Launching cleantech: Ensuring Canada’s place in the new global market

The rising cost of energy and resources, worldwide policy action to fight climate change and the transition to a low-carbon economy are causing a paradigm shift in the global economy. This shift will profoundly affect the roots of Canada’s prosperity, but it will also create vast new markets for clean technologies that promise increased performance, lower costs and fewer negative environmental impacts. The global cleantech market is currently a $1 trillion opportunity, expected to reach $3 trillion by 2020. Many of our country’s international competitors have moved aggressively to embrace the cleantech opportunity. Canada has a vibrant and growing clean technology sector, but we currently lack the policy framework needed to reach our full potential. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity: if Canada can capture just 2% of the global clean technology market by 2020, our domestic cleantech sector will be worth over $60 billion. This report makes three key policy recommendations to move us towards that goal.