CNBC Business | THE GREEN MAN OF THE WOODS

THE GREEN MAN OF THE WOODS

How does Eckhart Wintzen combine making money with saving the planet?

For much the same ecological reasons, Ex'tent has invested in other digital projects, such as the Ex'pression College for Digital Arts, a cutting-edge, for-profit digital arts school located in Emeryville, California. Absorbing 600 graduates annually, this academy offers students the opportunity to experiment with some of the most sophisticated digital graphic and audio equipment currently available, and to qualify as new 'operators' in Wintzen's immaterial world.

A more conventionally green-sounding project is Greenwheels, which was developed in close cooperation with government authorities and public transport companies throughout the Netherlands. Similar to the famous 'white bicycle' project of the 1960s, Greenwheels creates a pool of more than 1,000 cars, from which subscribers can reserve (via phone) a conveniently located vehicle, and then open it with their electronic card and access code. This project offers personalised transport while decreasing the number of cars in circulation and the parking and pollution problems they cause. Importantly, Greenwheels also makes a profit.

However, despite all the publicity he has attracted over the years, it is still hard to prove how successful Wintzen is as an entrepreneur, or Ex'tent is as a business. Although anecdotal evidence suggests some degree of success on both counts, the usual financial benchmarks are not available. As a private company, Ex'tent does not disclose any financial details, and Wintzen is not volunteering any. He is also tight-lipped when it comes to his personal fortune. One Dutch lifestyle and financial magazine once valued his wealth at €160m, a sum he vigorously refutes. However, Wintzen is far more forthcoming when it comes to expounding his success as an environmentalist. "Eye Catcher will save the planet 10 to 30 tonnes of CO₂ emissions per year, depending on its application," he proclaims.

Despite his advanced age and accomplishments, this sprightly 67-year-old is not yet ready to retire and relinquish his place on numerous environmental commissions and supervisory boards. And Wintzen, who has directly advised several Dutch government ministers, can still drum up an audience. At the 2005 International Entrepreneurship Forum and Exhibition held in Dubai, he took his place on the speaker's rostrum with such luminaries as Donald Trump and easyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou.

And although the world has come around to many of the 'hippy ideas' he was spouting years ago, he is still managing to be controversial. Wintzen is currently trying to convince policymakers that the best way to safeguard the world's dwindling natural resources is by making polluters pay directly and in full for the damage they cause. The best deterrent, he reasons, is through taxes based on how much damage particular substances, products or services do to the environment. Eco-taxes are not a new idea. The Netherlands, for example, has long-levied a surcharge on certain consumer goods, such as washing machines and personal computers, to help pay for their environmentally friendly disposal. What Wintzen is proposing is a lot broader and further-reaching, however. Take his 'value-extracted tax' (VET), which would replace value-added tax. This would be levied on all products and services, based on the impact they have on the environment and the cost of undoing the damage – from energy use and waste disposal, to travel- and transportation-related emissions – at every stage of their development and delivery.

He says: "By taxing scarce resources instead of abundantly available manpower, business would be given an incentive to develop and use environmentally friendly products and services. And reduce pollution." Wintzen, like Nicholas Stern, the ex-World Bank economist behind last October's highly-publicised report on global warming, is under no illusions as to the difficulty of imposing such a tax in an equitable fashion across all sectors of society. Yet he insists that it would be relatively straightforward for a government-appointed scientific commission to calculate the amounts people would pay, and the current VAT authority and procedures could easily be deployed for regulation, enforcement and collection. "Sure, calculating and imposing these taxes may be highly politicised," he shrugs. "Which taxes are not?"

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