Trillions and trillions of environment

Okey senores y senoras!

First of all, put this song on when you read the rest. The guy is one of my idols (Morgan Spurlock is another)...

There was a sneak-peek at some of the numbers from an upcoming study on the ”hidden” environmental costs of some major international companies. The number that made the Guardian among others, was that the estimated environmental costs of the 3000 biggest firms in the world was USD 2.2 trillion! A number that sounds huge but really means nothing to most of us, so they put it in perspective: It corresponds to 6-7% of their combined turn-over and one third of their profits. It is also a figure bigger than the national economies of all but seven countries in the world this year (which also says A LOT about how companies are overtaking nations economies…).

The study was ordered by the UN environmental programme and carried out by London-based Trucost. Naturally, this is a way to get politicians to go – Huh! If that’s correct then maybe we better enforce these costs on those very companies eh? Otherwise they are just getting away with robbery in a way … Yep, at least that’s the way I see it…

The New Scientist made additional use of the study by comparing the environmental score of some of these companies with a study made by US-based Earthsense, on how green these companies where perceived to be by the actual consumers (yes that’s you and meJ).

So, do you think the green performers where also those percieved to be green by the consumers? No such luck, green corporates… it rather looks on the graph like some companies took an environmental performance enhancement drug and pumped up their percieved ”greeness” right before the study was made.

Unfair…? Well, it’s called marketing and I think it can be unfair if companies are allowed to state things that are a bit hazy and in many cases just plain wrong (and in green marketing that is often the case I would say). In any case it is very real and also a call to put policy in place that incorporate the environment better into pricing – since even if (and that’s a big if) purchasing behavior was enacted according to consumers environmental perception of companies it would still not be right!

AND it shows the power of communication, since it is not what you do, it is what people notice that you do that tends to matter… so marketing-skilled people need to get involved in the environmental work of the company in a very pro-active way, but I guess that’s not exactly news…

Metallkraft attracts € 17 Million as Climate Change Capital enters Nordic Cleantech

Norwegian company Metallkraft has a new part owner in one of our most recent members - Climate Change Capital, the UK based cleantech fund now making their first (but I imagine not last…) entry into the Nordic cleantech space. The € 200 million cleantech fund led the investment round and subscribed to € 10.3 million of the total € 17 million in convertible bonds that where issued. Current owners also took part.

Metallkraft is an interesting company in many ways. They have the cleantech industry (solar) as their main customer and their business idea is to improve the environmental performance of the customer.

Metallkrafts business is recycling the slurry that is used in the wafer cutting process when you make solar panels. The slurry needs to continously be replaced with fresh slurry and disposed of in an environmentally sound way. For an industry living off its environmental benifits this for sure needs to be dealt with in an environmentally harmless way. Metallkraft recycles the slurry retaining its cutting abilities without adding any chemicals. Needless to say perhaps, but the cost of recycling is far lower than buying the slurry fresh and simply paying for disposal of the used batch. I like the company also for the reason that it exemplifies what happens when a company in one country and industry makes it big. Suppliers and other actors surrounding the big company tend to gain as well – which means that successful cleantech growth leads to more cleantech growth… Metallkraft is one of several promising and fast growing companies in or related to the solar industry that are now emerging in Norway, many of them in the surge of REC, and I am sure we will see more international leaders among them.

It should be said that Metallkrafts solution is not the only thing that convinced Climate Change Capital to invest. As Simon Drury of Climate Change Capital points out: We firmly believe that Metallkraft’s management team is one of the best we have seen and in my experience this is the most important investment factor to get right”. So naturally, the right team needs to be in place, and I think Simon states the mind of many of his colleagues in that quote.