Étienne Schneider: Luxembourg, first country to commit

INTERVIEW

Sustainability MAG: Luxembourg is playing a pioneering role as this is the first time that a country has decided to implement the Third Industrial Revolution at national level. What goals are you setting for the future of the Luxembourg economy?

Étienne Schneider: Now that the economy is back on the path to growth, I believe the time has come for the Grand Duchy to rethink its strategy and move towards “Lëtzebuerg 3.0, or even 4.0” and thus secure our country’s long-term competitiveness. Building on our active policy of economic development and diversification, which we have successfully been carrying out for over 10 years, it is time to make the Third Industrial Revolution our own. This means making it a long term, indeed a very long term, economic vision, by developing a strategy for Luxembourg for the decades to come, one that is adapted to the particular conditions of our country. Driven by fossil energies and other raw materials that are becoming increasingly rare, the economic system that has served us so well until now is neither sustainable nor equitable. To govern is to anticipate. So now is the right time to commission a strategic study to identify new models of production, exchange and consumption, in a context of economic transition. Such a strategy will serve as a major point of reference in reorienting our economic life and in putting Luxembourg on the path to a flourishing post-carbon era. 

What sectors is this initiative particularly relevant for?

Jeremy Rifkin fully understands how history’s great economic revolutions are produced when new communications technologies converge with new systems of energy. The American expert firmly believes that merging Internet technologies and renewable energies can create powerful “third industrial revolution” dynamics. And these key sectors are indeed the ones that for the past ten years we have considered as priorities of our diversification policy: ICTs, eco-technology including sustainable mobility and construction, renewable energy and logistics are already highly developed. Backed by a sharing economy, the world as imagined by Rifkin is characterised by the implementation of intelligent systems that are capable of greater adaptability, by a more efficient allocation of resources and by an interconnection between these systems. This revolution is materialised more specifically by a switch to renewable energies, by the wide-scale development of energy storage technologies and the implementation of an Internet technology that transforms energy and transport into an intelligent network. Conceptually, Luxembourg is already deploying the necessary technological infrastructure to apply Rifkin’s vision concretely. For example, it is rolling out high-speed networks nationwide, planning the installation of 850 public charging stations for electric cars throughout the territory before 2020, and from 2016, implementing smart meters for electricity and gas at national level.

How do you think this project will contribute to more economic growth for the country?

Out of respect for future generations, it is our duty to set up the right framework conditions for an economic model that should bear fruit in the second half of the 21st century. Following Jeremy Rifkin’s visionary approach, we are already trying to invent new innovative sectors of activity with high added value, in order to ensure employment growth in the distant future, the long-term viability of our social security system and the general prosperity that results from these. Our existing action plans as regards ICTs and high-speed networks, logistics and transport, renewable energies or eco-technologies, or the study evaluating the potential for future development of circular economy in Luxembourg are already powerful levers of action to create a new infrastructure for the Third Industrial Revolution. From this point of view, and owing to our wide fabric of innovative and dynamic companies, Luxembourg already has a head start on other regions that are considering a similar route.

In order to secure lasting dynamic growth in the short and medium terms, other than in the banking sector, we may soon reconsider our multi-sectoral diversification policy for the Luxembourg economy after having subjected it to critical analysis.

What makes you think that the completely innovative project that you are launching with Jeremy Rifkin will be successful?

Thanks to its vitality, Luxembourg has proved its extraordinary capacity to reinvent itself ceaselessly over the last decades, perhaps even over the last century. At first an agricultural country, Luxembourg transformed itself into an industrial state based on steel, and then became a global financial centre. Now, a new shift is occurring, backed by our economic diversification programme which places particular emphasis on innovative technology. In order to cement our economic success in the very long term, we need the involvement of all the driving forces and especially that of the business world. By partnering for this major project with the Chamber of Commerce and in cooperation with IMS Luxembourg, we are able to raise awareness among economic policy-makers and mobilise them around our action. Based on a wide, cross-sector approach, the study that we are going to carry out intends to involve not only the ICTs but also the companies or stakeholders that are active in areas as diverse as energy efficiency, renewable energy, construction and real estate, engineering, space technologies, health, transport and logistics. This collective mobilisation is going to create a momentum that will once again enable us to get one or several head starts on other countries.

You have chosen to launch this project during the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. What political message would you like to convey on the national or even on the European stage?

By calling on a world-renowned specialist in economic and scientific prospective such as Jeremy Rifkin, we are confirming that we are ahead of our times. By embracing his strategic vision, that shatters traditional modes of thought and action, we are positioning the Grand Duchy as a country that wishes to continue, even in a far-distant future, to take pride in one of the highest standards of living through sustainable economic development. To get there, we have to prepare Luxembourg as well as all its citizens to a continuously changing environment. An open mind and our capacity for innovation have in the past proved to be the two essential driving forces allowing Luxembourg to move forward. The study that is to be carried out with Jeremy Rifkin aspires to map out the megatrends in order to implement a completely interconnected economy in Luxembourg, which is capable of imposing itself at the European or indeed global forefront. This makes Luxembourg the ideal, life-size laboratory to test these innovative and intelligent ideas on a national scale. The Grand Duchy will thus become a “living lab” and a pioneer of the solutions needed to meet the great challenges of the future.

To be read also in the dossier "The Third Industrial Revolution": 

• People's Vote Projects: The Winners
• A Historic Turning Point?
• Jeremy Rifkin: The Architect of the 3rd Industrial Revolution
• A Promising Dynamic in Nord-Pas-de-Calais