We introduce the beginning of a project to evaluate a region. The region chosen was Hauts-de-France. The choice was not strategic, but opportunistic. It is the region where we lived at the time: as part of the ERASMUS+ programme, Yaman had come over as a Ph.D. student from Saarland University to learn about the compass and philosophy of the environment.

We constructed three institutional compasses: a wish compass, a non-ideological generic compass and an ecological economics institutional compass for the region of Hauts-de-France. We then looked into a bio-conversion process and estimated the impact it would have, at the small scale of a sub-region, in the context of the greater region. The actual plant we looked at was quite small – collecting biomass from six farms and providing electricity to 500 households. So, for the total region of Hauts-de-France, this is insignificant. However, at a sufficiently large scale, or over a small enough sub-region, the common use of such a process could change the regional compass reading.

1 The Wish Compass for Hauts-de-France

We begin by discussing the wish compass. We start with an historical recapitulation of the recent history of the region. During the industrial revolution, the region was quite prosperous. There were coal mines providing energy, there was a lot of industry, especially textile, there were a significant number of canals and easy access to the North Sea. Manufactured goods could be shipped inland from the North Sea, by the canal system, or sent overland by train or coach. Manufactured goods could be exported by sea, rail and road.

Due to the geo-political location, the world wars destroyed much of the physical infrastructure and buildings. When the coal mines closed and the manufacturing industry moved abroad, or converted to more high-tech service “products”, the region was forgotten. The region became the poorest in France. Intuitively, if we are comparing this region with others in France, the actual compass would find the arrow in discipline: high pollution, high unemployment and poverty.

The technological development of very fast trains: and the increase in air travel in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century resulted in major investment in the tourist industry – in museums and festivals, together with investment in the transportation infrastructure: TGVs (Très Grande Vitesse) to Paris, Brussels, and to London through the channel tunnel. The three universities of Lille were combined into one, a city of science (cité scientifique) was constructed in the 1960s and 1970s to act as a bridge between industrial and academic research. In compass terms, this means that the investment was meant to bring the arrow more towards excitement.

In the twenty-first century, the regional government of Hauts-de-France and the national government took the initiative to re-invest in the region with the vision of making it the leader in France, if not Europe, for the transition to a green economy – one that aligns with the concept of a circular economy.

We interpret a real circular economy to mean that the region becomes strongly sustainable. For us, this indicates that the wish spot should be located in excitement for now because of the newness of the transition. It requires risky investment and scientific expertise. Because the transition is towards a circular economy, and since we interpret this to mean strong sustainability, the purpose of the investment is to bring the region to a wish spot in harmony, maybe in 30–50 years. The wish spot will rotate over time. Moreover, it should be a wish spot in harmony for an ecological economics institutional compass, indicating that the long-term wish has matured and that the region is in alignment with the natural flows of air, water and soil nutrients. See the wish compass depicted in Fig. 13.1 for the year 2021.

Fig. 13.1
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Wish compass for the region: Hauts-de-France

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2 The Actual Compasses for Hauts-de-France

Since we were after both a generic compass and an ecological economics compass, we looked for data in each of the nine sectors: environment-harmony, environment-discipline, environment-excitement; society-harmony, society-discipline, society-excitement, economy-harmony, economy-discipline and economy-excitement. The three sphere compasses can be seen in Figs. 13.2, 13.3 and 13.4.

Fig. 13.2
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Econo-sphere Hauts-de-France

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Fig. 13.3
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Socio-sphere Hauts-de-France

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Fig. 13.4
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Eco-sphere Hauts-de-France

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Note that in Table 13.3, for the eco-sphere, there is no significant data in the harmony sector. This can happen. There is not enough significant wild territory – not enough to really sustain a healthy ecosystem without important human intervention and management. What we do find in the region is unhealthy “wild” areas (polluted waterways, for example), a lot of industrial agriculture and the rest is built up or is heavily managed park area. This is not the case everywhere in France. Other regions, where there are more mountains, for example, have more wild spaces. In terms of compass construction, we proceed as follows. The harmony sector arrow will have a length of zero, and the centre of the circle will then be a point of the triangle – the one representing the harmony sector.

Let us now turn our attention to the three spheres. It is interesting to see the discrepancy between the socio-sphere and the eco-sphere. They pull in opposite directions. This case study provides further evidence that the economic situation does not track the social situation contra neoclassical economic doxa. If we compare the socio-sphere to the eco-sphere, the compasses show that we can insulate society from nature successfully in the short term. Of course, there are some organic farmers, and nature lovers, people who track and feel changes in nature, and this affects them socio-politically, but this is the minority. In fact, the number is insignificant. By and large, people in the region enjoy themselves and feel healthy despite nature’s suffering. Since Lille has a major university and research campus, the cité scientifique, this adds to the social well-being of the region, but not much directly to the environment. The campus efforts towards sustainability are too small geographically to have much of an impact on the whole region.

In Sect. 7.1 we mentioned that some people believe that the health of society depends on the health of the environment. And the compasses in this case study seem to contradict the claim. However, the contradiction is temporary. Recall that the time scale for the environment is longer than for society. Technology shields us from the vagaries of nature temporarily.

The final generic compass reading, not favouring one sphere over another, is found in Fig. 13.5. Analysing it, we see that the arrow lies in discipline, but is very close to harmony. This is far from the wish spot we see in Fig. 13.1. There is something heavy and dull about the region – the flat landscape, industrial agriculture, the unpleasant weather, the economic struggle, unemployment, air, water and soil pollution, all support the compass reading. It also shows us that national government were not wrong in their diagnosis. The area is depressed and needs attention. The investment in museums, art, culture, education should be continued, since they will help to orient the arrow towards the wish spot and compensate for the poor quality of the natural environment. This is the reason economics ends up being the deciding factor between them! This does not mean that the “solution” to getting the arrow in the wish spot lies solely with the economy, rather we are interested in shifting the direction of the socio-sphere arrow and the eco-sphere arrow towards excitement.

Fig. 13.5
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Generic institutional compass Hauts-de-France

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The recommendations, then are to continue with investment, and direct it towards ecological improvement. More green spaces are needed, especially ones that are minimally controlled by humans. We need less built-up area and more organic farming with attention to water and soil quality.

We decided to also add an ecological economics institutional compass. We favoured the environment sphere over the society sphere and favoured the society sphere over the economic sphere. The reading is suitable for an ecological economist’s conception of the world. That compass is depicted in Fig. 13.6.

Fig. 13.6
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Ecological economics institutional compass Hauts-de-France

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With this reading we are even further from the wish spot. The “green” in the green transition will require a major effort. Looking after the environment becomes pressing, and not only in an indirect or superficial way – by encouraging industries that say they are “green” or are only relatively helpful, but by really taking care to directly prevent biodiversity loss, to legislate against polluted waterways, and clean them up, to ensure adequate water levels for aquatic species to thrive, to increase wild park land, to significantly reduce the use of pesticides, especially in agriculture, since, by killing the insects, they deprive birds of food stressing the eco-system. Since the land surface is mainly industrial agriculture, one suggestion would be to encourage farmers away from industrial agriculture towards more traditional farming practices, to plant hedge-rows or implement a system of set-aside fields – compensating the farmers with incentives they can use towards increasing organic food production. This is not the recent tradition in the area, and might encounter considerable social resistance, even if there is economic compensation. The monetary compensation, and monitoring of the programme (for choices of hedge species, and management of the hedge-rows) would have to be significant. Hedges encourage bio-diversity and reduce soil erosion. This in turn reduces the need for fertiliser, and irrigation, it reduces the quantity of soil particles in the air. This type of suggestion comes from looking at other regions, of longer traditions and at underlying causes of several data points that we want altered, as opposed to addressing particular data in policy decision making.

Another suggestion is to re-establish or re-emphasise the traditional water-ditches around the fields. Since this was a traditional practice and one that is still common in Belgium and the Netherlands, it should meet with less social resistance. Such ditches are current, but are not always well maintained. The advantage is water management. It decreases the pressure on the larger water systems to absorb the run-off from fields. It helps with irrigation when the rainfall is less predictable, it helps prevent soil erosion and promotes biodiversity. The inconvenience is that they have to be maintained – some re-digging, careful choice of hedge plants (if the two ideas are combined), and access to fields is restricted to one or two entrances for tractors – where a bridge might have to be constructed and managed. Of course, if the water-ditch and hedges are well managed they function as fencing for cattle, cows, horses and possibly sheep, thus reducing the cost of building more artificial fences – post and barbed-wire or electrical fences (wood or stone fences are not feasible in the region due to scarcity of lumber and stone quarries).

Lastly, for the environment, we suggest preventing further urban development of the coastal areas. The present development is destroying fragile coastal ecological systems. They need further protection through legislation.

Society is doing quite well, although some emphasis could be put on reducing crime, alcoholism, unemployment and political conflict. The economy needs attention, and this is reflected in the investment choices made by government in the hope that investment from outside will flow to the region in the near future, and that businesses within the region will prosper. As is already put in place, new business should align with the green transition, but again, in a real way that makes a difference at the regional level or even more locally. See the continuation of the study where we model the biofuel industry within its regional context. Before this stage, we add more detail to the analysis.

3 Tables, Notes and References (Tables 13.1, 13.2 and 13.3)

A more detailed examination of the data tables will show which data (or the underlying causes of the data) are pulling the final arrow away, and which data are to be encouraged. We include the data table with the ones to be encouraged shaded in green, and the ones to discourage shaded in red (to echo the idea of a green light and a red light for traffic). The green ones point towards the wish spot and the red ones away. These are obvious targets for specific policy recommendations.

Another strategy is to concentrate on the arrows with length >.5. If we concentrate on these, then we see that the general suggestions about changes in agricultural practice and better management of coastal areas is sound. Such changes will contribute indirectly to health of the human population. If we can use the changes to increase employment, then we will have taken care of many of the pressing issues.

Table 13.1 Economic data Hauts-de-France
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Table 13.2 Social data Hauts-de-France
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Table 13.3 Environmental data Hauts-de-France
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4 Small Industry Conversion of Biomass into Electricity

We now add to the data table, for only a small industrial plant that converts farm waste into electricity. Notice two peculiarities: (i) there is not much data, (ii) we have only one datum in the harmony sector. This gives that datum “undue” influence. The reason for the disproportion in data is that the industry is new, therefore exciting, requiring investment and it does not contribute significantly on directly to economic, social or environmental harmony. See data Table 13.4.

Table 13.4 Table of biomass-electricity industry in the subregion of Hauts de France
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To get a sense of the quality of the contribution, we could either envisage the industry being multiplied in the region, or do the opposite and consider a sub-region of Hauts-de-France, the one just around the industry, in particular, the community where the 500 households use the electricity produced by the biomass conversion site. With the first idea, there are threshold limits – geographical places where biomass might be less available or complicated to manage, such as in the centre of the city of Lille. If we were to follow the former scaling adjustment, we would imagine implanting such industry at the scale needed to supply all of the electricity consumed in the region. To make this industrial process the only source of electricity in Hauts-de-France we would need to multiply the number of cattle and chickens quite significantly. There would be cattle, dairy cows and chickens on the streets of Lille, in the parks, in the private gardens and in the farmer’s fields. The smell of trucks passing with manure would upset the urban communities, the region would become a net exporter of meat and so on. This is unrealistic, if not silly, as a “solution” to the electrical energy supply in the whole region. Clearly a mixed approach with the existing wind mills is more likely and is more suitable. So, we considered the sub-region at a small enough scale that it is palpably affected by the industry. We construct a compass for only the data concerning the industrial plant. We can then see not exactly how much, but by what qualitative tendency, the industry changes the regional reading. See Figure 13.7.

Fig. 13.7
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Econo-sphere compass for sub-region with biomass-electricity industry

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As noted in the general discussion, there is no reason to suppose that the industry can be multiplied throughout Hauts-de-France to become the major source of electricity in the whole region. But there might be other sub-regions who could copy the industry and enjoy local success.

The ecological economics institutional compass comparison is similarly revealing. This is because the industry simply helps to close the waste and energy loop, in an effort towards a more circular economy – using (otherwise) waste (really fertiliser) to contribute to the economy, to energy needs and to reduce incinerated or material waste. The waste from the bio-electricity industry is re-used as fertiliser, so the second-waste does not go to waste. It re-enters the cattle, chicken and human food chain by fertilising plant crops. There is one advantage and one disadvantage of the second-waste. There is around the same amount in mass, but it is entropically more positive – some of the entropy having been channelled to make electricity. The advantage is that because the material is more “broken down” it is more readily available to plants, and more quickly integrated into the soil. This makes a difference in the short term, but not in the long term. The loop closing does not require a serious shift in existing agricultural practice. This is why the arrows pull in opposite directions.

In fact, if the farms supplying the bio-mass were to become organic, they might have much more difficulty, take much more labour, to collect the biomass. Therefore, while adding this industry helps to reduce the human impact on the natural environment in the region, the reduction is marginal from the point of view of the natural environment itself. The industry fits with the existing practice of industrial agriculture.

The readings of the three spheres shows us that closing the energy and waste loop, what is referred to as moving towards a more circular economy, makes only a marginal difference to the region, even on a very local level. This makes sense for reasons of entropy. Such processes marginally reduce our rate of entropy production.

This might seem obvious, or it might seem surprising. Either way, it is important information for policy makers, because really what this tells us is that the technical “solution” to energy production promised by bio-mass conversion processes, is helpful, since it moves the final compass reading closer towards the wish spot, by shortening the arrow. But it is worth knowing that it not enough to make any real difference. In other words, this technical solution to the green transition is not enough on its own, and other investments might be more promising. It is also quite clear that a mix of technical solutions – bio-mass conversion, wind mills, solar panels and nuclear energy will have to be accompanied by a cultural change; a real reduction in our dependence on energy in absolute terms – not only relative, that is, in per capita terms.

Looking more deeply, we can ask the question: “What is household and industrial energy used for?” The answer is: running machines, refrigeration, heating of water and interior space, pumping of water, cooking, washing, lighting and electronic devices such as: computers, televisions and telephones. The biomass conversion site we looked at produces electricity, and very little of this is used in the region for transportation. Non-renewable resources are still widely used for this, including by the machines used in industrial farming and transporting biomass waste material to the biomass conversion site.

To make a change that is significant with respect to the compass, we have to change our habits, life-styles and expectations as well. It is better to face this fact head-on and find creative solutions that will change travel and transportation expectations and reduce significantly our use of “free” energy, that is, our fund of low entropy.