This month the G8 Summit agreed the first steps towards a significant global strategy on climate change by agreeing that global warming temperatures should not exceed 2C of 1900 levels and that member nations will work towards an 80% reduction of green house gas emissions by 2050. The USA has taken a major step-change in its attitude towards the climate and President Obama who chaired the discussion stressed that the issue of climate change could no longer be ignored and that we should look towards December and Copenhagen. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Cleantech’ Category
What is the supergrid?
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
Last week’s Cleantech Innovation Forum
Monday, June 22nd, 2009Last week I went to the Cleantech Innovation Forum in London, at Kensington Olympia. The forum had a highly interactive format, with a series of discussion groups and pre-arranged one-on-one meetings, rather than the traditional format of presentation with networking coffee breaks. This proved to be pretty useful as a networking tool, although I found myself with an action-packed schedule! (more…)
Finding answers in clean technology
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009The other day I received an email to tell me that the Rushlight Cleantech Survey is now live (www.rushlightevents.co.uk). The survey is a chance for those involved in clean technologies to have their say, and the results will be used to inform decisions on regulations, legislation, funding and support. Rushlight is trying to spread the net wide, to come up with meaningful results, and is offering all sorts of ‘bait’ to encourage participation. Because we think it’s an excellent idea, TTP and TTP Ventures have agreed to provide some of this ‘bait’, in the form of a free telephone advisory service on incubation or investment. (more…)
How to break in to cleantech
Monday, May 25th, 2009There are a many managers and executives keen to break into the cleantech sector but who simply don’t know how.
There is a definite (and often correct) assumption that there are barriers to entry for someone without direct experience within the energy or related industry sectors. Unless you have a technical background there are also fewer jobs on offer and so the task of breaking into the sector can sometimes appear almost impossible. (more…)
Dear job seeker…..
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009Dear job seeker,
I have some good news and some bad news. If you are new to cleantech and are perhaps viewing it (quite rightly) as one of the few areas of the economy that is doing (relatively) well then the good news is that cleantech is an industry and not a technology. What do I mean? As a colleague of mine, Hugh Parnell, put it, it’s not a technology, like biotechnology, but rather a collection of technologies. I would go further and say it’s an industry like, say, the car industry. In fact several clean technologies are being developed by the car industry, such as fuel cells and plug-in hybrids. So the good news is that cleantech is a very broad industry in which you can valuably exploit your existing skills. This is in fact the basis of the various ‘green-collar’ stimulus packages being deployed by governments around the World. (more…)
Show me the money! - securing finance in interesting times
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009For great cleantech start-ups, today’s economic climate is both a gift and a burden. Climate change, both in its environmental and economic senses, has brought new opportunities to clean technology. With carbon reduction an ever-increasing priority, and an economic situation where conservative behaviour is no longer an option, the time is ripe for disruptive technologies in the cleantech space. However, the challenge is to make sure that companies with these great technologies don’t drop off the edge just because they cannot find the cash to keep them going.
So what should companies do if they are struggling to find finance? The good news is that there is still money out there for companies who have a strong technology with great commercial potential - it’s just that the bar is higher. The answer for start-ups is firstly to really nail down their proposition, and secondly to target their search for investment effectively. (more…)
