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Clean Tech > Seminars

Clean Tech World Seminars

More than just an exhibition...


Clean Tech World is all about giving the best quality advice to people who are in business and want to understand the impact that clean technology will have on their business. Cleantech is at the heart of a huge global revolution, driven by many factors. Individually each of these factors is significant but cumulatively they are immensely powerful. If you want help or assistance with any of the following, you mustn't miss this show - it could be the best investment you'll ever make in the future success of your business:

Cleantech has the potential to have a far-reaching impact on the operations of both European companies and foreign companies operating in Europe. Key areas of impact over the next five to ten years will be:

1. REGULATORY SHIFTS

Companies across a wide range of sectors will be impacted by a tightening of regulation, driven by the EU, aimed at promoting greater environmental sustainability (e.g. on building materials, landfill diversion and manufacturing standards) and reducing toxic emissions. However, implementation is taking place at an uneven pace across Member States, which may create confusion and additional costs for companies. Therefore, investments by companies in regulatory foresight and monitoring will reap benefits in the longer term. Crucially, regulatory change in adjacent sectors will also need to be monitored, given the growing potential for ‘regulatory spill over’ across sectors. Also, to the extent possible, companies should enhance the adaptability of their operations to potential future regulatory change.

2. REPUTATIONAL RISKS

With public opinion across Europe ‘greening’, companies face potential reputational risks if they engage in practices that are perceived as being harmful to the environment, or if they do not comply with environmental regulations. Communication will become increasingly critical: Companies may find that failure to indicate environmental awareness could result in a negative reputational impact. As Cleantech is applied more broadly, authorities and consumers will expect a higher level of ‘greenness’ in their goods and services. Voluntary ‘green’ certifications may come to play a more important role in consumer and procurement choices.

3. LOBBYING NEED

As tighter regulation is devised, it will become increasingly important for companies and industry associations to ensure that their views are adequately represented at the national and EU level. Some sectors have been very successful in promoting or restraining environmental legislation to their benefit. It would be worthwhile for companies in other sectors to invest in learning from such successful case studies, and also to build mutually beneficial alliances with companies/associations in other sectors and countries. Broad alliances will prove particularly useful in ensuring that the competitiveness risks associated with higher costs of implementing environmental regulation (at least in the short term) are adequately taken into account.

4. PROCUREMENT DECISIONS

Companies will need to become increasingly aware of new developments in Cleantech as they formulate long-term procurement decisions. Failure to incorporate rapidly evolving technologies could have increasingly serious direct financial implications - for example, retaining old technologies could result in less efficient energy and water consumption and higher utility-related bills. Key areas of this changing procurement focus are likely to be manufacturing equipment, logistics, and real estate.

5. LIFE CYCLE RESPONSIBILITY

European regulation is putting a greater onus on companies to be responsible for the entire life cycle of their products and services. This represents an opportunity for companies that are incorporating environmental issues into all aspects of their corporate strategy, but poses a serious risk to companies that are not yet doing so. Driven by e-waste concerns and the WEEE Directive, the concept of producer responsibility may increasingly be transferred to other sectors. Municipalities will expect producers and retailers to assume more of the costs of product disposal, providing producers with incentives to design products with high levels of recyclability and to better understand their supply chains. In the short term, this is likely to raise costs for companies, but those that manage to adapt quickly and most effectively stand to gain competitive advantage over rival companies in Europe.

6. UPGRADING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Information Technology (IT) upgrades will go hand-in-hand with many new Cleantech applications. Short-term gains can be made across most sectors by using IT to better manage company information, resulting in improved energy use and reduced emissions. For example, in food production, IT can help in the more efficient broadcasting of agrichemicals. In some sectors, enhanced IT will be at the core of adapting to Cleantech, with transport companies, for example, coming to depend on fleet management technology that encompasses areas such as driver training and optimising routes; and manufacturers will need to employ sophisticated IT systems to track and manage waste across supply chains.

7. INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Cleantech provides a number of investment opportunities, with new innovations potentially resulting in high levels of return. However, given the wide range of nascent technologies, and the relatively limited availability of funding at the moment, companies need to select the technologies they choose to invest in with care. In this regard, companies should analyse most closely those technologies that are likely to be positively affected by long-term government incentive structures and/or that may benefit from new PPPs.

8. TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

Companies should look outside their national borders (and also outside Europe) in order to learn about Cleantech applications in their sector. For example, Japan remains a world leader in the application of Cleantech to food production. Companies that currently are laggards in Cleantech have huge potential to ‘catch up’ with competitors, or even overtake them, by skilfully and rapidly adopting existing clean technologies. Similarly, it may be that certain particularly successful clean technologies help to transform entire economies, potentially enabling rapid catch up or overtaking by some developing countries. Such a development path could emulate what has been occurring in telecommunications in Africa, as mobile telephony has leapfrogged terrestrial telecommunications. European companies should be attentive to opportunities such development could present, for new export markets, off shoring functions and international expansion.