Business

TVIND TOWER IN 1977. Photo: John Young Four groups of twelve hippies sitting in circles. Some sheep grazing. And a large concrete tower with some shaky scaffolding tenuously attached to it. Those were my first impressions of the community of Tvind that I visited in the summer of 1977. Tvind in Denmark’s west Jutland region was an experiment in alternative schooling that included the concept of a travelling school which would visit Third World countries and help to find ways t

PHOTO: Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve. The De Rust WaterWise Ways project is showing the way. This article first appeared in Western Cape Business 2020 Edition A pilot project in the small rural town of De Rust has shown that a constructed wetland system and wastewater reuse can improve the health of a catchment system and convert wastewater into a useful resource. The WaterWise Ways Project of the Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve (GCBR) has several components, but the De

We have pure canola in the tank. [The Nordic Folk Centre for Renewable Energy], Thy. PHOTO: John Young Denmark has found a way to grow its economy and reduce energy consumption. The House of Green in central Copenhagen is a sophisticated, high-tech, showcase of Denmark’s green economy. At the touch of a button you can call up any number of statistics to do with energy use and water wastage – and quickly show how these change when some outside factor is introduced, like a drou

*A national focus on trying to develop the country’s maritime potential is playing to KwaZulu-Natal’s strengths*. PHOTO: MSC Viking Sun, 2019 Two of the most important ports in South Africa are at the heart of KwaZulu-Natal’s central position in the nation’s transport and logistics network. As the second-biggest contributor (16%) to national gross domestic product (GDP) after Gauteng and a major manufacturer and exporter of goods, the KwaZulu-Natal province lends itself to po

When a little town north of Copenhagen was buffeted by a once-in-a-generation flood, the estimated cost of building canals and dams to prevent it happening again was put at 100-million Danish Kroner. Even for a rich country, R200-million is a lot of money to fix a stream – and for something that not might not happen again in a lifetime. By taking a holistic approach, engineering consulting company NIRAS managed not only to cut R100-million off the bill, they provided the res

A hotel on a train on a bridge in a game reserve. This is not the plot of a children’s story, rather it is the Kruger Shalati Development, Thebe Tourism Group’s latest accommodation offering in the Kruger National Park. PHOTO: Thebe Tourism. More than twice as many foreign tourists will visit South Africa in 2030 than is currently the case. President Cyril Ramaphosa has publicly announced that a target of 21-million foreign tourists per year is attainable. What might seem lik

## Solar-powering up a community for improved living conditions – and profit. When the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) realised that the forests on the shores of Lake George in the southern Ugandan district of Kasese were being depleted by villagers in search of wood to burn, they turned to a Danish think-tank to help them find a solution. Access²Innovation found the perfect partner in SystemTeknik, an Aalborg-based company that ironically had many years of experience of pro