Transcriber: Shihwan Go Reviewer: Eunice Tan
I am concerned.
I'm concerned about the disturbing messages about climate change
and the related droughts, hurricanes, and floods -
not only in tropical areas
but also in Europe and North America.
Houston, we have another problem.
This is caused
by the growing global population
and related growing consumption of raw materials
[Global material extraction]
and fossil fuels,
leading to ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.
One of the main contributors to the greenhouse gas effect
is the building industry.
Yet we all know we need to live in a house, right?
This is the problem.
You see it here.
What do you see?
You see concrete;
you see steel;
you see aluminium, glass, plastics.
All non-renewable materials.
At some point, these will be depleted.
There will be no more!
We also, increasingly,
keep deforesting our tropical rain forests.
If we continue like this,
in 500 years,
all tropical rain forests will be gone.
So you might say,
"Okay, I won't live up to 500 years."
But your generation will see the end of ore to produce metals,
the end of oil-based plastics.
[Years left?]
That's not a happy introduction, is it?
(Laughter)
Thankfully, as human beings, we have the power to imagine,
the power of imagination.
So join me.
Close your eyes.
Think about this one building material
which is rapidly, rapidly renewable,
which captures huge amounts of CO2 during growth,
which has a tensile strength stronger than steel,
which is harder than hardwood.
Sounds nice, right?
It is here.
It's just overlooked.
It's grass!
It's giant grass -
giant bamboo.
Giant bamboo grows across the globe
in tropical to subtropical regions.
One of the big benefits of giant bamboo is its enormous growing speed.
I remember when I did my master's thesis to become a building engineer,
in Costa Rica,
in a social housing project,
working with bamboo.
I came for the first time to a giant bamboo plantation.
I saw shoots coming up here and here.
I came back one day later, the same shoots were up here.
Bamboo can grow up to one meter a day.
It will take two to three months for it to grow up to 25 to 30 meters,
right through the roof,
and these kinds of diameters.
Then it will take about four years until it's ready for harvesting,
to be used as a durable building material.
By harvesting at four-year-old age,
the other shoots will have room to grow even quicker.
This means, every year, you can harvest 25% of the four-year-old stems, right?
You can do the math.
So this means that, by default, you have no deforestation,
because you'll have an annual harvest with bamboo.
And those four years are really impressive
if you compare it with other building materials -
renewable building materials, such as soft woods.
A pine tree will take up to 30 years before it's ready for harvesting.
A hardwood tree, such as oak,
might take up to 80 years before it's ready for harvesting.
Not even mentioning
those non-renewable materials we so often still use.
[Harvesting Age]
You cannot harvest them;
you can merely deplete them.
So I think I've got your attention now.
Bamboo - that sounds good.
But why isn't it then mass-adopted yet?
Let's do another of those mental exercises.
Close your eyes.
Think of the first bamboo product that comes to mind.
Yeah, you got it?
I've done a lot of consumer research
during my PhD,
and there is a good chance
that one of the images that have been coming up
could be this.
A tacky tiki bar.
Come on, guys!
(Laughter)
Or cheap colonial furniture.
(Laughter)
Handicraft basketry.
Maybe you even went back to your warm childhood memories
and thought of your first fishing rod.
But probably,
you have been thinking of this animal.
You've been thinking of bamboo as panda food.
(Laughter)
And don't worry about the panda -
they eat a totally different bamboo species
than we use for our building materials.
But you see?
There is a kind of image problem here, right?
And it gets worse.
In the country where bamboo grows -
tropical regions -
bamboo is so abundantly available,
and it's so inexpensive, therefore,
that mostly poor people live there.
So it's associated with poverty.
And actually, these kinds of houses are a perfect place,
especially if they're clad with mud and mortar,
to resist earthquakes.
Still, it is known as the poor man's timber.
What a waste! What a pity!
Because the potential of bamboo
lies merely in the limitations of the designer, architect, or builder
working with it.
Because, tell me, does this look like poor man's timber to you?
These one-million-dollar bamboo mansions
in Green Village in Bali,
designed by IBUKU,
making magnificent use
of the lightness, strength, and flexibility of this material.
I bet you wouldn't mind living here, right?
But I hear the next little voice in your head saying,
"Sure, right, it works in Bali,
but not here in these kinds of temperate regions.
We want to keep the wind and rain out.
It doesn't work. No, no. No way."
You are so wrong!
We have a new solution.
(Case unclicks)
You wonder what's in here, right?
(Laughter)
(Boards clack)
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the future of bamboo:
industrially processed, engineered bamboo building materials.
I hear your next question:
"How do you get from this round, hollow bamboo stem
to these kinds of solid building materials?"
It's actually really easy.
Think about making french fries:
you push your potato through a star form knife.
And what we do with the bamboo strips -
we take out the outer and the inner skin,
and then we have a bamboo strip.
The bamboo strip is the building block
to produce all kinds of high-end building materials -
beams, panels, boards -
in all kinds of styles
and super strong.
Now, I told you that bamboo grows incredibly quick,
so it absorbs huge amounts of CO2.
For my PhD,
I calculated the carbon footprint
for these kinds of bamboo building materials.
Including transport and processing and production,
these kinds of materials have a negative carbon footprint
of almost minus half-a-ton of CO2
per ton of building material produced.
A lot better than sustainably sourced hardwoods.
Of course, not even comparing
with the super high CO2-emitting materials
we so often use:
concrete, metals, plastics.
And it looks good, too.
What do you think about these kinds of two-colored bamboo flooring
in a bank office in the Netherlands?
[Rabobank office]
Or these walls and ceilings in this office in Israel?
[Avaya Offices]
200,000 square meters of curved ceiling panel
in Madrid International Airport.
Beautiful, stable, posh outdoor decking
in Switzerland.
[Lotus Residence]
The bridge roof and deck in Israel.
[Beer Sheva Bridge]
Huge surfaces of bamboo cladding in this facade in Norway.
And this is the next development.
Structural use of laminated and engineered bamboo will start small:
pergolas, carports.
But in the future, when there will be more building codes for bamboo,
we'll see huge constructions made of engineered bamboo.
So this building material is fit for purpose, isn't it?
And then there are many other applications
where we can utilize bamboo as well.
What about, for example, furniture?
This beautiful Dutch-designed chair
makes perfect use of the flexibility of bamboo.
But don't get me wrong:
bamboo's actually quite stiff.
You can only bend it further without breaking than woods.
You can make all kinds of musical instruments out of it.
Very cool guitars.
You can make sports equipment out of it.
Skateboards, surfboards, wakeboards -
[Bamboo Foilboard]
all making maximum use
of the combined flexibility and strength of this material.
We have a bamboo bike.
And when you fall off,
we have a bamboo helmet to protect you.
(Laughter)
And, actually, it can be cool as well.
Now bamboo has become cool.
Look at my bamboo iPhone.
Or a bamboo cover to protect your newest MacBook.
The automotive industry is adopting bamboo.
Instead of the chestnut or walnut interior,
you can now choose to have a sustainable bamboo interior
in the latest Lexus,
including a full, solid-bamboo steering wheel.
We can do more.
We can extract the bamboo fiber, combine it with a bio-based resin,
and even 3D-print these kinds of objects,
like a vase -
fully biodegradable.
We can also take out the bamboo fiber,
make paper out of it
or cardboard for sustainable packaging.
We can go further.
We can take out this bamboo fiber
and produce a silky soft yarn out of it
to produce antibacterial, odorless textile.
For example,
to produce, oh, T-shirts -
bamboo.
Socks -
it's bamboo.
Yes, bamboo underwear.
(Laughter)
I'll keep it private, but it's there.
So you see, one size fits all.
This one rapidly renewable resource
can meet all these various applications and needs.
Talking about deforestation again.
Did I tell you yet
that bamboo is perfectly suitable for reforesting degraded lands,
even on eroded slopes?
This is China:
10 years ago, a certain region.
The Chinese government have decided to actively reforest with bamboo.
This is 10 years later.
Now, if I tell you
that one hectare of bamboo planted
captures a thousand tons of CO2
in the soil, in the roots, in the stems, and the durable products made out of it,
and as a bonus, you get each year, again,
in a sustainable way, without deforestation,
20 cubic meters of building material.
This is one cubic meter.
Twenty times as much!
The problem of tropical deforestation
is a big one.
Now let's look
at the natural growing area of giant bamboo.
[Bamboo growing area]
We see interesting overlap here, a nice opportunity.
The World Resources Institute
has identified those degraded lands that are suitable for reforestation.
Here it is - it's a purple map.
Let's assume we will do this with bamboo.
You see the overlap.
The tropical countries in this world
have taken a commitment in the Bonn Challenge -
like the German city.
The commitment is to reforest 350 million hectares of degraded lands
by 2030.
Let's assume we teach them to do it with giant bamboo -
they have also overlooked it.
But now we know there will be two huge benefits.
One - carbon capture.
[CO2 capture]
I told you before:
one hectare of bamboo is a thousand tons of CO2.
So 350 million hectares of bamboo
means 350 million kilotons of CO2 absorbed.
Wow, that sounds like a lot, doesn't it?
But it doesn't tell you anything.
But if I tell you that the global CO2 emissions of this world -
so each year -
are 35 million kilotons,
that means by meeting the Bonn Challenge with bamboo,
we can compensate 10 years long our global CO2 emissions,
which buys us time to truly transit to a green energy economy.
There is a bonus.
Because I also told you
one hectare of bamboo will produce each year, again,
20 cubic meters
of high-quality building materials.
So imagine if we do 350 million hectares.
Each year, again,
we'll have 7,000 million cubic meters of high-quality building materials -
enough to produce 350 million social houses
not once
but every year again and again in a sustainable way,
enough to house a full continent like South America.
Huge carbon capture,
enormous pool of building materials.
You see the potential, right?
Now, if a few moments ago,
I would have told you that grass could save the world,
you would be laughing at me.
But what do you say now?
Thank you.
(Applause)
[Giant Grass to Save the World]