At European Cleantech Forum in Paris last month I was struck by one thing: revenues. Clean technology businesses at the conference, which tends to focus on earlier stage businesses, are now not only generating revenues but these are in the millions and even the tens of millions.

Now if on reading this you are thinking “how can the existence of revenues be a highlight at a business conference?” then you probably work in an established business. I’ve not even mentioned profits, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Your established business is exactly what the clean sector needs (also known as the green or low carbon sector). One of the reasons I joined GM&T is because I believe that corporates have a key role to play in the scale-up of the low carbon sector.

This however brings me unfortunately to a concern that came to me on returning from the conference. Without becoming too academic, the point of businesses operating within the low carbon sector is to help society reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and therefore avert dangerous climate change. Emissions are only reduced if products, projects and services are bought and used. Revenues of only $10 million, or even $100million, are simply not enough to make a significant dent in global emission. Of course more established low carbon businesses, such as wind turbines companies and solar cell manufacturers, are already making revenues in the $billions. However, to achieve the emissions cuts necessary, we also need the more ‘innovative’ business developing for example, biomass digesters, building technologies and smart grid technologies, to make significant sales too.

So what can we do? Well the answer is plenty. Firstly, established businesses can act as both as an early-adopter buyer for new, low carbon technologies. Secondly, we can use our market access and brands to encourage customers to adopt new, low carbon solutions. Thirdly, we can positively influence government and industry bodies to create a more benign market place for the adoption of low carbon products and services.

So what are we doing about scaling up clean technologies? I’m writing this article whilst flying to SE Asia to look at a number of low carbon, clean development mechanism (CDM) projects. For companies with international operations and assets this mechanism offers a means to subsidise the implementation of carbon reducing technologies. Another example is our investment in TruRead, a relatively small business that has come up with a great ‘smart meter’ for measuring and managing gas consumption in commercial facilities. Energy management services, enabled by innovative technologies like TruRead’s, is an area where much work is needed but where large corporates have the resources and, most importantly, the trust of customers to implement innovative services.

So, get yourself along to a clean technology event and find out how these technologies can be applied to your business and help turn those revenues from millions to billions.

Contacts for further information:

Simon Crook, Carbon Technology Manager
Simon.crook@gazprom-mt.com