"I know it doesn't look like it right now, but this Island might be the best Island in Europe – and even the world!" Not because of its sandy beaches, or its architecture, or year-round warm weather. "It's so cold!" But because it's maybe the
greenest island in the world. All the energy produced here is renewable. They re-use a lot of their waste. And are reviving their struggling economy by becoming more sustainable. "But they are running into a lot of all too familiar sounding problems." Problems that a lot of places around the world are trying to solve right now. "So how did they become the greenest island? Can they keep it up? And what can we all learn from them?" "Right back there, that's where it is." Bornholm is part of Denmark. It lies in the middle of the Baltic Sea, and about 40,000 people live there. It used to be a Viking stronghold, then Swedes, Germans and Danes fought over it for centuries. But the Danes won in the end and the island has been theirs since the 17th century. Bornholm was never rich. Because it's isolated and doesn't have a big industry, it was one of the lowest-income regions in Denmark. Most of the people here earned a living by farming, fishing - or later through tourism. But when the fish population started dwindling and tourism couldn't make up for that, Bornholm was in a very tight spot. It needed a new plan. "To become the best island ever – or at least the greenest island ever." They wanted to become more independent from the mainland, save money in the long run and bring more people to the island – as tourists or as residents. The plan was so successful that the EU awarded Bornholm the title of the most sustainable island in Europe. Of course, Bornholm is very small. But many people around the world visit to see what they are doing here to learn from their success – and their mistakes. So how did they do it? "The first step was to reduce waste." The common problem with islands is that waste can pile up quickly – and can be expensive to ship out. Many islands – especially those with lots
of tourists like Bali – are heavily polluted with plastic and other trash and burn a lot of it on the island. Which used to be similar here too. "In the old days, all the waste, nearly all the waste was incinerated and all the resources were [going] up in smoke." This is Brian Johansen. He works at the local waste management company. But things have changed since then. "People already have to sort their household waste into six different categories and they want to up that to 12." And the waste at the recycling yard is divided into 40 categories to make recycling easier and more efficient. "How did people react when you started making more and more categories?" "When we started this several years ago it was not a fight, people were not angry, but [they said] 'what is that'? But now it makes good sense that they are supposed to sort the waste and we tell them a lot that it's not waste, it's resources." With a bonus: Everybody can come to the recycling center and take whatever they need, before it even needs to be recycled. Which sounds super logical, but is illegal in most of Denmark and a lot of other countries. "If I need a toilet..." "Yeah, you can ask my colleague if he wants to help you with taking it out, no problem. Yeah, you can do that!" Once separated, the waste is shipped off to
neighboring Sweden to be recycled. "Looking beautiful!" Many businesses on Bornholm also recycle their own waste so that it doesn't even have to make its way to the recycling yard. Like this fiber which is left over from producing rapeseed oil. "Because directly from the farmer you still have a little bit of waste, leaves and stuff like that, which we are taking away also, and that we are pressing into pellets which we're heating with. It's saving money. So no need to buy oil or gas or anything." In this sustainable hotel, a lot of the furniture is made of wood that would have been thrown away. Shower water is reused to flush the toilet. And to add a whimsical touch, this path is made from old glass bottles. But that doesn't mean Bornholm is completely waste free. Some hazardous trash still gets landfilled. And about a quarter of it gets burned. "What kind of waste is this?" "This is household waste. We mix it up – the wet waste with the dry waste, then it's going to be incinerated. And we use the heat from the incinerator for district heating in Rønne"." "Why can't this be recycled?" "It could be – but we don't have companies who can take it and reuse it. But if you come back in five years, maybe six years, this mountain of waste would be much smaller." The goal is to sort the waste so
well that nothing has to be burned – at the latest by 2032. That's when this plant will have to shut down because it will be too old. "The second step was to start producing their own energy and become less dependent on electricity from elsewhere." Islands especially are often dependent on
the mainland or even other countries providing them with energy – which can become expensive. Up until a few decades ago, Bornholm's energy came from almost a 100% fossil fuels. But not anymore. "We have solar panels or photovoltaics, we have a biogas system on Bornholm, and of course also wind turbines onshore." Klaus Vesløv is the spokesperson for Bornholm's energy provider. Some of the solar panels were developed especially for Bornholm – like these window pane ones. Many businesses send their organic waste to a biogas facility where it's turned into energy. Most of the remaining electricity
and some of the heat on Bornholm is produced by burning wood chips. [Klaus Vesløv] "Now we are actually using locally grown biomass. So our money is actually staying on the island." Although wood is renewable, burning it is
one of the dirtiest ways of producing energy. It emits a lot of CO2. That's why Bornholm is planning to use less of it. Another hitch was the same problem many other places have: "People are very, very fond of where they live. I think we all are. And of course, there's discussion always when you put up wind turbines, you can really see them." Many islanders were against windmills in their back yard. "Therefore, our local politicians actually said, well, our strategy is not to put up more wind turbines onshore, we will put them offshore." "There is certainly enough wind for wind power..." Bornholm's harbor is already full of offshore wind turbines, which are going to be installed a few kilometers off the coast. The island will either get some energy off of those giant wind parks or will set up a locally owned, smaller park. But until then, all this energy still isn't
enough to cover the island's energy use. On average, about a quarter of the energy comes from an underwater cable from neighboring Sweden. And on top of that, they face a well-known problem: What to do when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining. The energy produced in peak times needs
to be stored for when none is generated. "We're going to put up a massive energy storage capacity here on molten salt." "What is molten salt?" "Basically, it's salt that we will melt. Putting in electricity, surplus electricity from the wind turbines when they're arriving. And then when we need energy, then we just put water into that and create steam and then we produce heat and power. So therefore, we kind of contain a lot of energy for a long period of time, actually." [Reporter] "How big is it going to be?" "It's going to be up to the top floor. So it's going to fill out this entire room, actually." [Reporter] "That's huge!" It won't be nearly enough to store all the excess energy. But if all goes well, the company building
it wants to install more on a bigger scale. So the original plan was to run on a
hundred percent renewables by 2025. "Is that going to happen, do you think?" "Definitely not. Definitely not. I think we will be very close in terms of our energy system on Bornholm. We have to fix land-based transportation, not only on Bornholm. I think that's a problem in Germany, in the rest of Denmark, or in the rest of the world actually." "Like with this electric charging station, that isn't as popular as people would have hoped." There are around 20 charging stations scattered across Bornholm, which is not a lot. Electric cars are still more expensive than gasoline ones, meaning it's a hard switch to make if you're not the richest of regions. Once more of them are on the streets, though, Bornholm plans to use the car batteries to also store some excess energy – which is already happening on a test basis with these electric cars that are owned by the island's municipality. "Another big problem is this ferry, because it runs on marine diesel and is very dirty." There's some discussion about hydrogen or electric engines which are cleaner, but it's still very early days. Change can be slower than wanted, especially if you can't just throw money at a problem. That's why sustainability must
make sense money-wise as well. "We have a lot of taxes in Denmark on energy. So of course by every kilowatt you can save, you also save money. It's very simple. We have solar panels on the roof. And our heating system is something we use our residues from production to heat up the whole factory. And simple things like choosing a bottle with less glass in it, reducing weight, but also then reducing the amount of gas used for producing a bottle. Initial costs may be higher because you need to do some investments but after that, it is actually cheaper for us to run the business here." But that's not always the case. "I strongly believe that all people want to do the right thing and the most green thing, but they have to be able to afford it also at the same time." That's why a lot of the efforts here are co-funded by EU or governmental programs. Or are set up as experiments that companies
collaborate on and invest money into. Another way to convince people is to show
why being more sustainable makes sense. "You can see it with your eyes when you are reusing or recycling stuff, that it's not going to be burned. You can see that, you know, it's good for the climate and the environment." "So, of course all of these efforts don't mean the entire island is super green and super eco-friendly. Politics, stalling technologies and missing funds can get in the way and delay the progress." But there's still a lot of things we
can learn from this tiny island experimenting away on the Baltic Sea. You can't just copy what was done here and paste it anywhere. But you can copy the core idea, which is make sustainability the easiest, most logical and cheapest way of doing things." And where this isn't the case yet, we need incentives – like ramping up taxes on fossil fuels, subsidizing electric transport or investing in experimental projects like this one. "If you want to see more of us freezing our butts off, please subscribe – we post videos every Friday!"
