Although the global slowdown had a strong negative impact on the carbon credits market, the green economy as a whole is going strong, with companies, institutions and even cities investing in clean technologies. Amsterdam, for instance, is on its way to becoming the European Union’s first ‘smart city’. The makeover of Amsterdam will focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by up to 40 per cent by going in for new smart grid technologies that will manage energy use more efficiently, reduce power outages and bring down energy costs for its residents. Miami in the US is another city that has opted for smart grid initiatives. IBM and Cisco are among those who have been roped in to help in Amsterdam’s pilot project. Accenture and GE are also investing in clean projects.

The Empire State Building, America’s tallest building is going green. According to the New York Times, its owners have embarked upon a renovation programme that will reduce the skyscraper’s energy use by 38 per cent a year by 2013, at an annual savings of $4.4 million. According to the newspaper report, “The largest share of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions, 78 per cent, comes from the city’s buildings, with commercial buildings contributing 25 per cent, mostly from the use of electricity and natural gas”. The Empire State Building expects to lower its carbon dioxide emissions by 105,000 metric tonnes a year after the makeover.

With the world’s nations involved in a debate over capping emissions of greenhouse gases, the Indian government is looking at increasing the country’s green cover as a key tactic in its fight against climate change. Trees and forests not only enhance the levels of oxygen in the atmosphere, they also act as natural carbon sinks. Currently about 22 per cent of India’s land, roughly over 65 million hectares, is under forest cover. According to a report by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the government plans to set up a fund to manage its forests with an initial budget of $2.5 billion and annual funding of one billion dollars. A large part of the funds will go into state government coffers to initiate afforestation programmes and set the pace for all future initiatives against climate change.

A national mission that will help cut five percent of our energy consumption by 2015 has been approved by the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change. The second of eight missions under India’s national action plan on climate change, it has a corpus of Rs 75,000 crore and is designed to control the country’s energy consumption. 

The most innovative initiative under the mission is the “Perform, Achieve and Trade” (PAT) mechanism which will assign energy efficiency improvement targets to the country’s most energy intensive industrial units, with the provision of allowing them to retain any energy-efficiency improvements in excess of their target in the form of Energy Savings Certificates, called ESCerts. Units will also be allowed to use purchase ESCerts to meet their targets. The other initiatives include expanded use of the carbon market to help achieve market transformation towards more energy efficient equipment and appliances, and the creation of two funds to help channel investment into energy-efficiency projects. According to a recent newspaper report, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said: “It must also have inbuilt provisions for monitoring and evaluation so as to ensure transparency, accountability and responsiveness.” 

The European Union has decided to phase out incandescent bulbs in favour of energy-efficient models. Michael Weinhold, chief technology officer for Siemens Energy, in a recent article in Financial Times, said that lighting accounts for 17 per cent of worldwide energy consumption, making it a big source of greenhouse gas emissions. Thus switching over to energy-saving lighting solutions could lead to a huge cut in emissions. Lighting major, Philips believes that there is a large new market in LEDs, which are much more efficient than conventional lighting. By the end of this year, the worldwide market for inorganic LEDs in business and residential applications is expected to be worth $4.5bn, more than triple its value in 2005. 

Texan businessman, T Boone Pickens, well-known oil baron and chairman of the hedge fund BP Capital Management, believes that water is the new oil. He has bought large tracts of land with a vast aquifer that came into existence millions of years ago in a remote Texan county that spreads over 924 square miles. Pickens believes that in the next 20 years, water will become more precious than oil or gold. This belief set him on the path to acquire water resources and today he owns more water than any other individual in the US according to the magazine Business Week. However Pickens’ business foray into water is not entirely a smooth sail as he has run into government and private sector outrage over his unabashed commercial exploitation of a natural resource.

The corporate world is seeing new business opportunities in a product that used to be free–water. General Electric (GE), for instance, has built up its water business comprising large-scale treatment and purification for municipal and industrial water users into a unit that brings in an estimated $2.5 billion in revenue. The business, built up from scratch over a decade, is microscopically small compared to the conglomerate’s engine and energy operations that bring in $156 billion every year. And yet, GE, along with other large and diversified companies such as Siemens and Dow Chemicals, has seen fit to establish a base in this sector.

Closer home, the Indian government has instituted the National Urban Water Awards. Barely a year old, the award has met with overwhelming response with the Jamshedpur Utility and Services Company (Jusco) bagging it in 2009. Jusco was rewarded for its unique and innovative approach to customer complaints which has brought about an exceptional transformation in the utility services in the city. Clearly water is one sector that is all set to boil over in the coming years.