ICSC: International Council of Shopping Centers

Shopping centers can sell energy, Europe Conference told

Even within the most challenging economy the world has seen in 60 years, shopping centers can help lead the drive for environmental and economic sustainability. That was the message delivered on the opening day of this year's ICSC European Conference by economist Jeremy Rifkin, founder and president of The Foundation on Economic Trends, a Bethesda, Md.–based think tank.

Rifkin challenged his listeners to use their shopping centers, roofs, car parks and heat-exchange systems to become energy creators rather than just consumers. He said the world is currently facing three crises: climate change, recession and energy.

“Despite our different dreams and cultures, America and the European Union must work together for the good of the world,” he said. “Commerce is not a primary institution; it is an extension of culture, not the other way around.”

Shopping centers have a real part to play in helping to solve the energy crisis, he said. “They have the potential through innovation to become energy creators, power plants in their own right, feeding national power grids from a surplus of energy generated on-site from 'green' sources.”

Some are already doing this. A solar plant on the roof of the GM Factory building in Aragon, Spain, is producing enough surplus electricity to power 4,600 homes in the surrounding community.

The challenge can only be met if millions of businesses and homeowners become local energy players, he said. The retail real estate industry could be in the vanguard and even use energy as a second income stream.

For Rifkin the magic number is 20 — he urges world and industry leaders to achieve a 20 percent increase in energy efficiency, a 20 percent reduction of gas emissions and the acquisition of 20 percent of their energy needs througn nonpolluting sources, all by 2020. The EU has already established this goal for its member states.

Public and private sector agencies across the world are on the edge of a “third industrial revolution,” Rifkin said. “By drawing together four industrial pillars — renewable energy, engineering and construction, hydrogen storage, and a distributed electrical grid and plug-in vehicles — this revolution promises to change our relationship to energy as significantly as the first and second industrial revolutions in the 19th and 20th centuries.”

The European Parliament has already endorsed these ideas, and the EU is working with European and American companies on a Third Industrial Revolution Global CEO Business Roundtable, to comprise about 100 companies and trade associations from both regions.

But the global recession has proved to be a big distraction from environmental issues, noted Norbert Walker, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Research, also speaking at the conference. Walker called 2009 a “lost year” for international economies.

“GDP in Europe will be down by 5 percent, in China and Japan by 6 to 7 percent and in the U.S. by 3.5 percent,” he said. “Emerging markets will shrink. But all things must pass. My best guess is that after a year of downturn, there is a chance of stabilization or even a slight increase in GDP at the end of 2010.”

In the meantime Walter cautioned countries to avoid protectionism at all costs to provide the help that emerging countries will need to survive the downturn. He called for business leaders to speak out on this.

The conference opened today in Barcelona, and runs through Friday.