Getting beyond the rhetorical tug of war on climate change
Alex Gill, Executive Director
The environment will be back on Canada’s front pages this week with the arrival of heads of state at the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change. Predictably, the debate has rolled out on familiar lines. Environmental NGOs predicted dire consequences if the federal government does not embrace sweeping emissions cuts. The government issued low-key messages about matching US moves and not wanting to put Canada at a competitive disadvantage. Radicals on both sides also weighed in, with Greenpeace scaling the Parliament buildings and climate change deniers sending furious e-mails about the “cover up” being foisted upon us by darker corners of the scientific community.
Lost in all of this rhetorical spin is a simple idea that, if embraced, will benefit Canadians, the environment - and our environment industry: In addition to being an issue of great moral and scientific importance, climate change is the single biggest business opportunity facing Canada right now. And we need to capitalize on it.
Consider the worldwide challenge that climate change will pose in coming decades. Developed and developing economies will need to find cheaper and more environmentally friendly sources of energy. Emissions will need to be monitored, controlled and reduced. Our infrastructure will need to withstand even greater weather extremes. And - for a host of related issues - individuals and companies will need innovative environmental services, products and technologies at a rate we have never seen before.
Prior to Copenhagen, estimates valued this growing world market at more than $700 billion each year. Even if countries do not fully embrace the recommended limits on carbon proposed in advance of the Summit, the worldwide move towards lower-carbon economies will continue. The scale of this shift can perhaps best be compared to how our economies totally reoriented around the production of the automobile in the early years of the 20th century, with the exception that all parts of our economies will now have to embrace a new way of operating - not just the transportation sector.
The scale of this worldwide opportunity is staggering - so why is no one talking about climate change in these terms? The base of environment companies we have built in Canada is well-positioned to take advantage of this opportunity. Unfortunately, we are not really talking about the economic benefits that Canada could realize from a proactive climate challenge strategy. Companies around the world are gearing up to generate a lot of wealth in coming decades as they help us make this transition to a sustainable economy. Unfortunately, if we continue to ignore this opportunity, few of those companies will be Canadian.
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Alex Gill
Executive Director
Ontario Environment Industry Association (ONEIA)
330 Adelaide St. W., Suite 218
Toronto, ON M5V 1R4
Monday, December 14, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Environment companies in “sweet spot” according to Premier
Things have been busy on the ONEIA front in the past few months. At our recent Environment Industry Day at Queen’s Park, the Association released a joint report, written with Deloitte Consulting on what environment firms across Ontario see as the barriers to their growth – and what they need governments to do to address them.
The report, Time to Grow: Making Ontario’s environment industry a world leader at home and abroad took considerable committee and staff work to complete - but is a landmark for our members and our sector. For the first time, we have a rigorous document that supports our calls for logical government policies that benefit the environment, the economy and our industry. The Deputy Minister of the Environment, Gail Beggs, in her luncheon remarks prior to the afternoon roundtables at EID, called the report a valuable addition to the ongoing dialogue between industry and government. The Minister of the Environment praised the report in his evening remarks at EID, saying he looks forward to working with industry to begin to implement its recommendations. And the Premier, in his first-ever appearance at EID, said to the more than 100 companies in attendance that our firms are in the “sweet spot” of the current economy.
ONEIA’s Advocacy Committee will be following up on the report’s release in the next few months. Among other things, we will be:
- Briefing the Premier’s advisors on the economy and the environment
- Meeting with the Environment Minister to propose joint action on such issues as green purchasing and approvals reform
- Building on the committee of industry-leading CEOs that advised ONEIA on the research project, we will propose a similar contact group to meet regularly with the environment minister and others
To offer your advice and suggestions, feel free to visit the comments section of the ONEIA blog at oneia.blogspot.com or contact our advocacy committee chair, Bob Redhead, at info@oneia.ca.
Finally, let me offer a few words of thanks to those who made the report possible. The Ministries of Environment, Economic Development and Research and Innovation – that, together with the Ontario Centres of Excellence – provided substantial funding for the report. Our CEO advisory committee, who provided input at key points in the process. And members across the province who came to focus groups and completed the online survey to give us the feedback we needed to produce a solid report. Our work in the coming months will be a product of this support – and for this, we thank you.
Stay tuned to ONEIA in the coming months as we move forward on this initiative!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Earth Day finds Ontario’s environment industry at crossroads
Yesterday, at a meeting of the Economic Club of Canada, I had breakfast with Ontario’s Minister of the Environment, The Hon. John Gerretsen. For those who have not met the Minister, he’s a lawyer and former mayor of Kingston who has probably forgotten more about politics than most people ever learn. The conversation many of us had with him around the table yesterday showed that he seems very committed to his portfolio and personally interested in its many issues.
His speech was a good one, but I was struck by one thing he did not mention. In past years, under past ministers, such a speech might have included just a passing mention of Ontario’s environment firms and focused instead on the voter-friendly parts of the environmental agenda – household recycling, green lightbulbs and the like.
Minister Gerretsen’s speech did not follow this past course. He focused instead on the economic challenge facing Ontario and the role that environment businesses could play in it. He mentioned by name half-a-dozen firms that are involved in environmental consulting, recycling, manufacturing and other areas. He talked at length about the many reform initiatives underway at his ministry, even adding additional – and unscripted – comments about his desire to make the approvals system more efficient.
The fact that Ontario’s Minister of the Environment makes such comments publicly – and frequently – is good news for ONEIA members and our environment sector as a whole. There is willingness across many ministries to hear new ideas from our members that amazes those who have been around this sector far longer than me. Ontario’s environment sector has a unique opportunity now to have a new discussion with the province and outline the changes we all know we need.
A new report that we will release jointly with Deloitte Consulting at Environment Industry Day on April 29 will be a good place to start this discussion. In the past two months, with the support of the Ministries of Environment, Economic Development and Research and Innovation and the Ontario Centres of Excellence, Deloitte has been interviewing and surveying environment companies across Ontario. Their focus has been a simple one: what are the important barriers to growth for companies in this sector and what, if anything, can we do about them.
The results of this research are significant for a number of reasons. For the first time, we will know what Ontario environment firms want from government. We will know the areas that we can focus on in the coming year or two that will bring the greatest benefits to ONEIA members, the overall environment sector and the provincial economy as a whole. And we will know this at a time when government is asking us to talk with them what they can do to help our industry.
We will be distributing copies of the report at Environment Industry Day on the 29th and will publish it on the ONEIA website shortly thereafter. If you haven’t yet registered for EID, please visit one of the links below.
ONEIA Member Registration:
https://www.oneia.ca/oneiaEvent.php?id=29
Non-Member Registration (Evening Reception only): https://www.oneia.ca/oneiaEvent.php?id=30
And I would invite those of you who are not yet ONEIA members to join the conversation about the future of Ontario’s environment businesses. You can visit the blog posting of this message at http://oneia.blogspot.com/ to add your comments. If you are not yet an ONEIA member, you can visit www.oneia.ca/signup.php.
Thanks and I look forward to seeing you at EID!
His speech was a good one, but I was struck by one thing he did not mention. In past years, under past ministers, such a speech might have included just a passing mention of Ontario’s environment firms and focused instead on the voter-friendly parts of the environmental agenda – household recycling, green lightbulbs and the like.
Minister Gerretsen’s speech did not follow this past course. He focused instead on the economic challenge facing Ontario and the role that environment businesses could play in it. He mentioned by name half-a-dozen firms that are involved in environmental consulting, recycling, manufacturing and other areas. He talked at length about the many reform initiatives underway at his ministry, even adding additional – and unscripted – comments about his desire to make the approvals system more efficient.
The fact that Ontario’s Minister of the Environment makes such comments publicly – and frequently – is good news for ONEIA members and our environment sector as a whole. There is willingness across many ministries to hear new ideas from our members that amazes those who have been around this sector far longer than me. Ontario’s environment sector has a unique opportunity now to have a new discussion with the province and outline the changes we all know we need.
A new report that we will release jointly with Deloitte Consulting at Environment Industry Day on April 29 will be a good place to start this discussion. In the past two months, with the support of the Ministries of Environment, Economic Development and Research and Innovation and the Ontario Centres of Excellence, Deloitte has been interviewing and surveying environment companies across Ontario. Their focus has been a simple one: what are the important barriers to growth for companies in this sector and what, if anything, can we do about them.
The results of this research are significant for a number of reasons. For the first time, we will know what Ontario environment firms want from government. We will know the areas that we can focus on in the coming year or two that will bring the greatest benefits to ONEIA members, the overall environment sector and the provincial economy as a whole. And we will know this at a time when government is asking us to talk with them what they can do to help our industry.
We will be distributing copies of the report at Environment Industry Day on the 29th and will publish it on the ONEIA website shortly thereafter. If you haven’t yet registered for EID, please visit one of the links below.
ONEIA Member Registration:
https://www.oneia.ca/oneiaEvent.php?id=29
Non-Member Registration (Evening Reception only): https://www.oneia.ca/oneiaEvent.php?id=30
And I would invite those of you who are not yet ONEIA members to join the conversation about the future of Ontario’s environment businesses. You can visit the blog posting of this message at http://oneia.blogspot.com/ to add your comments. If you are not yet an ONEIA member, you can visit www.oneia.ca/signup.php.
Thanks and I look forward to seeing you at EID!
Friday, October 10, 2008
What happens to the environment industry in a downturn?
In the past several weeks, the economic news has become progressively bleaker. Many in the environment industry are wondering what impact the coming downturn will have on a sector that has experienced double-digit growth in the past several years.
At ONEIA, we've been talking with a number of our members about what they are currently experiencing - and what our entire industry might expect in the coming months. Here is a summary of what we've heard - and feel free to add your own predictions, questions or observations by joining the online discussion.
What's the current situation for environment firms? Well, it depends ...
Some firms are beginning to feel the impact of the financial crises that began a few weeks ago - particularly if their work depends on financing from private sources, such as early stage companies that are just commercializing their research. Established firms have their own challenges. Many of the environmental consulting firms we have spoken with still have full order books, but are reluctant to hire staff to meet the need because they are not sure what the economy will look like in six month's time. Other firms are continuing to grow, especially those working on projects with secure financing or longer lead times, such as infrastructure. And the wild swings in the Canadian dollar in the past few weeks have introduced their own uncertainty, especially around pricing the US-focused exports of products and services.
Municipal recycling revenues will dip, presenting a challenge and an opportunity
Municipalities rely on sales of the materials from their blue bins to offset the costs of their collection programs. Plummeting commodity prices will mean lower revenues from recycled newsprint and metal - so much so that some municipalities are reportedly warehousing their materials rather than selling them at depressed prices. While this may mean that municipal recycling programs will scale back their spending in the short term, it could be an opportunity for environment firms that can provide new revenue streams from blue box materials.
Environmental businesses could be caught in a short-term credit squeeze. Want to expand your business? Need a bridge loan before a major contract pays off? Let's hope you have a good relationship with your banker, as lending could get a lot tighter in coming months if it hasn't already. A senior economist at one of the major banks told me a few weeks ago that his colleagues had begun scaling back their lending to most of their clients in March of this year. Efforts by governments and central banks to inject more liquidity into the financial system will take time, so a short term squeeze is a definite possibility.
Will clients will become more risk adverse? Yes ... and no.
Many environment firms that sell innovative solutions know it is often difficult to convince clients to try new and innovative approaches. You would expect these clients to become even more risk-adverse in a down economy. This many not be the case, however, especially if what you are selling can easily demonstrate cost savings to a client. So a tougher business climate may, paradoxically, be just the push some companies need to become greener and more efficient.
Spending on public works could increase.
One of the tried and true ways that governments have mitigated economic slowdowns in the past is to spend on public works, such as roads, bridges, buildings, etc. Another bank analyst I spoke with lamented that governments should have announced a program like this months ago to head off the slowdown they should have seen coming. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is reportedly lobbying the federal government to speed up spending of an estimated $3-billion it has earmarked for infrastructure. If this goes ahead, parts of the environment industry could benefit - especially those companies specializing in green building, transit, sustainable design, stormwater management, etc. Depending how bad the revenue situation gets for governments, however, they could go the tried and true route of deferring such investments to future years.
Government may become more interested, not less, in the environment.
While past experience would tell us that governments will become less interested in the environment in tough economic times, this will not be the case - at least in Ontario. In a province hammered by the decline of traditional manufacturing, our government may look at the environment industry as one of the possible "bright lights" in an otherwise dark time. For the past few years, ONEIA has been promoting a green economic strategy with the province that would address the concerns of our industry and create optimal conditions for our companies to grow, creating more wealth and jobs in the process. Look for movement on this file in the coming months.
We are in the early stages of what could be a significant downturn, so these predictions are just that - a summary of best guesses drawn from across our industry. But we'd love to hear your perspective. Is your company beginning to experience the impact of the downturn? How do you think our industry will weather the economic storm?
To share your views, please click the "comments" link in the bottom right hand corner of this frame.
At ONEIA, we've been talking with a number of our members about what they are currently experiencing - and what our entire industry might expect in the coming months. Here is a summary of what we've heard - and feel free to add your own predictions, questions or observations by joining the online discussion.
What's the current situation for environment firms? Well, it depends ...
Some firms are beginning to feel the impact of the financial crises that began a few weeks ago - particularly if their work depends on financing from private sources, such as early stage companies that are just commercializing their research. Established firms have their own challenges. Many of the environmental consulting firms we have spoken with still have full order books, but are reluctant to hire staff to meet the need because they are not sure what the economy will look like in six month's time. Other firms are continuing to grow, especially those working on projects with secure financing or longer lead times, such as infrastructure. And the wild swings in the Canadian dollar in the past few weeks have introduced their own uncertainty, especially around pricing the US-focused exports of products and services.
Municipal recycling revenues will dip, presenting a challenge and an opportunity
Municipalities rely on sales of the materials from their blue bins to offset the costs of their collection programs. Plummeting commodity prices will mean lower revenues from recycled newsprint and metal - so much so that some municipalities are reportedly warehousing their materials rather than selling them at depressed prices. While this may mean that municipal recycling programs will scale back their spending in the short term, it could be an opportunity for environment firms that can provide new revenue streams from blue box materials.
Environmental businesses could be caught in a short-term credit squeeze. Want to expand your business? Need a bridge loan before a major contract pays off? Let's hope you have a good relationship with your banker, as lending could get a lot tighter in coming months if it hasn't already. A senior economist at one of the major banks told me a few weeks ago that his colleagues had begun scaling back their lending to most of their clients in March of this year. Efforts by governments and central banks to inject more liquidity into the financial system will take time, so a short term squeeze is a definite possibility.
Will clients will become more risk adverse? Yes ... and no.
Many environment firms that sell innovative solutions know it is often difficult to convince clients to try new and innovative approaches. You would expect these clients to become even more risk-adverse in a down economy. This many not be the case, however, especially if what you are selling can easily demonstrate cost savings to a client. So a tougher business climate may, paradoxically, be just the push some companies need to become greener and more efficient.
Spending on public works could increase.
One of the tried and true ways that governments have mitigated economic slowdowns in the past is to spend on public works, such as roads, bridges, buildings, etc. Another bank analyst I spoke with lamented that governments should have announced a program like this months ago to head off the slowdown they should have seen coming. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is reportedly lobbying the federal government to speed up spending of an estimated $3-billion it has earmarked for infrastructure. If this goes ahead, parts of the environment industry could benefit - especially those companies specializing in green building, transit, sustainable design, stormwater management, etc. Depending how bad the revenue situation gets for governments, however, they could go the tried and true route of deferring such investments to future years.
Government may become more interested, not less, in the environment.
While past experience would tell us that governments will become less interested in the environment in tough economic times, this will not be the case - at least in Ontario. In a province hammered by the decline of traditional manufacturing, our government may look at the environment industry as one of the possible "bright lights" in an otherwise dark time. For the past few years, ONEIA has been promoting a green economic strategy with the province that would address the concerns of our industry and create optimal conditions for our companies to grow, creating more wealth and jobs in the process. Look for movement on this file in the coming months.
We are in the early stages of what could be a significant downturn, so these predictions are just that - a summary of best guesses drawn from across our industry. But we'd love to hear your perspective. Is your company beginning to experience the impact of the downturn? How do you think our industry will weather the economic storm?
To share your views, please click the "comments" link in the bottom right hand corner of this frame.
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