The Blue Economy takes readers beyond the obvious and awakens the entrepreneur in all of us. The innovations it explores are founded in solid science and have been demonstrated on multiple platforms. Worldwide, committed grassroots entrepreneurs can realize three times the cash flow using open-source innovations to found competitive business models. This book will encourage thousands, perhaps millions, of us to apply a Blue Economy business model to shift us from scarcity to abundance. The Blue Economy began as a project to find one hundred of the best nature-inspired technologies that could effect the economies of the world, while sustainably providing basic human needs - potable water, food, jobs and healthful shelter. Starting with 2,231 peer review articles Dr. Pauli found 340 innovations that could be bundled into systems that function the way ecosystems do. These were then additionally reviewed by a team of corporate strategists, expert financiers, and public policy makers. Further meetings with entrepreneurs, financial analysts, business reporters and corporate strategy academics reduced the list to one hundred. These are listed in an appendix of The Blue Economy. Many of the innovations inspired by nature are so interesting by themselves it is easy to forget that the key to the book is their integration with real world economies as ways to provide sustainable benefits to the commons. The Blue Economy is presented in fourteen chapters, each of which investigates an aspect of the world's economies and offers a series of innovations capable of making aspects of those economies sustainable.
