B2 · Upper Intermediate
12 min
climateurban infrastructurebusinessenergy
The Elevator and the Planet: Cities, Energy, and the Climate Nobody Sees
El Ascensor y el Planeta: Ciudades, Energía, y el Clima que Nadie Ve
This week, Finnish company Kone announced the acquisition of German rival TK Elevator for nearly thirty billion euros, the largest corporate acquisition in Finnish history. Fletcher and Octavio use this news to explore something almost nobody talks about: how the buildings where we live and work are one of the world's biggest climate problems.
Esta semana, la empresa finlandesa Kone anunció la compra de su rival alemana TK Elevator por casi treinta mil millones de euros, la mayor adquisición corporativa en la historia de Finlandia. Fletcher y Octavio usan esta noticia para explorar algo que casi nadie discute: cómo los edificios donde vivimos y trabajamos son uno de los mayores problemas climáticos del mundo.
5 essential B2-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| llevar a cabo | to carry out, to implement, to execute | El gobierno prometió llevar a cabo una reforma energética antes de fin de año. |
| eficiencia energética | energy efficiency | La eficiencia energética de los edificios modernos es mucho mayor que la de los construidos en los años setenta. |
| parque de edificios | building stock (the total inventory of existing buildings in a region) | España tiene un parque de edificios muy antiguo que necesita una renovación profunda. |
| en última instancia | ultimately, in the last analysis | En última instancia, la transición energética depende de decisiones políticas, no solo tecnológicas. |
| adquisición | acquisition, takeover | La adquisición de TK Elevator por parte de Kone es la mayor de la historia empresarial finlandesa. |
Every time I cover a climate story, I end up thinking about the obvious things: power plants, cars, deforestation.
And then something comes along that makes me realize I've been missing an enormous part of the picture.
¿Y qué es lo que te hizo pensar esta vez, Fletcher?
And what made you think this time, Fletcher?
An elevator company.
Finnish, actually.
Kone just bought its German competitor, TK Elevator, for twenty-nine point four billion euros.
Bloomberg called it one of the biggest private equity-related takeovers in European history.
Sí, es una cifra enorme.
Yes, it's an enormous figure.
Pero lo interesante no es solo el dinero;
But what's interesting isn't just the money;
es lo que significa para la industria de los edificios y, en última instancia, para el clima.
it's what it means for the building industry and, ultimately, for the climate.
Right, and that's where I want to go today.
Because I had no idea how significant buildings are as a climate factor until I actually sat down with the numbers.
Los edificios son responsables de casi el cuarenta por ciento del consumo de energía global.
Buildings are responsible for almost forty percent of global energy consumption.
Y no estamos hablando solo de calefacción o aire acondicionado;
And we're not talking only about heating or air conditioning;
incluye la electricidad para todo lo que hay dentro: luces, máquinas, y sí, también los ascensores.
it includes electricity for everything inside: lights, machines, and yes, elevators too.
Forty percent.
That's more than transportation.
More than industry, in some measurements.
And we spend so much time talking about electric cars and solar panels, and almost nothing about the buildings we spend ninety percent of our lives inside.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Y lo que hace que esta adquisición sea relevante desde el punto de vista climático es que Kone no es solo una empresa de ascensores ordinaria.
And what makes this acquisition relevant from a climate perspective is that Kone isn't just an ordinary elevator company.
Lleva años desarrollando tecnología que recupera la energía que normalmente se pierde cuando un ascensor baja.
It has spent years developing technology that recovers the energy that is normally lost when an elevator descends.
Wait, you can actually capture that energy?
I'm picturing a physics problem from college that I failed.
Sí, es regeneración cinética, básicamente.
Yes, it's basically kinetic regeneration.
Cuando el ascensor baja con peso, el motor funciona como un generador y devuelve electricidad a la red del edificio.
When the elevator descends with weight, the motor acts as a generator and returns electricity to the building's grid.
Algunos sistemas modernos pueden recuperar hasta el ochenta por ciento de la energía que consumen.
Some modern systems can recover up to eighty percent of the energy they consume.
Eighty percent.
In a skyscraper running hundreds of elevators, that adds up to something genuinely significant.
Claro.
Of course.
Y ahora, con la compra de TK Elevator, Kone se convierte en uno de los dos o tres fabricantes más grandes del mundo.
And now, with the acquisition of TK Elevator, Kone becomes one of the two or three largest manufacturers in the world.
Eso les da la capacidad de llevar esta tecnología a una escala mucho mayor, a edificios en Asia, América Latina, África, donde la urbanización está creciendo más rápido.
That gives them the capacity to bring this technology to a much larger scale, to buildings in Asia, Latin America, Africa, where urbanization is growing fastest.
Let's stay there for a minute, because the urbanization angle is something I find genuinely alarming when you look at the projections.
The UN estimates that by 2050, roughly two thirds of the world's population will live in cities.
Y la mayoría de esos edificios nuevos se construirán en países en desarrollo, donde las normas de eficiencia energética son más débiles o directamente inexistentes.
And most of those new buildings will be built in developing countries, where energy efficiency standards are weaker or simply nonexistent.
Si esos edificios se construyen con tecnología antigua, tendremos décadas de emisiones innecesarias prácticamente garantizadas.
If those buildings are built with old technology, we will have decades of unnecessary emissions practically guaranteed.
There's a phrase for this in climate economics: locked-in emissions.
The idea that infrastructure, once built, commits you to a carbon pathway for thirty, fifty, sometimes a hundred years.
Es un concepto importante.
It's an important concept.
En España lo vemos de manera muy clara: tenemos un parque de edificios muy antiguo, muchos construidos en los años sesenta y setenta sin ninguna consideración energética.
In Spain we see this very clearly: we have a very old building stock, many built in the sixties and seventies with no energy considerations at all.
Reformarlos es caro, y convencer a los propietarios de que lo hagan es complicado.
Renovating them is expensive, and convincing owners to do so is complicated.
The United States has the same problem.
I lived in an apartment in Washington for six years with windows so drafty I could feel the wind through the frame in January.
The landlord's solution was to give me a thicker blanket.
Clásico.
Classic.
Mira, el problema no es solo técnico;
Look, the problem isn't only technical;
es económico y político.
it's economic and political.
Renovar un edificio para que sea eficiente energéticamente puede costar cientos de miles de euros, y los beneficios, en forma de facturas de electricidad más bajas, se distribuyen entre muchos propietarios durante muchos años.
Renovating a building to be energy efficient can cost hundreds of thousands of euros, and the benefits, in the form of lower electricity bills, are spread across many owners over many years.
Nadie quiere pagar el precio hoy para que otra persona disfrute los beneficios mañana.
Nobody wants to pay the price today so that someone else enjoys the benefits tomorrow.
That's the core collective action problem of climate change in miniature, right there in a single apartment block.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y la Unión Europea lo reconoce.
And the European Union recognizes this.
La directiva de eficiencia energética en edificios, que se actualizó hace pocos años, obliga a los países miembros a renovar progresivamente los edificios más ineficientes.
The energy efficiency in buildings directive, updated a few years ago, requires member states to progressively renovate the most inefficient buildings.
Pero la implementación es lenta y los plazos son ambiciosos de una manera que, a veces, parece más aspiracional que real.
But implementation is slow and the deadlines are ambitious in a way that sometimes feels more aspirational than real.
I covered the Kyoto Protocol negotiations back in the day, and one of the things that always frustrated me was this gap between what governments sign and what actually happens in the physical world.
Buildings are a perfect example of that gap.
Hay algo que quiero añadir aquí, porque creo que la gente subestima cuánto ha cambiado la tecnología de los edificios en los últimos veinte años.
There's something I want to add here, because I think people underestimate how much building technology has changed in the last twenty years.
No hablo solo de ascensores;
I'm not talking only about elevators;
hablo de vidrio inteligente que ajusta su opacidad según la luz solar, de fachadas que generan electricidad, de sistemas de gestión que aprenden los patrones de uso del edificio y reducen el consumo automáticamente.
I'm talking about smart glass that adjusts its opacity based on sunlight, facades that generate electricity, management systems that learn the building's usage patterns and reduce consumption automatically.
I visited a building in Singapore about four years ago that actually tracked occupancy room by room in real time and rerouted air conditioning accordingly.
The thing was practically alive.
Singapur es un caso especial, claro.
Singapore is a special case, of course.
Es una ciudad-estado pequeña, rica, con un gobierno que puede imponer normas con mucha eficacia.
It's a small, wealthy city-state with a government that can impose standards very effectively.
Pero el reto real está en las ciudades grandes de países en desarrollo, donde hay millones de edificios que nadie va a renovar en las próximas décadas.
But the real challenge is in the large cities of developing countries, where there are millions of buildings that nobody is going to renovate in the coming decades.
Which brings us back to the Kone story, because the optimistic read on a deal like this is that it concentrates technological capacity in a company that now has the scale to push lower-cost, higher-efficiency solutions into markets where they previously couldn't compete.
Eso es cierto, pero también hay que ser honestos sobre los riesgos.
That's true, but we also have to be honest about the risks.
Cuando hay menos competidores en un mercado, los precios pueden subir y la innovación puede desacelerarse.
When there are fewer competitors in a market, prices can rise and innovation can slow down.
La regulación antimonopolio en Europa va a examinar este acuerdo con mucha atención.
Antitrust regulation in Europe is going to examine this deal very carefully.
The classic tension between scale and competition.
Though I'd argue that in a sector where you genuinely need global reach to make a dent in the climate problem, there's a case for accepting some consolidation.
Es un argumento válido, pero lo he escuchado muchas veces justificando fusiones que terminaron reduciendo la innovación y no resolviendo nada.
It's a valid argument, but I've heard it many times justifying mergers that ended up reducing innovation and solving nothing.
El mercado no es el único mecanismo;
The market isn't the only mechanism;
la regulación pública también tiene un papel fundamental.
public regulation also has a fundamental role.
Fair point.
And historically, some of the biggest efficiency gains in buildings have come not from market forces but from building codes.
California's Title 24 energy standards, for example, have probably done more for building efficiency in the U.S.
than any corporate initiative.
Completamente de acuerdo.
Completely agreed.
Y es interesante que mencionas California, porque es uno de los pocos lugares en Estados Unidos donde la legislación energética en edificios es realmente ambiciosa.
And it's interesting you mention California, because it's one of the few places in the United States where energy legislation for buildings is truly ambitious.
En la mayor parte del país, las normas son mucho más débiles.
In most of the country, the standards are much weaker.
And in the current political environment in Washington, the odds of a serious federal building efficiency standard passing seem...
remote, to put it generously.
Aquí Europa lleva ventaja, aunque tampoco hay que exagerar.
Here Europe has an advantage, though we shouldn't exaggerate it either.
La directiva europea obliga, pero los estados miembros tienen mucha flexibilidad en cómo aplican las normas, y en algunos países el avance es muy lento.
The European directive is binding, but member states have a lot of flexibility in how they apply the rules, and in some countries progress is very slow.
Italia, por ejemplo, tiene un parque de edificios históricos enormes que son casi imposibles de renovar sin destruir su valor cultural.
Italy, for example, has an enormous stock of historic buildings that are almost impossible to renovate without destroying their cultural value.
That's a genuinely hard problem.
You walk through Rome and you're surrounded by buildings that are literally two thousand years old.
The idea of ripping out the windows of a Renaissance palazzo to install triple glazing is...
well, it's complicated.
Y sin embargo, hay soluciones que respetan el patrimonio histórico.
And yet, there are solutions that respect the historical heritage.
Tecnologías de aislamiento interno, sistemas de climatización menos invasivos.
Internal insulation technologies, less invasive climate systems.
El problema es que son más caras y requieren más trabajo técnico especializado.
The problem is they're more expensive and require more specialized technical work.
No es imposible;
It's not impossible;
es una cuestión de voluntad política y financiación.
it's a matter of political will and financing.
Zooming out for a second: I think what this Kone story does is remind us that solving the climate crisis is going to require transformations in sectors that nobody puts on the cover of a magazine.
Not just solar farms and wind turbines.
Elevators.
Insulation.
HVAC systems.
The boring infrastructure of everyday life.
Exacto, y creo que eso es lo más importante que los oyentes pueden llevarse de este episodio.
Exactly, and I think that's the most important thing listeners can take from this episode.
La transición energética no es solo dramática y visible.
The energy transition isn't only dramatic and visible.
En gran parte es silenciosa, técnica, y ocurre en los lugares más inesperados: el motor de un ascensor, la capa de aislamiento entre dos paredes, el algoritmo que gestiona la temperatura de un edificio.
To a large extent it's silent, technical, and it happens in the most unexpected places: the motor of an elevator, the layer of insulation between two walls, the algorithm managing a building's temperature.
The invisible infrastructure of a livable future.
There's something almost poetic about the fact that one of the most consequential climate stories this week involves a Finnish elevator company.
Finlandia tiene una larga tradición de empresas industriales que han sabido reinventarse en torno a la sostenibilidad.
Finland has a long tradition of industrial companies that have known how to reinvent themselves around sustainability.
Nokia es el ejemplo más conocido, aunque por razones muy distintas.
Nokia is the most well-known example, though for very different reasons.
Kone es un caso diferente: una empresa que tomó un producto muy ordinario y lo convirtió en una apuesta por la eficiencia energética.
Kone is a different case: a company that took a very ordinary product and turned it into a bet on energy efficiency.
You used a phrase earlier that I've been thinking about, actually.
You said 'llevar a cabo' when you were talking about implementing the EU directive.
I know what it means but I could never use it naturally.
What's the literal breakdown?
Buena pregunta.
Good question.
Literalmente, 'llevar' significa 'to carry' y 'cabo' significa 'end' o 'tip', como el cabo de una cuerda.
Literally, 'llevar' means 'to carry' and 'cabo' means 'end' or 'tip,' like the end of a rope.
Entonces 'llevar a cabo' es 'llevar algo hasta su extremo', o sea, completarlo, realizarlo.
So 'llevar a cabo' is 'to carry something to its end,' meaning to complete it, to carry it out.
Lo usamos cuando queremos decir que algo se ejecuta de principio a fin.
We use it when we want to say something is executed from beginning to end.
So it's closer to 'carry out' than 'implement,' in the sense that it implies following through to completion, not just starting something.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y es una expresión muy versátil: 'llevar a cabo un proyecto', 'llevar a cabo una reforma', 'llevar a cabo una investigación'.
And it's a very versatile expression: 'to carry out a project,' 'to carry out a reform,' 'to carry out an investigation.' It works in formal and informal contexts.
Funciona en contextos formales e informales.
What doesn't work as well is using it with small or everyday things;
Lo que no funciona tan bien es usarla con cosas pequeñas o cotidianas;
it sounds a bit exaggerated to say 'I carried out breakfast.'
suena un poco exagerado decir 'llevé a cabo el desayuno'.
I will absolutely be using 'llevé a cabo el desayuno' at my next family dinner in Madrid just to watch Octavio's face.
Y yo te miraré exactamente igual que te miro cuando le pides hielo al camarero para el vino.
And I will look at you exactly the same way I look at you when you ask the waiter for ice in your wine.
Con una mezcla de horror y resignación.
With a mixture of horror and resignation.