Never mind that it was 7.30 on Friday morning – 300 people turned up to the launch of Cambridge Cleantech, the new industry association chaired by Hugh Parnell and run by Martin Garratt.
The event was held in the equally new Ashcroft International Business School lecture theatre off East Road, and was stiff with the great and the good and the green.
Hugh said he had proposed the strategy for CC only 18 months ago, but had been working in the sector for 10 years with another local organisation, Envirotech, which had now joined with what remained of the Greater Cambridge Partnership to form the new entity, which has a bold and world-beating brief.
The global value of cleantech is being put at £4.3 trillion, with £139bn for the UK, and £12.9bn for the East of England, which equates to more than 6,000 companies and over 100,000 jobs.
Zoom in a bit closer, and it’s 450 companies in the Cambridge area, 7,300 jobs, and over £1bn. Growth is running at between 4 and 5%.
What Cambridge Cleantech is offering adds up to a big helping hand – access to finance, help with recruitment, advice on exporting and organising trade missions in association with UK Trade and Investment – the first is to China next year.
CC is a not-for-profit organisation, like Cambridge Wireless and biotech/medtech member association, One Nucleus. It will represent the third wave for the Cambridge high tech cluster.
Borrowing from Cambridge Wireless, it will operate “SIGs” (special interest groups) to push ahead with the myriad of niche areas associated with cleantech, which is not just about renewables.
There will be a grants alert service, and expert advice online via the “Ask Doug” spot.
CC founder members – and you can still be one – pay £5k, associates £2k, and members anything between £100 and £1k.
Martin Garratt said he had hoped for 10 founder members, but already had 20. On the way out the director of a reasonably substantial Cambridge business said they were considering taking out founder membership. I said that image-wise they could hardly do less.
New members talked about their business – there was Hamish Watson, whose company Polysolar seemed to think it would not be long before windows provided energy for the home.
Michael Evans, of Green Tide Turbines, which, as the name suggests, uses water to generate energy, said he was looking to raise money in the UK, but it was proving very difficult, even though he had the promise of 100% funding from two major firms in Brazil for a plant there following a trade trip with Nick Clegg. Trouble is, he needs to get the thing tested first.
Dr Carlos Ludlow, of Enval, held up what looked like a piece of litter he had collected from the street on his way in. It was an empty drinks pouch. He said that in two weeks he was going to start building his own plant to extract aluminium from these bits of rubbish.
Julian Huppert, Cambridge’s MP, doing the launch honours, said: “It’s time to get this third sector going, well it’s already going, but it’s time to push it. In 2050 what will this country do if it’s not this?”
He said the Government had to make sure there was support for the angel investors in the sector, and added: “I had a biotech company at St John’s Innovation Centre and I got a Smart Award. The company didn’t work, but at least we could try our idea.”
Hugh concluded: “The vision is to bring big companies in and make local companies big. It’s about making money, and saving the planet.”
Source www.cambridge-news.co.uk/
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