3FOOD

Third Industrial Revolution Consulting Group
and other agreements that create synthetic, cross-border energy markets. That’s because the
technology’s capacity for automation, disintermediation, powerful data analytics and
micropayments drives transaction costs low enough that liquid markets can arise around
securities whose complex structures would otherwise make them unviable for traditional
finance.
Proposal 3: Extending the Boundary of the Luxembourg Solution
Building on the Luxembourg Sustainable Development Finance Platform, the Sustainable Energy
Finance Model, the aggregation of key energy and other resources in ways that drive large-scale
investment, and the introduction of Blockchain technology, we also suggest that Luxembourg
assume TIR-scale financial leadership within the European Union. It should consider introducing
a proposal or set of proposals to the 27 other Member States of the European Council as well as
to the European Commission and the Committee of the Regions. The intent of these proposals
would be to establish dedicated settings at the national, regional, and local level which might
then issue public bonds for the transformation of their national, regional, and urban
infrastructures into a digitalized, interconnected Third Industrial Revolution paradigm.
Given the critical need to begin scaling up sooner rather than later, small transborder pilot
projects across the EU can be launched and evaluated in real-time with adjustments that are
made to ensure their on-going and evolving success. At some point, and with initial successes in
hand, financial and technical resources can be expanded to move pilot projects into the larger
scale of demonstration ventures across sectors, within communities, and eventually within
regions and nations. 270 This is very much in the spirit of a phased-in approach using what has
been called experimental design 271 , or what we might call here real-time adaptive
management, to focus on achieving the multiple social, economic, and environmental
objectives. With an emphasis on learning as we go, rather than a typical "ready, aim, fire"
approach to problem solving, the management style should embrace an experimental
270 As suggested by Byrne and Taminiau’s description of the SEF, financing and operating costs (other than interest
payments) can also be folded into the bonding capacity so that new revenues are not necessarily required. With a
series of initial successes in hand, the confidence can build to ensure high quality bond ratings with funding that
covers both operations and investments.
271 The idea of experimental design is taken from Sullivan, Michael J., Fostering Innovation and Experimentation to
Improve the Effectiveness of Energy Efficiency Programs. Working Paper. Sacramento, CA: California Public
Utilities Commission, 2008.
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