“There is going to be a generation of Googles and Ciscos in the cleantech area.”

So says Alan Salzman, co-founder and chief executive of VantagePoint Venture Partners, one of the most successful and high profile venture capital firms in the U.S.  He is a man who has personally been involved in developing over 300 companies, and has raised and managed more than $5 billion in capital during the last 25 years in Silicon Valley.

Salzman witnessed from close up and contributed to several technological leaps that changed the way of doing business and pushed the economy’s growth, such as the PC and Internet, biotech, and digital data communications.  Already present in VantagePoint’s cleantech portfolio are start-ups like Shai Agassi’s Better Place, high-end electric car maker Tesla Motors, and BrightSource Energy (whose subsidiary, Luz II, is headquartered in Jerusalem).

He says the firm has “well over $1 billion” dedicated to making cleantech investments.  In particular, it is looking to three areas:

• The Electric Car Revolution, or Car 2.0 - an estimated $3 trillion industry; the Big Three - Chrysler, Ford, and GM will have to get on board or get left behind.
• Solar - within two years, the industry will be valued in the multi-hundred-billion dollars range; with thin-film technology allowing it to reach grid-parity, at $1 a watt.
• Fuel-cell Batteries - would economically store energy from renewable sources and dispatch it when needed.

The bold predictions Salzman makes extend to any incumbent industry that seems invincible today - failing to adapt, you will be replaced by the new generation of industry innovators.  As for the bigger picture, he stresses that aggressively pursuing cleantech by providing the capital to not only develop technology, but also to deploy it throughout infrastructure, would have a huge role to play in eventually getting the economy out of its current downward spiral.

The Consequence of Being NICE

The green lining to the dark cloud over the economy is also reflected in a recently released report by the sustainable development group Forum for the Future.  “Acting Now for a Positive 2018″ stresses sustainability as an opportunity for business, which saw the end of the NICE (non-inflationary constant expansion) decade.

The report urges businesses globally to prepare for radical change, as trends such as the end of cheap finance and resources, the impact of climate change, and the rise of markets like China with will shape the future of business over the next decade:

Gain competitive advantage by embedding sustainability into decision-making and operational delivery in the important business of functions e.g. marketing, product innovation, procurement and finance.

Create alliances – with investors, customers, suppliers, staff, competitors, and regulators – to identify where the existing system is preventing a sustainable outcome, and then find ways of creating change.

Look for opportunities that both generate immediate returns - the most obvious actions are improving energy and resource efficiency

No doubt, climate change will bite harder. It is time to bring creative solutions to market, a market that stands at $55 billion.  That is more than the entire Internet advertising market dominated by Google.

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