Our upcoming event, GLOBExCHANGE (Feb. 27-Mar. 1, 2023) builds on our recently published 10×10 Matrix, which identifies the 10 areas where we need to take action in the next 10 years to get to net zero.
In our 10×10 Takes video series we’re talking with climate leaders who are working to advance these action areas. First up, let’s get down to business on Unlocking Innovation with MaRS Discovery District’s Senior Director of Cleantech, Tyler Hamilton.
GLOBE Series’ President, Elizabeth Shirt, is excited to get down to business and win the race to net zero at GLOBExCHANGE (Feb. 27-Mar. 1, 2023)! Explore new sessions added to the preliminary program, dive into the 10×10, and register by Dec. 15 to take advantage of Early Bird rates.
Earlier this month at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Canada hosted its first-ever Pavilion, featuring 200+ climate leaders and 80+ unique events that showcased the breadth and diversity of Canadian climate action. Hot on the heels of the world’s biggest climate summit, Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change, Catherine Stewart, reconnected with GLOBE’s very own Elizabeth Shirt to reflect on key outcomes and challenges coming out of COP27, and what’s next for Canada at the COP15 Biodiversity Conference in Montréal (Dec. 7, 2022 – Dec. 19, 2022).
Join us in Toronto at GLOBExCHANGE (Feb. 27 – Mar. 1, 2023) to continue these vital conversations, invest in international collaboration, and exchange the solutions, skillsets, and dollars that will help advance Canada’s ambitious climate goals both at home and abroad: http://www.globexchange.ca/
What is the 10×10?
It’s a framework we’re bringing to GLOBE Forum 2022 to drive action, impact and outcomes. How it works:
Why the 10×10?
We’re done talking about if, why or whether we need to get to net zero by 2050. Now it’s about the HOW. But 2050 still feels a long way off for some people, so the 10×10 is all about creating urgency and momentum for action in the next decade.
What we need to do is one thing…the 10×10 is also about who needs to do it, and creating accountability for specific actions. Here at GLOBE, we will hold ourselves accountable for tackling and further unpacking priorities at future GLOBE events. As we have for 30 years, we will bring people together in innovative ways to drive action, but we can’t do it alone. We’re calling on our partners to help us build a better future.
How can people get involved in the 10×10?
First of all, make sure you stick around for GLOBE Advance on March 31st to participate in a facilitated, hands-on discussion on the GLOBE program theme of your choice. In-person participants at GLOBE Forum 2022 will have the opportunity to choose from six action-oriented sessions on:
It’s an incredible opportunity to work with fellow leaders and practitioners from across North America to accelerate a net-zero future.
Second, make the most of your time while at Forum. Use the networking and think spaces, the program sessions, and the Marketplace to connect and collaborate with our unparalleled community. The beauty of GLOBE Forum is the big tent, and we need all of you to share your ideas if we’re going to get to net zero.
Finally, partner with us. The 10×10 journey doesn’t end with GLOBE Forum. We invite you to help us advance and accelerate any of the actions on the 10×10, whether it’s at a future GLOBE event or other type of activity. Let’s get ‘er done!
Participation in GLOBE Advance is included in your GLOBE Forum All-Access Pass. Attendees with Virtual Passes will have an opportunity to review the 10×10 summary report before it goes public.
The year 2020 has brought unanticipated change to every sector and energy is no exception. With much of Canada’s current economic system reliant on hydrocarbon energy, it is more prudent than ever to examine how our hydrocarbon resources can be useful sources of opportunity and prosperity in a low-carbon future. Meanwhile, attracting capital is a major priority for the energy industry, a crisis made even more urgent by the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and oil price collapse in the first quarter of 2020.
Building on the GLOBE Advance session on future-fit hydrocarbons at GLOBE 2020, the work of the Energy Futures Lab and other actors on related innovation, and ongoing developments in transition finance (an emerging pathway for organizations to raise capital to transition emissions-intensive sectors, facilities, and projects to lower-carbon alternatives), this session explores:
Speakers:
Moderator:
Host:
Apple has boldly demonstrated the art of delivering truly innovative products that influence progress across the corporate landscape. In GLOBE’s feature armchair, The Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy’s Global Director David McGinty talks with Sarah Chandler, Apple’s Senior Director of Operations, Product Development and Environmental Initiatives, about how Apple is rethinking materials and paving the way for breakthrough carbon-free manufacturing methods.
Partner article written by Joseph Lalonde, Data Manager for MaRS Data Catalyst
Many individuals and industries in Canada are looking to reduce their carbon footprints and are pushing for greener products, resulting in a proliferation of clean technology companies and solutions. Private and public funders have taken notice and made significant investments in clean technology programs. Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) alone has committed CDN$1.4B in program funding for 2019-2020.
This amount of money creates an amazing opportunity for private investors. For example, the Commercial Retrofit Program allows for one-time incentives based on the amount of natural gas saved. Companies can take advantage of these incentives to improve their existing infrastructure and investment dollars, in turn, could then be re-directed toward growing the business.
Government and private dollars can drive opportunity, but coordination is key
In 2017 alone, Canadian investors channelled US$9.4B into clean technology companies[1]. Although this number has been trending down over the past few years, clean technology solution providers are still poised to benefit from an influx of capital. With this amount of money being invested, it is extremely beneficial to have an overarching and coordinated investment strategy.
To put it another way, different investors and government can create synergies if the types of investments they make are complementary. For example, government could play a role in getting early-stage high-risk companies off the ground, but step back and allow later-stage venture capital to come in and scale up the companies that need it.
Conversely, the opposite can happen if government and private investment are out of step with one another. For example, both government and private investors could both be putting all their money into early-stage investment, with no incentives for growing companies who are poised to become true scale-ups. Another example is government investing in a type of technology that industry has deemed irrelevant.
Good strategy requires good information, but this is a challenge in the cleantech space
A coordinated strategy should be guided by information such as industry trends, firm growth rates, benchmarking against international markets and the latest in new technological developments and trends. The Canadian Venture Capital Association (CVCA), CB insights and Pitchbook and others provide some background information. However, other clean technology reports that use traditional economic analysis, such as North American Industry Classification (NAIC) codes, have been problematic for two main reasons:
Projects and initiatives exist to understand trends, but they need time to take effect
As a result of these challenges, we have a situation where billions of dollars are being spent in an industry that has an arguably slippery classification and information capture challenges. Now imagine a different world where the government acts on robust information, which in turn incentivizes private funding to invest in a way that leverages government dollars. We are getting closer to that reality with Statistics Canada’s Environmental and Clean Technology Products Economic Account, which has begun to estimate jobs and impact of clean technology in Canada.
Another bright spot is the role my group at MaRS Data Catalyst (or ‘Data Catalyst’ for short) plays in this scenario. Data Catalyst is a group hosted within MaRS Discovery District, a public-private innovation centre located in the heart of Toronto. MaRS focuses on bringing government, business, academia, and communities together to catalyze, accelerate and amplify innovation. Clean technology is one of our four main pillars, and we serve hundreds of technology-based clean technology start-ups and later-stage ventures. We are currently conducting a three-year data collection project, recently completing our first year with a partial number of provinces. Public results can be found here.
Our data collection strategy is driven by strong partnerships
How do we approach data collection at Data Catalyst? We know that the different regions know their participants and stakeholders best, so we engage with these locations and establish data partnerships with the likes of provincial industry associations such as the Alberta Clean Technology Industry Alliance (ACTIa) and Innovacorp, and with federal-level organizations, such as Statistics Canada and Natural Resources Canada. We also work with organizations like Emissions Reductions Alberta, who have requested analysis to be done for their own purposes.
In addition, we’ve been fortunate to have The Delphi Group and the GLOBE Series on our side to work with stakeholders and ensure that our project to understand clean technology activity is a success. Basically, this means sharing the work, but also reaping the benefits. Data collection can be a long game, requiring multiple years to establish baselines and analyze trends. Three years is the minimum period required to be able to ascertain if there is some kind of trend.
Looking forward, what will we be doing and what you can do
Our current goal is to bring on other regional partners who have already provided letters of support in Quebec and British Columbia. In addition, we are in the process of finding partners and formalizing relationships in the rest of the prairies.
How can cleantech companies and associations do their part?
Remember, the better our underlying data on the country’s cleantech sector, the more likely we as a society will reap the rewards in the long term.
by Mike Gerbis, CEO of GLOBE Series
At GLOBE Series, we bring together people from industry, government and the non-profit sectors to accelerate the transition to the clean economy. GLOBE Forum is the world’s longest-running leadership summit for sustainable business, and is all about the conversations and transactions that need to happen to support this transition. In 2016, we realized that we could do more. That year we introduced the GLOBE Capital event, which addresses three specific and very important components of the clean economy: investment, infrastructure and innovation.
Why investment, infrastructure and innovation?
Reason #1 Opportunity, opportunity, opportunity
Before we get to the opportunity, we need to start with the risk. Climate change poses a very real challenge not just to our environment, but to our economy. Extreme weather events have long-term effects on property and infrastructure, investments, health, migration and security.
The risk associated with climate change is balanced with the opportunities associated with transitioning to a clean economy. Policy and market signals are coalescing, with products like renewables becoming cost competitive with or cheaper than conventional fossil fuels. It is estimated that the global clean technology market is currently worth over a trillion dollars. Building, rebuilding and maintaining infrastructure creates jobs and has the potential to underpin the long-term economic stability of communities.
We’re at a point of take-off in terms of investment, infrastructure and innovation. The financial community is realizing that climate change risk needs to be integrated into company valuations and investment decisions. We’re seeing massive investments in infrastructure by governments and the private sector around the world. These advances are not only in traditional infrastructure but, more importantly, in the infrastructure of the future – e.g., 5G, the Internet of Things, and micro-grids, to name a few.
These new areas of investment, in addition to growing markets for products such as clean technologies and artificial intelligence, are mind-blowing opportunities for Canadian and U.S. companies.
It’s the perfect time to bring the public and private sectors together so we can capitalize on the opportunities.
Reason #2 The old rules don’t apply anymore – we need to make new ones
Global and domestic momentum for clean growth seems irreversible, even in the face of U.S. federal opposition to climate action. The old rules were that we can’t protect our environment and promote economic growth at the same time. In some circles, those old rules still apply. In my view, that’s a short-sighted approach that will result in being left behind by economies like the UK, Sweden and Germany.
The advances that jurisdictions like California have made – driving up economic output while driving down carbon emissions – signals that there is a new set of rules in play. Here in Canada, our Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, often says, “We know that the environment and the economy go together.”
Not only that, but trends such as digitization, globalization, urbanization and changing demographics are influencing communities and economies around the world.
Transforming decision-making frameworks around infrastructure, innovation and investment to capitalize on this shift is an enormous opportunity for government and business in Canada and around the world. We need to re-think our rules and incentives to send the right signals to the market. Entrepreneurs in innovative sectors need access to long-term, ‘patient’ capital that will see them through long growth cycles and uncertain markets. Leaders and innovators will have to work across silos and sectors to collaborate on solutions never seen or thought of before.
We can do this. At GLOBE Capital, we can figure out how to do this together.
Reason #3 The decisions we make now and in the years ahead will have a profound impact on our future
Whatever we start now has to have the end game in mind. Plus, we need to think about creative ways to design, build, operate and maintain infrastructure with a low-carbon future in mind. For example, do we build a bridge to reduce congestion, or build a 5G integrated network downtown for autonomous vehicles? How do we integrate amazing emerging technologies into the design of new infrastructure? How do we retrofit existing infrastructure with technologies that make it zero carbon and fit for the future?
To come up with answers and solutions we need to think differently, collaborate across disciplines, and figure out how to creatively finance these projects. There is a ton of capital out there, how do we get it into the right hands?
GLOBE Capital is all about bringing the investment, infrastructure, and innovation communities together so we can answer these questions and shape this future together. We don’t just want to solve today’s problems, we want to plan for the future.
GLOBE Capital returns to Toronto on February 27-28, 2019.
Join leaders in finance, infrastructure and cleantech to discuss how to capitalize on opportunities in the clean economy.
Learn more