S.D.’s Clean-Tech Profile Grows Globally | San Diego Business Journal
San Diego clean-tech luster shone a little brighter when the city was chosen as the site of the U.S. launch of the Global Cleantech Cluster Association, a partnership consisting of more than 20 of the world’s leading clean-tech clusters.
The announcement regarding the association, which features more than 3,500 companies and 430 research institutions worldwide, came Nov. 30 when San Diego hosted an international summit of companies and countries active in the green economy.
A co-founder of the worldwide association said the city’s innovations in the clean-tech arena made it a natural venue for the launch.
About 400 people attended CleanTech San Diego’s first International Showcase at USD’s Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.
One of the International Showcase’s goals was connecting San Diego business owners with like-minded players overseas that could be a source of future business.
“This is one of those inflection points in our organization’s three-year history,” said Lisa Bicker, president and chief executive officer of CleanTech San Diego, welcoming attendees to the program.
Bicker said the region’s clean-tech know-how makes it a place attractive to investors and expansion by overseas companies. About 750 firms in the region are members of CleanTech San Diego, a nonprofit trade association geared to support their business development.
“Clean-tech clusters are a pivotal, driving force that accelerates the adoption of clean technology around the world,” said Shawn Lesser, CEO of Atlanta-based Sustainable World Capital LLC, a business focused on connecting profitable sustainable companies with institutional investors worldwide.
“Clusters are proven to create new jobs, stimulate investment opportunities and give clean-tech companies political leverage to influence legislative agendas,” said Lesser, also a co-founder of GCCA, a nonprofit organization whose global headquarters is based in Atlanta.
Promoting Innovation, Investment
He defined a clean-tech cluster organization as an economic development effort aimed at growing jobs in a specific geographic region. One of a cluster’s main goals is to promote innovation and investment.
Creating one is no simple task, but cities such as San Diego have a head start compared with other regions, Lesser noted.
“With GCCA, we are amplifying the power of clusters around the world and moving the clean-tech industry closer to established success and increased market adoption (of products and technologies).”
By 2011, GCCA aims to unite more than 50 clusters worldwide, in which 10,000 companies and 500 universities and research institutions will be represented.
The continued expansion of clean-tech is an ideal fit for a city teeming with engineers, environmentalists, venture capital, software specialists and scientists, said Lesser, referring to San Diego. He said the area has a natural incentive toward clean-tech because of its political, educational and financial wherewithal.
Major Export Market
The innovations that “make natural sense” for San Diego are often good for the rest of the world, he said, predicting that clean-tech could eventually become the region’s biggest export market.
“The International Showcase demonstrated clean-tech opportunities abroad that are of significance to the region, promote export and import opportunities, as well as joint ventures and market expansion,” said Jim Waring, chairman of the board of directors of CleanTech San Diego.
Waring said San Diego entrepreneurs were quick to move into clean-tech, creating new startups in solar power, biofuels and clean water, using experience they had already gained.
Among the panelists at the event were Tony St. Clair of Australian biofuel company MBD Energy Ltd.; Henning von Barsewich of Germany’s Concentrix Solar; Peter Bruijns of Canada’s water filtration-focused Biorem Inc.; and Tom Gage of AC Propulsion Inc., which provides batteries to the Swiss vehicle designers of the E-Tracer.
While San Diego has the brainpower and political will to support clean-tech innovations, all the good ideas in the world cannot be brought to commercial scale without investors.
The showcase’s keynote speaker was Evan Lovell, founding partner of Virgin Green Fund, which is affiliated with billionaire Richard Branson.
“Lights are always going to get turned on, water will need to be transported and treated,” said Lovell. “I can’t imagine a better sector to be investing in right now.”
