae in the right direction? I think
the big question for a company like ours is to ask if we really
understand the deep needs of our customers. Are the technologies we have that are different, better geared towards their
needs than current products? This approach requires a very
open mind, which is why it’s so important that AkzoNobel has
values such as having the courage and curiosity to question
and embracing entrepreneurial thinking. It means we have a
climate in our company where people have their antennae out
and are investing time in networks other than the ones you
would expect them to be active in. To be honest, history has
shown us over and over again that it’s quite a challenge for
established companies to grasp these opportunities.
If you look at current market conditions and dynamics,
we know that one of the big drivers for the future will be that
all the technologies we have used in the past that require a
lot of energy, that are not geared towards using less natural
resources and do not facilitate full recycling or minimization of
waste will come to an end. Therefore, as the situation begins
to improve and the economy starts moving again, we will experience major problems with regard to carbon dioxide, water
supply and certain raw materials that will no longer be around
in sufficient quantities.
Which raises another question about survival. If creative
destruction inevitably means some things will die, how do
you ensure your own survival? One thing is clear. Scale is not
enough. It may be a necessary condition for success in global
markets, but it is not a sufficient condition. A sufficient condition in addition to scale is being fit. And fit has a very specific
meaning in this context. You need to be able to adjust yourself quickly to different needs and opportunities. If the consequence of scale is large bureaucracies carved in stone, you
may feel comfortable by being large. But you may actually be
doomed to fail. If your company wants to be a positive source
of creative destruction in the sense that you want to be the
one who embarks on it, you have to have entrepreneurship in
your organization. In the end, it’s all about innovation. Which
creates interesting organizational questions for companies like
ours, because you need the scale in order to be a global leader,
but you also need to be fit for the future, which means you have
to be able to adjust, so you need to have entrepreneurship. The
key is to strike a balance between creativity and destruction,
continuity and change.
I suppose you can draw parallels with Darwin’s evolutionary
theories. It’s not the biggest, but the fittest that will survive.
Why? Because they are able to read the changes in the environment. They adjust and adapt. If you don’t, you might be very
big, but you’ll become a dinosaur. I suppose you could argue
that some of the very large financial institutions are the dinosaurs of the phase of the economy we are seeing today. Some
of the automotive giants clearly are, and there will be more.
In the end, it all boils down to progress. There is renewal
within certain paradigms, but from time to time you need
a paradigm shift, otherwise things level off and you have no
evolution. There will be no innovation if you don’t destroy
the things that were the solutions of the past. Which means
creative destruction is unavoidable.”
37
WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY David Lichtneker
Statistics suggest that the number of women in top jobs is falling. Fast. Things could easily change,
however, especially if the female population comes to realize they can do something about it.
D
id you know that it would take a snail 212 years to
crawl the entire length of the Great Wall of China?
This rather obscure nugget of trivia was unearthed
by a somewhat unlikely source – the UK’s Equality
and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). It helped them drive
home a rather more startling statistic. Apparently, 212 years
is just slightly longer than the 200 years it will take for women
to be equally represented in the UK Parliament, at the present
rate of progress.
The snail analogy – and it’s an effective one – highlighted
a number of disturbing findings in the EHRC’s latest Sex
and Power report. Published annually, the study focuses on
women in positions of authority and influence, and the 2008
survey results make for uncomfortable reading. Because
while it won’t take two centuries for women in the UK to
achieve equality in all areas, they’ve still got a good few decades to wait before they start claiming anything close to equal
status in many of them.
For example, according to the report, an adventurous snail could inch its way from Land’s End at the south
western tip of England to John O’Groats at the very top of
Scotland – and halfway back again – in the 73 years it will
take for equal numbers of UK women to reach the pinnacle of FTSE 100 companies. The desperately slow pace
of change is further emphasized by yet another molluscan
metaphor. It’s claimed by the EHRC that a snail could crawl
around the M25 encircling London a total of nine times
in the 55 years it will take women in the UK to achieve equality in
the judiciary.
“We always speak of a glass ceiling. These figures reveal
that in some cases it appears to be made of reinforced concrete,” says Nicola Brewer, Chief Executive of the EHRC. “We
need radical change to support those who are doing great
work and help those who want to work better and release
talent. Britain cannot afford to go on marginalizing or rejecting
people who fail to fit into traditional work patterns.”
The Sex and Power report has appeared five times
now and the 2008 survey showed the biggest number of
reversals (fewer women holding top posts) since publication
began. Put in a global perspective, the UK certainly seems
to have some catching up to do. The report highlights
women’s representation in parliament as a classic example.
The UK ranks 70th (with 19.3 percent of its Parliament
made up of women). This compares somewhat unfavorably
with the likes of Rwanda (first with 48.8 percent), Sweden
(second with 47 percent), Argentina (fifth with 40 percent),
Afghanistan (29th with 27.7 percent) and Iraq (35th with
25.5 percent).
“Younger women’s aspiration is in danger of giving way to
frustration,” adds Brewer. “Many of them are now excelling
at school and are achieving great things in higher education.
But workplaces forged in an era of ‘stay at home mums’ and
‘breadwinner dads’ are putting too many barriers in the way,
resulting in an avoidable loss of talent.”
One person who doesn’t necessarily agree with these
comments is Jennifer Midura. Recently appointed as
AkzoNobel’s Director of Corporate Strategy (having joined
in 2008 following the ICI acquisition), Midura is one of the
company’s most senior female employees. But while she
admits to not knowing exactly why women are struggling
to make it to the top, she contests some of Brewer’s views.
“I’ve worked in the US, the UK and now in the Netherlands,
in very traditional workplaces. Not for a minute have
I felt like I haven’t been getting good opportunities because
of the work environment. There is clearly a problem achieving
equality of advancement, and I must admit I have difficulty
38
understanding why no real progress is being made, but in
my personal experience, traditional workplace environments
have not been a problem.”
Many people have tried (and obviously failed) to come up
with solutions, but one area where Midura thinks a positive
impact can be made is in the hiring of new talent. “There are
certainly things that can be done to radically change the recruitment approach. You could go to different places to recruit, for
example, or perhaps target your advertisements in different
ways. More women could also be trained as interviewers,
or you could insist that any headhunter shortlists include at
least one woman. And you shouldn’t immediately assume that
a woman is going to have children and won’t want to travel,
or that because she already has children, she won’t want to travel.
There’s a whole issue with people’s mindsets and interviewer
training which definitely can be addressed.”
With seven years at one of the world’s largest global management consulting firms on her CV, as well as seven as head of
strategy and performance at the former ICI, Midura has climbed
the career ladder at two industries with a reputation for not
exactly throwing doors open to the fairer sex. “When I worked
as a management consultant, people were worried about how
our clients in the industrial environment would react to dealing
with a woman,” she reveals. “Then you get to a certain point in
your career when you’re successful and those concerns stop. To
be honest, I think there were many circumstances when clients
actually found me easier to deal with precisely because I wasn’t
a man. I’ve heard similar things during my time in the chemical
industry. That because it’s largely male-dominated, customers
don’t want a woman to be sent out to speak to them. But in
my experience, that simply isn’t the case in the vast majority of
situations. Customers are not all the same and the vast majority
don’t think like that.”
Look beyond: equalityhumanrights.com
In an effort to at least ensure the right environment
exists internally, AkzoNobel is in the process of developing a
Diversity and Inclusion action plan. Supported by the Board of
Management, the initiative is targeting two main areas – gender
and cultural ethnicity – with Midura installed as a member of
the project team, which is led by Silke Heitmann, another of the
company’s very successful female executives. The process is
still in its early phases, with a workshop having being staged
in December 2008 and the Board having approved a number
of recommendations. The clear objective is to become a more
diverse and inclusive company, and AkzoNobel Supervisory
Board member – and former member of the UK Parliament –
Virginia Bottomley, who addressed the December meeting, is in
no doubt about the benefits of the program: “The most successful companies are those that are committed to fostering diversity
and inclusion,” she told the delegates. “Diversity makes excellent
business sense.”
Midura is also convinced that the program will make an
important difference, particularly when it comes to changing people’s attitudes. “One thing that surprised me during
the December event was the number of times the younger
women in particular talked about being concerned about
special programs for career development for women,” she
observes. “They felt it would undermine them if they were
seen to be getting special treatment of any kind because
they are women. I think a very fundamental attitude change
is needed, which says why shouldn’t people get special
treatment because they are women? Other people have other
advantages because they’re men, so why shouldn’t you get
ahead because you’re a woman? Maybe there are some jobs
you won’t get because you’re a woman, and maybe there are
some jobs you will get. I just think women need to stop making excuses and putting themselves down and looking gift
39
horses in the mouth. I really would like to start having more
open conversations about this kind of thing.”
Perhaps one of the most memorable – and frightening –
women of recent times who knew the true meaning of power
and influence was Margaret Thatcher. British Prime Minister
for more than 11 years, she became the first woman to lead a
major western democracy and won three successive General
Elections. She was one of the dominant political figures of 20th
century Britain and Thatcherism, as it became known, continues
to have an influence. A woman who once famously quipped: “If
you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done,
ask a woman,” she earned the nickname the Iron Lady for a
reason. Yet, love her or loathe her, she still looms large over a
Conservative Party which has lacked a leader with her sheer
presence ever since she stood down in 1990. But what was it
about her that made her so successful and can today’s careerminded woman learn anything from her achievements?
“I have to say that in general I disagreed with Margaret
Thatcher’s political position on many things,” admits Midura.
“But I admired her resolve to do what was right, even if it was
unpopular or difficult. She seemed like a really good leader of
people. She brought in everyone’s views; listened to the facts
without panicking or shrinking from reality; tried to build a consensus view whenever possible, and when consensus wasn’t
possible, took a decision herself. If decisions didn’t work out
the way she intended, she never shirked from it or tried to pass
things off as someone else’s fault. She also demonstrated some
degree of class in stepping down from her position when it was
clear that she no longer had the support necessary to do her
job. So although I would not like to be known as the Iron Lady
myself, and while I hope that I am more approachable and likeable than she is – and have a better haircut and dress sense – I
think there’s a lot to admire and learn from.”
40
Words: Jeanette Gerritsma
DRAWING
G FROM EXPERIENCE
When it comes to girl power, few female
icons have remained at the peak of their
powers longer than Barbie. Having recently
turned 50, to some she remains little more
than a child’s toy. But to others, like number
one Dutch artist Marlene Dumas for example,
she’s an ideal subject for thought-provoking
and often controversial expression.
Considered to be one of the most
fascinating artists working today, Dumas’
approach – merging issues of race, sexuality
and social identity with personal experience
– has been greatly influenced by her
background. Born and raised in South
Africa under the Apartheid regime, she
was surrounded by turmoil and now calls
on those defining experiences to create
her own unique, hard-hitting perspective
on the world.
Widely regarded as being one of the
world’s most profoundly feminist contemporary artists working today, she focuses on
the human figure and paints the human
condition as she sees it. Stripped bare of
the niceties of moral consolation and
anecdotal detail, her portraits are direct
and cruel renditions of reality. Often sexually
explicit, her work portrays a disturbing
honesty and she cleverly questions the
viewer’s individual morality, ethics and
adherence to ideological convention.
As she says herself: “My best works are
erotic displays of mental confusions (with
intrusions of irrelevant information).”
Having moved to Amsterdam in 1976
to continue her art studies, Dumas hit the
headlines in 2005 when her 1987 painting
The Teacher (sub a) sold for $3.34 million at
Christie’s in London and she became the
world’s most expensive living female artist
overnight. Nevertheless, the response to her
work remains divided between those who
admire her earnest theatricality and those
who deplore her theatrical earnestness.
Barbie [pictured left] – part of the
AkzoNobel Art Foundation collection – is
one of her less visually explicit works, but
still represents Dumas’ passion for
unraveling social and racial preconception.
Barbie the doll might well be the ultimate
role model for the perfect, white, morally
flawless woman, but Dumas comments on
these socially correct features by rendering
the blue-eyed beauty with a somewhat
black complexion. She finds an eternal
beauty not in immediate pleasure, but in
the timeless gap between the cherished
and the unspeakable.
World renowned and much in demand,
she has staged solo exhibitions at the
Tate Gallery in London (1995), the Museum
of Modern Art in Frankfurt (1998), and the
MUHKA in Antwerp (1999), while her
travelling exhibition Measuring Your Own
Grave (2008/2009) has been resident at
the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los
Angeles, New York’s Museum of Modern
Art and the Menil Collection in Houston.
Dumas, however, has never really been
pre-occupied with her career. On the
contrary, being somewhat modest and loyal
to her first studio, she does not like to travel
and was in no hurry to exhibit her work in
the US. In fact, her first exhibition of
paintings was staged as late as 1985 at
the Galerie Paul Andriesse in Amsterdam
– her Dutch representing gallery to this day –
showcasing only nine portraits. Quality
therefore prevails over quantity, both then
and now.
Art: Barbie 1997, numbered XVII/XX, lithography, 50 x 38 cm
Look beyond: akzonobel.com/artfoundation
WORDS Jim Wake
Seafaring history is awash with stories of epic battles and heroic adventures.
In Sweden, they tell a strange tale of a mighty vessel which sank just minutes
into its maiden voyage. Four centuries later, the ancient wreck is now resting
in a museum. But it continues to hide secrets, even though scientists are
trying to unlock its many mysteries…
Left: The Vasa in its permanent home at a maritime museum
in Stockholm, Sweden
Chapter 1
45
compounds, there was serious concern that the problem might
be sulfuric acid eating away at the wood with such ferocity
that the ship could fall apart in almost no time. So it was only
a slight exaggeration to describe our tale as a detective story.
One of those involved was Gunnar Almkvist, a chemist who
Summer, and it was cool and rainy. The royal gunship was was beginning work on a doctorate at the Swedish University
berthed in its familiar spot in Stockholm harbor. To the casual of Agricultural Sciences. “At first it appeared to be more of
observer, there was no reason to be alarmed. But all was not a surface problem,” he recalls. “The surface precipitations of
right in the world. Something malevolent was taking place, iron-sulfur compounds scared the Vasa curators, because
unseen at first, slower than molasses in January, slower the surface is not only important to how things look, but
even than old-fashioned, solvent-based paint drying, as slow, also contains within it vital historical information.” Almkvist’s
in fact, as crystals forming. And then, this malevolence was adviser, Ingmar Persson, had his own suspicions – that the
apparent to those who bothered to look. The very substance sulfur was less a problem and more a symptom, and that the
that had sustained the ship for hundreds of years had been real culprit was iron. “As we got into our analysis of the wood,
compromised. On the surface of the ship, so lovingly restored we could see more and more that iron was not only situated
and so greatly admired, this malevolence manifested itself on the surface, but was actually doing more harm deep in the
– as scaly sulfur-iron precipitates – a disfiguring pox on the wood, as the initiator,” continues Almkvist.
great Swedish beauty. What was at hand, and how could it
And so, like all good stories, this one had a dramatic twist.
be stopped?
Because if iron was the culprit, it could mean that the wood
No, A Magazine is not participating in the annual Bulwer- structure itself was degrading – depolymerizing to put a techniLytton Fiction Contest for bad writing. Nor have we given cal term on it – and depolymerized wood is not really wood anyover to filling these pages with gothic mysteries. But we are more, and loses its structural integrity. For his PhD research,
reporting on a mysterious affliction which threatened one of Almkvist studied the chemistry of the Vasa, mainly analyzing
Sweden’s most popular tourist attractions, the Vasa. A 17th small core samples taken from the ship and the site of the
century gunship, it was raised from the seabed in 1961 and wreck. He then examined possible remedies to halt the process.
then restored to much of its former grandeur in the succeeding The research confirmed that the iron which had penetrated
decades. The problem was that during the summer of 2000, deep into the wood of the ship – most likely from the 5,500 iron
unsightly precipitates began to appear on wooden surfaces, bolts that had originally held the ship together, but totally rusted
and although some experts had suspicions about what might away during the years on the seabed – was causing an oxidabe causing this blemishing, no one could be certain.
tion process which was breaking down the wood. The salts
Of course, when you have a 400-year-old wooden ship, which had appeared on the surface and had originally raised
you can’t just go and tear it apart to find out what the source the alarm that led to the investigation were then no longer
of the problem is. But because the deposits were sulfur-iron viewed as a threat, but rather as a cosmetic problem.
In which
h a mysterious affliction
presentss itself
47
The logical conclusion Almkvist drew was that if the iron
could be removed from the wood, that would significantly
reduce the threat. To do so, he immersed some samples in
a bath containing chelating compounds – chemicals which
form bonds with metal ions. Chelates are frequently used in
agriculture to add iron and other metals to poor soils. They
are also used in the pulp and paper industry to remove metal
irons from the pulp during the paper manufacturing process.
In this case, the goal was to use the chelates to “capture” the
iron and remove it from the wood by diffusion.
In this tale, AkzoNobel plays only a supporting (though
certainly heroic) role, as the provider of two chelates,
EDDHMA – or, for the chemically aware reader, ethylenediimino-bis(2-hydroxy-4-methylphenyl)acetic acid – and DTPA
(diethylenetriamine penta-acetic acid), marketed under the
name Dissolvine®. The company donated the chelates for the
study. Almqvist published his findings last year, showing that
the chelates could successfully remove a very substantial
percentage of the iron from the wood, and concluding, as
researchers are wont to do, that “further research would be
necessary.” Those studies would determine if the “re-wetting
process” which would be required in applying chelates to the
Vasa might itself involve risks. But the efficacy of EDDHMA
and DTPA had clearly been shown.
Chapter 2
In which the generral fin
nding
is applied to specifific ca
ases
Meanwhile, a few hundred kilometers to the south, off the
Swedish island of Gotland, a strange object was discovered
on the seabed. It was large and elongated, and clearly not of
the natural world. Further investigation revealed it to be an iron
cannon – still connected to a wooden carriage – encrusted
with all manner of maritime life. Once raised, the cannon
and carriage were transported to the Studio Västsvensk
Konservering (West Sweden Conservation Studio) in
Gothenburg, where archaeological materials conservator
Inger Nyström Godfrey examined them. Not surprisingly, it
turned out that iron from the cast iron cannon had penetrated
the wooden carriage.
After meticulously separating the fragile iron gun from the
wooden carriage – accomplished, says Nyström, by chipping
away the “concretized” marine life by hand with hammers
and chisels – the carriage was immersed in a fresh water
bath, to await Almkvist’s conclusions. “After Gunnar finished
his dissertation, he came down to discuss with us what we
could do,” Nyström explains. “We took some core samples
and studied the iron and sulfur species to try to determine
what and how much chelating agent to use, and decided to
use DTPA at a pH of 7.” This preventive approach to ironinitiated depolymerization using DTPA and EDDHMA is a new,
and potentially quite valuable, development. Nyström notes
that Almkvist’s studies have also contributed significantly
to a better understanding of what problems iron causes
below the surface of a wooden artifact. As we went to press,
the process of iron removal was beginning in Gothenburg.
Nyström expects it will continue for about two years, with
the solution changed at regular intervals. The iron cannon will
undergo its own process of stabilization to remove corrosive
salts, and then the carriage and cannon will be returned to
Gotland to be displayed at a local museum.
Nyström, who divides her time between Gothenburg
and the Museum of Western Australia in Fremantle, near
Perth, is also about to begin a project there to remove the
iron from a “deadeye” (pictured), a wooden and iron device
which was an essential element of ship rigging. In addition,
she and a colleague will be carrying out a study to compare
the performance of EDDHMA and DTPA under a range of
controlled conditions. Dozens of shipwrecks dot the western
coastal waters of Australia, and the study should provide
valuable information to the materials conservators at the
museum on how to best preserve a fragile heritage.
“I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of discovering the story
that these objects tell,” reveals Nyström. “As a conservator,
it’s always important to work closely with archaeologists.
Conservation doesn’t stand alone if you want to get the most
out of the object and get the story and truly see its beauty.
It’s a wonderful experience to be able to actually touch these
artifacts. In a way, this job is a mixture of professions – part
doctor, part detective and a little bit of being a cleaning lady
too. We do a lot of preventive work, like doctors or dentists,
and active care to keep objects in good condition. But
sometimes it’s also detective work, where you have a metal
object which is so corroded, you don’t really know what it
is. And when you do discover something, it’s very exciting.
That’s the fascinating thing with this work.”
As for the ancient Swedish beauty berthed in Stockholm
harbor, Gunnar Almkvist offers some reassurance. “I’m
continuing to study the Vasa, looking at the basic chemistry
of those degradation processes in the wood relating to
mechanical stability. We want to see if the degradation which
takes place will affect the whole ship mechanically. I think in
some way it will, but what the time span will be, we cannot
say. Of course, nothing will last forever, but we don’t know if
it’s decades or centuries. At least it won’t happen in the very
short term.” The story continues.
WORDS David Lichtneker PHOTOGRAPHY UNStudio / Christian Richters
The world’s cities are being suffocated by the dreary overuse of
drab concrete, glass and steel. A new lease of life is needed,
and as a recent study has revealed, all the urban landscape needs
is an injection of color.
48
Left: Casa Confetti in Utrecht,
the Netherlands
H
ow would you feel
if your home town
was described by
two influential guide
books as the sort of place
you only visit if you need help
in quickly getting somewhere
else? That’s exactly what
happened to the inhabitants of Sortland in Norway.
Summed up as having “little
to offer but an overnight stop
or a petrol station to help you
move on,” the small northern
outpost had been largely
anonymous before its date
with the pages of destiny.
Then a local artist decided
to do something about it and
really put Sortland on the map.
Stung into action, Bjørn Elvenes worked with the municipal
government and hatched a plan to paint the entire town center
blue. It took several years and around 50,000 liters of paint
(supplied by AkzoNobel), with the company even being called
in to devise a color palette in order to resolve some local differr
ences of opinion. But the transformation was a huge success,
with 17 blocks being painted in various shades of blue which
now vividly reflect Sortland’s maritime and fishing heritage.
What happened in the far north of Norway isn’t just a tale
of how tourists were persuaded to linger a little longer than the
time it takes to catch a bus. It’s an ode to identity, pride and
heritage. But more than that, the Sortland story proves that
the introduction of color into urban environments can have a
hugely beneficial impact.
For a more famous example of how color has been used to
radically improve a major population center, you have to travel
to the rather unlikely destination of Tirana, capital of Albania.
When unconventional mayor Edi Rama was elected into office in 2000, he immediately set about transforming the city’s
drab architecture and decaying infrastructure. Grim concrete
façades were painted in a blaze of color and decorated with a
riot of abstract designs. The city became a blank canvas, and
while some naturally objected, Rama’s controversial approach
proved to be a catalyst for social change. Sidewalks were
repaired, street lights were installed, waste was removed and
open green spaces started appearing. Tirana suddenly took
on a new lease of life.
But despite these obvious success stories, introducing
color into urban areas still remains taboo. Modern architecture
in particular largely steers clear of color, concentrating more
on shape and form and relying on the lifeless hues generally of-
51
fered by concrete, glass and
steel. Color is therefore very
much a second class citizen
when it comes to contemporary urban planning and design. But are people happy in
these surroundings? History
would suggest the answer
is no. Take a look at ancient
towns such as Portofino and
Positano in Italy, St John’s
in Newfoundland, or the old
fishing village of Polperro
in Cornwall, England, and
the buildings are bursting
with color. These are bright,
cheerful places, radiating
with life and energy. There
isn’t a drab, soulless façade
in sight. This is clearly how people once chose to live. So why
have things changed? Where has all the color gone? Is there
still a place for it in modern urban society and if so how should
it be used?
Recently, internationally renowned Dutch architectural firm
UNStudio was commissioned by AkzoNobel to conduct an
independent research study into the use of color. They were
essentially asked to look at what cultural, societal, aesthetic,
technological and economic barriers are preventing a more
widespread and meaningful use of color in contemporary
architecture. The studio – co-founded by highly respected
architect Ben van Berkel – has already delivered its pre-study
conclusions, which state that there can be no doubt about the
important role color can play in the urban environment. “The
effect and influence that color has is profound and as architects
we are privileged with the opportunity to be able to include color
within our design tools,” says the official research document.
It also reveals that there are various issues that need to
be addressed. Challenging the homogeneity of the modern
city, for example. “Global access to building materials and
construction methods has encouraged the uniformity of the
ever-expanding modern city,” notes the report. “The danger of
repetitious standardization of building elements is that it can
lead to monotony and in turn lack of place, with the result that
nothing unique, nothing distinguishable marks the environment upon which to orientate yourself.” The research adds that
another barrier to progress is the fact that the historical value
of color has diminished, often being relegated to secondary
status, leaving strong architectural form to dominate. Three
themes have therefore been proposed for further investigation: color as a cultural connector, color as a social activator
and color as a public attractor.
52
One recent UNStudio design which incorporates all three
of these themes – and then some – is the color palette they
designed for the Agora Theater in Lelystad, the Netherlands
(pictured on page 48). The vivid colors – which sparked
controversy among some of the town’s residents – mimic the
effect of light reflecting off water onto low-lying clouds. This
bold use of color still provokes strong feelings locally and the
theater is a regular topic of conversation in the Netherlands.
But such has been its impact that the colors used in the
Agora project – part of a major revamp of the city center – are
now being incorporated into Lelystad’s official crest. They
have become part of the city’s very identity.
“When you see daring buildings like this, whether people
in the city like it or not, it becomes a focal point in the urban
landscape and I think it’s great,” says Myron Belej, an urban
planner from Edmonton, Canada, who for years has been
passionately championing the reintroduction of color into
modern cities. “There’s a timeless quality involved here. For
example, you can look at a paining by someone like Picasso
or Van Gogh and you just stand in awe of it. I think this sort of
quality is present in the Agora Theater.”
As well as simply making places look better, color has long
been shown to have numerous positive effects, particularly
when it comes to influencing people’s moods. Belej highlights
its ability to get a reaction (the Agora Theater), to bring out our
emotions and make us feel alive. “It also has the benefit of
being able to sanitize or modernize a space,” he adds. “Color
makes places exciting, it brings people together and can
also touch us spiritually.” He mentions Boulder, Colorado,
in the US and Curitiba in Brazil as just two examples of cities
that have recently made a big effort to use color to liven up
the local environment, particularly within their mass transit
networks. The Heidelberg Project in Detroit, Michigan, has
used art and color to completely revitalize one of the area’s
more run-down neighborhoods, even turning it into a tourist
attraction; the subway system in the same US city features
color in the form of murals to inspire tourists and citizens
alike by sharing the city’s history of manufacturing in the auto
industry. When asked how his home city stacks up in terms of
urban color, Belej only says that “Edmonton, like most North
American cities, could be doing a lot more to incorporate it.”
An expert in big picture planning, Belej has traveled
extensively. In his professional capacity, he gives lectures
on the subject of color and why it needs to be introduced
more into the urban landscape. One of the most recent
was at a major event late last year, which was attended
by planners from across the province of Alberta. “The use
of color typically isn’t legislated in municipal permitting or
development approval processes,” he points out, “so it often
isn’t debated or discussed in the initial designs. Hopefully
the UNStudio study will help to change that mindset by
encouraging planners and architects to make color more
than an afterthought. This study is a fantastic initiative and
certainly has the potential to challenge our design practices.
For AkzoNobel to invest in something like this says a lot
about the company’s determination to lead change and
I believe it will help start more conversations about moving
our cities in the right direction.”
RAINBO
OW WARRIORS
Claiming that the urban environment
Cla
needs more color might sound like an
obvious thing for the world’s leading
coatings and paint manufacturer to say.
B ut you’d be wrong in thinking that
AkzoNobel’s motives for delving deeper
Ak
into
o the reasons for modern architecture’s
’s apparent aversion for anything
vaguely
ely vibrant are purely commercial.
Because
se the company’s decision to
commissio
sion an urban color study wa
was
mainly drive
ven both by a desire to
o sstart
working closs ely with architects
ts again
and a nagging
g need to disco
cover why
color has gone
eo
off the urb
rban radar.
“We have a history
his y of
o successfully
collaborating with a
architects such
ar
as Richard Meier,
er, Sir Norman Foster
and Rem Koolh
olhaas to
o develop color
collectionss and
a
thought
ht it was about time
we followe
wed that up,” explains
xplains Anne van
der Zw
Zwaag,
ag,, Manager
M
of AkzoNobel
Deco
corative Paints’
nts’ Aesthetic
etic Cent
Center.
“But once we started looking,
look
it proved
difficult to find architects who
ho we
were really
using color in a very specific way.
In modern architecture,
e, color
co
just isn’t
applied very much.”
This preliminary research eventual
ntually
led the company to the famed UNStudio
in the Netherlands. Renowned for being
very expressive in their use of color, they
were asked to conduct a study into why
color has all but been abandoned. “If you
know what causes the lack of color in
the modern urban environment, then
hopefully you can start doing something
about it,” continues Van der Zwaag.
“Several of our coatings businesses are
active in the field of architecture, design
and construction, so we felt it was
important to get
et some
s
answers. Asking
UNStudio to do the research was
significantt because
b
not only is it the
architects
cts themselves who are making
the rec
recommendations, but it also proves
that
hat we as a company want to be
p rogressive and are willing to invest in
the future.”
She adds that the pre-study results
need to be viewed from two different
perspectives – the theoretical outcome
and the proposals. First the theory.
History shows that color in architecture
used to be very popular. Then industrialization happened. Key building materials
such as concrete started to become
available worldwide and everyone began
using them. The dawn of modernism and
an obsession with white simply
compounded the problem
em of color
disappearing. With all the detective work
disappear
now done, it’s time for the proposals to
kick in.
“The UNStudio study proves that the
use of color
olor in th
the urban environment can
make a difference,” says
ays Van der Zwaag,
who reveals that her own favorite color
lor is
red. “What we have to do now is look at
the future
ure and
a
consider the different ways
in which color
or co
could be applied. We want
to use
u color in a meaning
eaningful way, which is
why it’s
t’s great
g
that we are working
work
with
Ben van Berkel
erkel and his team, becaus
ecause
they have a vision
n about
abo color. A lot of
architects use color ass a kind
k
of personal
or aesthetical expression and
d do
don’t think
about what color could really mean
n in a
certain environment, or how it relates to
the context of a certain building. The
good thing about UNStudio is that they
do. They conduct a lot of research
thems
emselves into color and locations and,
based on that research, they make
their decision
ons.”
Giving color
or a specific function, she
points out, is one way in which color can
meaningfully be introduced
ced by architects
and urban planners. She menti
entions the
example of a German firm who try to
t give
color a functional use – such as
designing a fire station in different reds
– and also refers to an ongoing project in
the slums of Venezuela. “I recently met
some people from an architectural firm
based in Caracas who only operate in the
favelas. We talked about color and they
were saying that color is essential in
these areas. If you think about these
enormous slums, a lot of people can’t
read. So the best way to help them find
their way around isn’t to use language,
but color
co
wayfinding. They can simply
follow colored
colore routes to help them locate
the hospital orr water
wat pump, for example.”
The results of the
e pre
pre-study,
combined with the further rese
esearch due
to be carried out based on the report’
port’s
recommendations, should prove
invaluable.
luable. But the findings will not only
be used by AkzoNobel’s
obel’s various
vari
coatings
businesses. They will also be used
d to try
and kickstart an interest in color among
the global community of architects and
urban planners. “What’s crucial is that
UNStudio appeals to architects and
designers,” stresses Van der Zwaag.
des
“Because
use they compiled the study, they
can trigger and inspire
i
people within their
own profession to use color for more than
just aesthetics or personal
nal ex
expression.
It can hav
have a huge impact in so
o man
many
positive ways.”
ys.”
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CHEMICALS BUS
Photography: Tony Burns / shootingtheworld.com
57
WORDS Rebecca Parsley
Most homes have them. We’ve all used them. They’re so ubiquitous we hardly notice them.
The humble can, however, is full of surprises.
G
o into your kitchen and take a look inside the
cupboards. What do you see? Tuna, soup, tinned
vegetables, beer, fizzy drinks? Well, yes. But the
common denominator in all these might not even
occur to you – metal cans.
This ubiquitous packaging material is not only one of the
most widely used around the world, but its green credentials
are also unparalleled in just about every area. It’s a fact that
Beverage Can Makers Europe (BCME), an organization comprised of three major can manufacturers, is keen to promote.
Let’s start with the issue of recycling. Reduce the amount
of packaging that goes to landfill and, so the argument goes,
you reduce CO2 emissions. By using metal cans, you’re
not just cutting the amount of waste – you’re eliminating
it altogether.
“There’s no limit to the number of times metal can be
recycled,” explains John Revess from BCME. “Each time a
can is recycled, fewer CO2 emissions are produced in the
material production process and the amount of virgin metal
used drops. In fact, between 1980 and 2002, the food and
beverage can market’s net CO2 emissions dropped by half
and the use of virgin metal has fallen by around 40 percent.”
Put simply, most of the metal packaging you see on the
shelves is making a return visit. You drink your soda, for example, and take the empty can to the recycling bank – or have
it collected, if you’re lucky enough to have a local curbside
scheme. Just 60 days later, that drink can has re-emerged,
chameleon-like, and could already be back on the shelves.
Another big issue today is that of food waste – something
with a grossly under-estimated impact on the environment.
Discarded food is a major producer of methane in landfill, a
greenhouse gas which is 23 times more powerful than CO2.
But it has taken the global credit crunch to bring the
problem into sharp focus – both consumers and retailers
recognize that one of the best ways to cut costs is to reduce
the amount of food that’s thrown away.
Enter once again our hero, the metal can. Beer and soft
drinks cans have a minimum shelf-life of two years, rising to
three years for food cans. The contents remain perfectly preserved for longer as cans provide total protection against light
and oxygen and, being hermetically sealed, harmful microbes
are unable to get in.
More than a quarter of discarded food is still in its packaging, often unopened and past its sell-by date, according to
the UK’s Metal Packaging Manufacturers Association. So, if
you want to extend shelf-life and reduce waste, the can is a
good place to start.
Simply put, says the organization, a metal can is the safest
food packaging method around – and with each household
wasting around £420 (€466, $618) of food every year, according to recent reports, possibly the most economical too.
Another very environmentally sensitive area is storage
and distribution. Here, yet again, the can wins against its
packaging rivals. The phrase “pile ‘em high” has never been
so apt. Lightweight metal cans are extremely robust and
can be stacked without causing serious damage to either
packaging or product.
Strength is one of the humble can’s greatest assets and
contributes hugely to its sustainability credentials. It reduces
the need for extensive secondary or transport packaging –
much of which could itself end up in landfill. This in turn means
more cans will fit into the available space, and transporting
more product in one go reduces the number of delivery
journeys. As a result, there’s a positive knock-on effect on
the environment. It also means less fuel consumed and less
road congestion. As well as taking up less space, cans are
kept in ambient surroundings. So no refrigeration or freezing
is required in many cases, reducing the amount of power that
needs to be used to keep products in optimum condition.
“Everything about a drink can underpins its environmental
benefits,” concludes Revess. “Infinitely recyclable – and with
the highest recycling rate in the world – and offering a long,
safe shelf-life, as well as promoting energy efficient storage
and distribution, cans really are the sustainable choice.”
When it comes to packaging, it seems we can have
confidence in a can.
A THIRST FOR INNOVATION
With the world’s population growing all
the time, it’s probably no surprise to
learn that the food and beverage can
market grew by 57 percent between
1980 and 2002.
But you might be amazed to hear
that, over the same period, the use of
virgin metal in this area has dropped by
around 40 percent, and the packaging
industry’s net CO2 emissions have fallen
by 50 percent.
Lowering your environmental
footprint on this scale needs the
pioneering research and groundbreaking
innovation that has driven AkzoNobel
Packaging Coatings to the forefront of
the metal packaging industry. The
business is currently number one in the
global beer and beverage cans market
and number two in the food cans market.
One of our newest products is
Aqualure™ 915, which is helping the
beverage can industry become even
more sustainable. Around 50 billion steel
and aluminum cans are produced each
year in Europe alone, and most are 100
percent recyclable.
But as these cans become thinner
and use less metal – known as
“light-weighting” – so more demand
is put on the coatings used inside them.
These perform a dual role, protecting the
beverage from the metal and vice-versa.
Aqualure 915 is an ultra-pliable
lacquer which flexes with the new
lightweight steel cans while maintaining
a perfect barrier tow protect the liquid
inside. This high level of protection is
becoming increasingly important,
especially as more flavor-sensitive
products – such as iced teas and isotonic
drinks – are coming onto the market.
ON THE RIGHT TRACK
The exact amount of CO2 emitted
when transporting drinks packages
can now be tracked thanks to a model
launched by the Can Makers, an
organization representing drinks can
manufacturers in the UK.
A study by independent consulting
and research company Incept found that
49 percent less CO2 per liter was emitted
in the transport of 33cl cans than in 50cl
PET bottles. For beer, the reduction in
emissions for transporting 44cl cans
compared with 33cl glass bottles was
44 percent per liter.
Emission levels were analyzed
throughout the supply chain of
carbonated soft drinks cans, beer cans,
PET and glass packaging, from the
factory to retail outlets.
The model can be used by retailers
to assess their own transport emissions
by entering their own data. It’s sensitive
to vehicle mix, distance for each leg
of the journey, vehicle utilization and
fuel consumption.
Vince Major, chairman of the
Can Makers, said: “If your packaging
choice is more vehicle-efficient,
emission reduction and cost savings
through reduced fuel consumption could
be really significant.”
Look beyond: frigeo.org / sakab.se
60
WORDS David Lichtneker
How do you safely remove harmful material from the seabed? It’s a conundrum which takes some
solving. But as it often does, science has come to the rescue, with a little help from Jack Frost.
C
ontamination is a dirty word in anyone’s language,
but cleaning up polluted areas – commonly known
as remediation – can be a time-consuming, costly
and complex process.
Often the subject of contention and controversy, the vital
removal of hazardous materials has evolved to the point where
science and technology have become essential. Usually accompanied by lengthy discussions about who’s to blame, if
you put aside the legal issues, it’s the actual remediation work
itself which can cause some of the biggest headaches.
So one can only imagine the size of the migraine brought
on by having to clean up around 2,700 square meters
of seabed lying up to 60 meters from dry land. This is
precisely the challenge AkzoNobel was confronted with
recently when maintenance divers discovered mercury in a
cove close to one of the company’s multi-sites at Stockvik in
Sundsvall, Sweden.
The pollution was a legacy from earlier occupants of the
site who used to produce PVC plastics in the 1950s and 60s.
Mercury was used in the integral vinyl chloride process which
was run until 1968. During the production period, mercury found
its way into the soil and, via the sewers, into the nearby ocean.
“We did not cause the pollution but carried out remediation work on the soil about three years ago to ensure a safe
working environment for our employees,” explains site HSE
Manager Peter Sjögren. “When mercury was then found in
the cove, we again agreed to initiate a clean-up, even though
we were not responsible for the contamination.”
The mercury in the seabed was discovered by divers
who were performing maintenance work on a sewage pipe.
Samples from the sea bottom were taken and analyzed,
and following discussions with the authorities, a remediation project was agreed which AkzoNobel organized. Three
possible options were considered, the safest and most
eco-effective of which proved to be the relatively new method
of freeze-dredging. Incredible as it might sound, this literally
involved freezing large sections of the ocean floor, lifting it up
and then carrying the material away to be properly disposed of.
Ideal for employing in areas where large equipment and
machines are difficult to use, the process was pioneered by
Swedish company FriGeo. As well as offering more precision,
the technology is mobile, can be adapted to the specific conditions of a site, and because the contaminated sediments
are frozen, the risk of further spreading is virtually eliminated.
61
FROZEN
SEA WATER
CONTAMINATED
GRAVEL AND SAND
CLAY
“We tested the process first during a pilot trial and it proved
to be extremely effective,” continues Sjögren. “Because it
involves freezing there is hardly any disturbance in the water,
which is unavoidable if you use other techniques such as
digging or sucking.”
Contracted by hazardous waste disposal company
SAKAB, the Stockvik remediation project was FriGeo’s biggest
to date. Special plates measuring five meters by two meters
were lowered into the water from a crane stationed on a former
car ferry. Accompanied by an adjacent vessel, the procedure
involved circulating a salt solution through the plates which
dropped the temperature of the metal surface in contact with
the seabed to around minus 25 degrees Celsius. Twelve hours
later the plates were reeled back in, taking with them layers of
frozen ocean floor measuring ten to 20 centimeters thick. Both
the temperature and the length of time the plates were left in
place were varied in order to precisely control the thickness of
seabed which was frozen and extracted.
“The contaminated mud we picked up was stabilized
on site,” explains FriGeo’s Erik Maksimainen. “Because the
ground was frozen, there was no stirring of the material from
any digging – which can happen with other procedures – so
there was no risk of the material spreading. The authorities
initially wanted us to put up boundaries to prevent the surrounding water from becoming contaminated, but when they
came and saw how effective this method is, they allowed us
to carry on without them.” Once removed, the frozen slabs
became the responsibility of SAKAB, who handled the proper
disposal of the extracted layers. Subsequent testing has
revealed that the cove is now free of any mercury.
Although still very much in its infancy, the use of freeze
dredging to remove contaminated sediments is likely to become increasingly popular. Already used to remove around
28 tons of material from a lake in the sub-Arctic region of
Sweden – as well as more than 300 tons of mercury-containing sediments during the project at Stockvik – the technique
is attracting more and more worldwide attention. “It certainly
generated a lot of interest within AkzoNobel,” notes Sjögren.
“I explained the process during an internal conference late
last year and people were fascinated.” He adds that a short
film is now being produced which will further explain how the
Stockvik project was carried out.
Photography: Doug Jackson / dougjacksonphotography.com
THE BIG PICTURE
Innovation doesn’t move quicker than in the
world of Formula 1. The speed of change
in grand prix racing means that technological boundaries are constantly being pushed
to the limit in the pursuit of excellence.
Which is why two world class
performers, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
and AkzoNobel, recently joined forces.
The company’s Car Refinishes business is
now the official supplier of paint solutions to
the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula 1
team. It’s a partnership which highlights
AkzoNobel’s commitment to developing
custom-made products and services, no
matter how demanding the requirements.
For the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
MP4-24, we are supplying a sophisticated,
state-of-the art system of Sikkens® products
which helps to optimize performance,
while at the same time producing the striking,
all-important chrome finish.
“Pushing technological boundaries is a
key part of our product development and
we’re delighted to have provided Vodafone
McLaren Mercedes with a superior system
which matches their need for performance,
speed and precision,” says Jim Rees,
Managing Director of AkzoNobel Car
Refinishes.
He adds that both parties will continue
working together on further innovations to
investigate coating possibilities for cars used
by Vodafone McLaren Mercedes both now
and in the future.
An eye on the future
The next generation of products in
personal care and cosmetics needs
to be both powerful and gentle.
Dissolvine® GL can do the job:
Boosts the performance
of preservatives more than
other chelating agents
Chelates calcium and transitions
metal ions which helps to enhance
the shelf-life of creams
Helps to stabilize and avoid
discoloration in liquid and
soap products
Free from genetically modified
raw materials
Not irritating to skin or eyes.
National Authorities regulate the use
of chemicals in Cosmetic & Personal
Care products. Dissolvine® GL is listed
under INCI as Tetrasodium Glutamate
Diacetate and is readily biodegradable.
We’re the largest global paints and coatings
company and a major producer of specialty
chemicals. We supply industries worldwide
with quality ingredients for life’s essentials.
We think about the future, but act in the
present. We’re passionate about developing
sustainable answers for our customers.
Based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands,
we have 60,000 employees working in more
than 80 countries – all committed to excellence
and delivering Tomorrow’s Answers Today.
© 2009 Akzo Nobel N.V. All rights reserved.
“Tomorrow’s Answers Today” is a trademark
of Akzo Nobel N.V.
01921_120509
www.akzonobel.com