Good partnership between public and private sectors is important
"We have a very good partnership between the public and private sectors", said Professor Mats Eklund who is also an expert in industrial environmental technology at Linköping University.
He further explained that the public sectors refer to the local governments and politicians who design development policies. They encourage green energy and clean technology to be applied in industry with the tax as a lever. With favorable policies for clean technology, industries naturally pursue innovation in this field. Once the production is put into operation, the public sector can also get certain percentage of the profit.
The slogan for the local area is to ‘have higher growth, but lower CO2 emission'.
The vision shows that investment in dealing with climate change can create new business opportunities. That not only refers to the new market in CO2 reduction technology, but also in CO2 reduction products and services.
The strategy is to strengthen the chances for environmentally friendly technology export.
The local government has initiated an investment of 530 million kronor or nearly 90 million US dollars for several years to develop Swedish environmentally friendly technology. The investment is used together with the industries' money in order to improve the competence of technology in this field.
The emphasis is put on the export of environmental technology by small and medium sized enterprises in Sweden. The governments even give financial support and help consolidate international network in order to promote economic and environment technological development. Every year about 10 million kronor from a joint efforts of local government and companies is set aside for financing the innovations and coordination.
The local governments also made policies on future climate and energy related development which encourage renewable energy development and effective local transport system.
Linköping and Norrköping are a communication hub with train, bus, car and even airplanes coming and going every day providing convenient traffic.
Utilization promotes production—a positive cycle
Due to the increasing use of biofuel and a well built heating system, renewable energy technology was developed quickly.
This is benefited from the long term and strategic policy made by the local governments. As a result the CO2 emission has reduced by 20% compared with the 1990 level. The EU's goal is to realize this by 2020, but Linköping and Nörrköping have already realized the goal.
The local government job is to stimulate the enthusiasm of the local actors including industry, regional organizations and environmental technology center to develop high tech conducive to environment and easy to export.
The newly established Environmental Technology Center is in charge of developing clean technology, that is to use biogas to drive cars, use waste to produce renewable energy and recycling technology.
"Our practice here has shown the possibility that we can create continued growth without consuming too much resources. It is important to form a partnership between industry, university and local government so that we can coordinate investment and have a closer
contact between different players", said Gert Kindgren, CEO of the Environmental Technology Center. "We will make environmental technology our identity. We encourage export and cooperation."
Among 36000 companies in the area, about 500 are environmental technology companies.
The world market for environmental technology is about 600 billion kronor or 100 billion US dollars in the following two years. The potential is large and Sweden is in the forefront in renewable energy sector, waste water treatment, reuse of waste and development of large technical systems.
"We have at least 30 more really advanced environmental technology companies in cleantech field." said Professor Mats Eklund in industrial environmental technology in Economic and industry development institute of Linköping University.
Of course the Cleantech in Östgötland area also needs society's support. Society, research and public sector can support cleantech by forming a market domestically. The more it is developed domestically, the more it becomes competitive and can be competitive in the international market because this will be a very profitable area. People couldn't imagine that Nokia used to produce rubber shoes before they turned to produce mobilephones, said Professor Eklund.
Environmental technology center can be a new business model because it can coordinate different players so that they can get more big projects done.
By Xuefei Chen People's Daily Online correspondent in Stockholm.
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