Sustainable Business magazine - essential reading for sustainability professionals
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/129496
Interview Hugo Spowers, Riversimple 4/4 the next We won't be to think we e Ford. I'd lik oover in the will be the H, in that we marketplace that started are the ones fuel-cell this model of technology "You have to be more successful on the metrics by which success is conventionally judged. If you are more successful, then people will copy you, which is good for us as it builds support for our standards in all their forms. If you are not, you are only ever going to be a niche curiosity which gets the support of the activist green movement. If you can generate economic activity which is more profitable by doing good then you can expect other people to come on board for reasons other than altruism or interest in sustainability." So is there a need for forward thinkers to break down the barriers? "You need to think pretty laterally to come up with these solutions, because none of them work very well in isolation; the key is the system-level integration. You are more likely to do this if you are interested in sustainability, but simple logic dictates that sustainability is rather important anyway; you don't have to be an ecoactivist." So what is the future? "I imagine a world with a much larger number of regionally-specific vehicle manufacturers. We won't be the next Ford or Toyota, although I would like to think we will be the Hoover in the marketplace, in that we are the ones that started this model of fuel-cell technology; but we are not a fuel cell car company, we are a sustainable car company." int approach ple seven-po hiThe Riversim ly efficient ve d build high design, 1. Develop an ectric a Network El cles, based on sites and carbon compo from constructed lls. drogen fuel ce r as a powered by hy ice, not a ca ility as a serv 2. Sell mob product. odel upstream le of service' m Adopt this 'sa 3. pply chain. through our su city. ucture city by 4. Grow infrastr all-scale disvehicles in sm re 5. Manufactu es. ent. tributed faciliti and developm source design 6. Open d to ensure ne structure desig 7. Corporate . ance standards better govern