Tuesday - March 24, 2009
Presentation of the "Bayer Climate Award"
Laudation to Prof. em. Dr.-Ing. Eberhard Jochem, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research
Address by Dr. Wolfgang Plischke, Member of the Board of Management of Bayer AG
(Please check against delivery)
Ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation, I would like to welcome you to Berlin. It gives me special pleasure to welcome our guest of honor: Professor Eberhard Jochem from the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI in Karlsruhe.
Professor Jochem, we are particularly pleased to have the opportunity to present you with the inaugural Bayer Climate Award today, and I’ll tell you why: With your truly pioneering achievements in the field of energy efficiency, you perfectly exemplify the idea behind the Bayer Climate Award.
After all, hardly any other scientist has made such groundbreaking contributions to the field of climate research; you have advanced the scientific and societal discourse on climate change.
When you were growing up in the Ruhr District, this region was different from today. Coal mines dominated the landscape, and smokestacks seemed to paint the correspondingly colored sky. It was a vibrant industrial region in which the sound of steam hammers gave the beat.
It might indeed make sense that someone grew up here to whom the environment was particularly important. But it is unusual that he made environmental protection the focus of his professional life.
At first, there was hardly any indication that you would follow this career path. You studied mechanical engineering, economics and sociology at Aachen Technical University, Munich Technical University and Ludwig Maximilian University, also in Munich. Yet even back then, that wasn’t enough for you. You also studied philosophy and a little bit of theology – after all, there was more to learn about the world and its people than a course of study in mechanical engineering could teach you.
You once said you were a child of the 1968 generation. When we use this term nowadays, the associations it awakens hardly do justice to the era and its people. It wasn’t so much about appearances – the young people’s critical attitudes had to do with a new way of thinking. They questioned things about which there seemed to be no question.
Professor Jochem, you have maintained that attitude to this day. The difference is that in your work, the angry criticism of youth has given way to the precise scientific analysis of an experienced specialist.
Environmental protection had already become the dominant theme in your life by the time you wrote your dissertation in chemical engineering at Munich Technical University. The same theme played the central role not long afterwards at Harvard University in Boston, where you concentrated primarily on environmental economics, air pollution control and reactor safety.
After that you worked for a brief period as a scientific employee at the Dechema society in Frankfurt before transferring to the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research already in 1973. There you rose all the way through the ranks to become Deputy Director of the institute. Today you work there as a Senior Executive.
Parallel to your activities at the ISI, you also worked from 1999 to 2007 as a Professor for Energy Economics and National Economics at the Swiss Technical University ETH in Zurich. Here you also served as Founding Director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Economics, or CEPE for short. For many years you gave lectures and taught seminars at the Universities of Karlsruhe and Kassel on themes such as technical impact assessment, natural resource economics, and energy economics and energy policy.
In view of this wealth of expertise, it is no surprise that many different bodies sought our your counsel. Let me name just a few:
- the Sustainable Development Council of the German government,
- the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Wuppertal Institute,
- the Advisory Committee on Energy Perspectives of the Swiss Federal Agency for Energy,
- Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- and last but not least the Committee of Inquiry “Sustainable Energy Supply under the Conditions of Globalization and Liberalization” of the German Parliament.
Everywhere you served, you contributed your expertise and sought solutions. The list of both scientific and political accolades you have received in this time is correspondingly long. Here, too, I will just name a few:
- in 2006 you were honored by German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel for your contributions to climate protection;
- in 2005 you were named a member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Science;
- and in 2001 you received the Federal Cross of Merit from the German government for outstanding achievements in the field of sustainable energy use and climate policy.
And I am pleased that we are able to add a further accolade to this impressive list – the Bayer Climate Award.
Of course, ladies and gentlemen, I could make my job even easier by also listing off Professor Jochem’s publications. But don’t worry, I won’t do that, because I’m well aware that the listeners’ attention usually begins to wane a bit after two or three hours!
That’s why I would like to not only honor an outstanding scientist, but also outline Eberhard Jochem’s way of thinking as a person.
As you know, anyone who deals with the theme of climate change nowadays runs the risk of all too quickly becoming resigned to the negative scenarios. After all, the list of those who claim it is too late to do anything about this matter is long.
Professor Jochem, you are not one of these people. On the contrary: You have said, and I quote: “I don’t believe in such prophecies of doom. All they do is result in a sense of resignation, because it seems like time is running out. If we succeed over the next 20 or 30 years in developing and using new technologies that are very efficient and profitable, CO2 emissions will fall dramatically.” End quote. I would say this is an opinion that gives us hope. After all, it is based not on expedient optimism, but rather on knowledge of the subject.
New technologies, efficiency – these are two very important key words. Much of Professor Jochem’s research over the years has involved these themes. Thus you have played a key role in helping people to understand the challenges posed by climate change – and at the same time, you have demonstrated ways of addressing this issue. In this context, you have illustrated to us particularly the importance of energy efficiency and so-called materials efficiency. These aspects will be central levers in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the next two or three decades.
You were one of the first researchers to show just what improved processes in the fields of energy conversion and energy use are capable of achieving. The results are astounding: you calculated that the potential exists to increase energy efficiency in the industrialized countries by more than 80 percent – within this century. Particularly important in this connection are materials science, physical and chemical processes, biotechnology and electronics.
And then there is the major field of materials efficiency, which relates particularly to energy-intensive materials. Here there is considerable potential to increase efficiency through recycling, new material properties or material substitution, for example. When the corresponding changes go hand in hand with innovative management forms, substantial primary energy savings are possible. Professor Winnacker already talked about this in detail, stressing Professor Jochem’s holistic approach in this respect.
Of course, this always requires a will to change on the part of those involved. Professor Jochem, this is something you constantly emphasize. I particularly recall one statement you made: “The wrong methods result in the wrong decisions.” It is a simple but wise statement.
Specifically you were referring to the amortization period method. I quote: “It remains to be seen whether industrial companies will considerably increase their efficiency spending. As long as 80 percent of them base their decisions purely on the amortization period, not much will change. The contribution made by materials efficiency to lowering primary energy requirements and reducing costs is only known in a few industry sectors, and it is only in the idea phase in innovation policy.” You continue: “However, it is also up to the consumers when cars weighing several tons and a big refrigerator are greater status symbols than a smaller variation of the product that also serves one’s needs. Materials efficiency still has to become a social value.” End quote.
Sometimes many small steps lead to considerable savings when taken together. I have a simple message for those who think that more efficient energy use requires ever greater investment in equipment and facilities: often one can achieve efficiency improvements of up to 10 percent simply through organizational measures.
In all of this, you never became a lonely admonisher alienated from current developments in politics and industry. No, you have a very acute knowledge of the circumstances in which decisions are made.
Allow me to give another example – I quote: “Companies have the most difficulty changing their organization and processes. Yet it is these changes in particular that often result in the greatest success. Progress requires effort: You have to squeeze the fruit if you want to have juice.” End quote.
Yet many others have to endure your criticism as well. Private citizens, for example. You have pointed out that people are often willing to spend EUR 30,000 on their kitchen, yet consider EUR 6,000 for thermal insulation to be too much.
Or motorists, whose cars spend much more time in a stationary position than moving. Indeed, a car spends 8,500 hours a year in a parked position on average, and only 250 hours moving.
Or industry, which all too often is unwilling to adhere to certain quality standards – and thus finally enable us to progress away from a so-called throwaway society.
There is a saying that creativity is the mother of ideas, but energy is the father of their implementation. It is rare that both of these qualities are found in the same person.
Professor Jochem, I believe you are such a person. You have never allowed illuminative insight or words of warning to suffice. On the contrary, you have always decided at an early stage to become active and set positive trends yourself. Whether it is riding to work every day on your bicycle – even in the rain – or installing a condensing boiler back when that was still considered exotic; you do not just talk about the efficient use of energy, you lead by example.
It is of course only fitting that your hobbies include mountain climbing and long-distance running. These pursuits give you two things that undoubtedly distinguish you as a scientist: unimpeded far-sightedness and plenty of endurance. I wish for your sake and for all of us that we will continue to benefit from these qualities for a long time.
On behalf of all our guests here today, I would like to offer you my heartfelt congratulations on your scientific achievements, and I wish you much success in the future. In offering you my congratulations, let me also say that I hope the Bayer Climate Award will serve as validation of your accomplishments and a symbol of your realization that progress requires effort – and this applies to us all.
Thank you for your attention.
Ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Bayer Science & Education Foundation, I would like to welcome you to Berlin. It gives me special pleasure to welcome our guest of honor: Professor Eberhard Jochem from the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI in Karlsruhe.
Professor Jochem, we are particularly pleased to have the opportunity to present you with the inaugural Bayer Climate Award today, and I’ll tell you why: With your truly pioneering achievements in the field of energy efficiency, you perfectly exemplify the idea behind the Bayer Climate Award.
After all, hardly any other scientist has made such groundbreaking contributions to the field of climate research; you have advanced the scientific and societal discourse on climate change.
When you were growing up in the Ruhr District, this region was different from today. Coal mines dominated the landscape, and smokestacks seemed to paint the correspondingly colored sky. It was a vibrant industrial region in which the sound of steam hammers gave the beat.
It might indeed make sense that someone grew up here to whom the environment was particularly important. But it is unusual that he made environmental protection the focus of his professional life.
At first, there was hardly any indication that you would follow this career path. You studied mechanical engineering, economics and sociology at Aachen Technical University, Munich Technical University and Ludwig Maximilian University, also in Munich. Yet even back then, that wasn’t enough for you. You also studied philosophy and a little bit of theology – after all, there was more to learn about the world and its people than a course of study in mechanical engineering could teach you.
You once said you were a child of the 1968 generation. When we use this term nowadays, the associations it awakens hardly do justice to the era and its people. It wasn’t so much about appearances – the young people’s critical attitudes had to do with a new way of thinking. They questioned things about which there seemed to be no question.
Professor Jochem, you have maintained that attitude to this day. The difference is that in your work, the angry criticism of youth has given way to the precise scientific analysis of an experienced specialist.
Environmental protection had already become the dominant theme in your life by the time you wrote your dissertation in chemical engineering at Munich Technical University. The same theme played the central role not long afterwards at Harvard University in Boston, where you concentrated primarily on environmental economics, air pollution control and reactor safety.
After that you worked for a brief period as a scientific employee at the Dechema society in Frankfurt before transferring to the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research already in 1973. There you rose all the way through the ranks to become Deputy Director of the institute. Today you work there as a Senior Executive.
Parallel to your activities at the ISI, you also worked from 1999 to 2007 as a Professor for Energy Economics and National Economics at the Swiss Technical University ETH in Zurich. Here you also served as Founding Director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Economics, or CEPE for short. For many years you gave lectures and taught seminars at the Universities of Karlsruhe and Kassel on themes such as technical impact assessment, natural resource economics, and energy economics and energy policy.
In view of this wealth of expertise, it is no surprise that many different bodies sought our your counsel. Let me name just a few:
- the Sustainable Development Council of the German government,
- the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Wuppertal Institute,
- the Advisory Committee on Energy Perspectives of the Swiss Federal Agency for Energy,
- Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
- and last but not least the Committee of Inquiry “Sustainable Energy Supply under the Conditions of Globalization and Liberalization” of the German Parliament.
Everywhere you served, you contributed your expertise and sought solutions. The list of both scientific and political accolades you have received in this time is correspondingly long. Here, too, I will just name a few:
- in 2006 you were honored by German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel for your contributions to climate protection;
- in 2005 you were named a member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Science;
- and in 2001 you received the Federal Cross of Merit from the German government for outstanding achievements in the field of sustainable energy use and climate policy.
And I am pleased that we are able to add a further accolade to this impressive list – the Bayer Climate Award.
Of course, ladies and gentlemen, I could make my job even easier by also listing off Professor Jochem’s publications. But don’t worry, I won’t do that, because I’m well aware that the listeners’ attention usually begins to wane a bit after two or three hours!
That’s why I would like to not only honor an outstanding scientist, but also outline Eberhard Jochem’s way of thinking as a person.
As you know, anyone who deals with the theme of climate change nowadays runs the risk of all too quickly becoming resigned to the negative scenarios. After all, the list of those who claim it is too late to do anything about this matter is long.
Professor Jochem, you are not one of these people. On the contrary: You have said, and I quote: “I don’t believe in such prophecies of doom. All they do is result in a sense of resignation, because it seems like time is running out. If we succeed over the next 20 or 30 years in developing and using new technologies that are very efficient and profitable, CO2 emissions will fall dramatically.” End quote. I would say this is an opinion that gives us hope. After all, it is based not on expedient optimism, but rather on knowledge of the subject.
New technologies, efficiency – these are two very important key words. Much of Professor Jochem’s research over the years has involved these themes. Thus you have played a key role in helping people to understand the challenges posed by climate change – and at the same time, you have demonstrated ways of addressing this issue. In this context, you have illustrated to us particularly the importance of energy efficiency and so-called materials efficiency. These aspects will be central levers in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the next two or three decades.
You were one of the first researchers to show just what improved processes in the fields of energy conversion and energy use are capable of achieving. The results are astounding: you calculated that the potential exists to increase energy efficiency in the industrialized countries by more than 80 percent – within this century. Particularly important in this connection are materials science, physical and chemical processes, biotechnology and electronics.
And then there is the major field of materials efficiency, which relates particularly to energy-intensive materials. Here there is considerable potential to increase efficiency through recycling, new material properties or material substitution, for example. When the corresponding changes go hand in hand with innovative management forms, substantial primary energy savings are possible. Professor Winnacker already talked about this in detail, stressing Professor Jochem’s holistic approach in this respect.
Of course, this always requires a will to change on the part of those involved. Professor Jochem, this is something you constantly emphasize. I particularly recall one statement you made: “The wrong methods result in the wrong decisions.” It is a simple but wise statement.
Specifically you were referring to the amortization period method. I quote: “It remains to be seen whether industrial companies will considerably increase their efficiency spending. As long as 80 percent of them base their decisions purely on the amortization period, not much will change. The contribution made by materials efficiency to lowering primary energy requirements and reducing costs is only known in a few industry sectors, and it is only in the idea phase in innovation policy.” You continue: “However, it is also up to the consumers when cars weighing several tons and a big refrigerator are greater status symbols than a smaller variation of the product that also serves one’s needs. Materials efficiency still has to become a social value.” End quote.
Sometimes many small steps lead to considerable savings when taken together. I have a simple message for those who think that more efficient energy use requires ever greater investment in equipment and facilities: often one can achieve efficiency improvements of up to 10 percent simply through organizational measures.
In all of this, you never became a lonely admonisher alienated from current developments in politics and industry. No, you have a very acute knowledge of the circumstances in which decisions are made.
Allow me to give another example – I quote: “Companies have the most difficulty changing their organization and processes. Yet it is these changes in particular that often result in the greatest success. Progress requires effort: You have to squeeze the fruit if you want to have juice.” End quote.
Yet many others have to endure your criticism as well. Private citizens, for example. You have pointed out that people are often willing to spend EUR 30,000 on their kitchen, yet consider EUR 6,000 for thermal insulation to be too much.
Or motorists, whose cars spend much more time in a stationary position than moving. Indeed, a car spends 8,500 hours a year in a parked position on average, and only 250 hours moving.
Or industry, which all too often is unwilling to adhere to certain quality standards – and thus finally enable us to progress away from a so-called throwaway society.
There is a saying that creativity is the mother of ideas, but energy is the father of their implementation. It is rare that both of these qualities are found in the same person.
Professor Jochem, I believe you are such a person. You have never allowed illuminative insight or words of warning to suffice. On the contrary, you have always decided at an early stage to become active and set positive trends yourself. Whether it is riding to work every day on your bicycle – even in the rain – or installing a condensing boiler back when that was still considered exotic; you do not just talk about the efficient use of energy, you lead by example.
It is of course only fitting that your hobbies include mountain climbing and long-distance running. These pursuits give you two things that undoubtedly distinguish you as a scientist: unimpeded far-sightedness and plenty of endurance. I wish for your sake and for all of us that we will continue to benefit from these qualities for a long time.
On behalf of all our guests here today, I would like to offer you my heartfelt congratulations on your scientific achievements, and I wish you much success in the future. In offering you my congratulations, let me also say that I hope the Bayer Climate Award will serve as validation of your accomplishments and a symbol of your realization that progress requires effort – and this applies to us all.
Thank you for your attention.
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