by: Joel Makower
The drumbeat of news stories, events, and other developments focusing on clean technology seems to gain strength every week. There are countless billions being invested each year in clean energy technologies, as well as technologies that more efficiently create clean water, advanced materials, or alternative transportation. The growing number of websites and magazines seem to capture pieces of the puzzle, but it's easy to miss the enormity of the clean-tech world.
A new book, written by my colleagues Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder, manages to capture the big picture, as well as many of the salient details.
Pernick is co-founder and principal at Clean Edge, Inc., the clean-technology research and publishing firm (full disclosure: I am Ron's partner and co-founder). Wilder is a contributing editor to Clean Edge publications. Together, they have penned The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity, just published by Collins. If you want to get the authoritative lowdown on the clean-tech marketplace — what it is, who the players are, and where it's going — this is the one book you need to read.
The book's ten chapters cover the major clean technologies — solar, wind, biofuels and biomaterials, green buildings, transportation, smart grid, mobile technologies, and clean water technologies. Each chapter gives a you-are-there feeling — the authors traveled the U.S., China, and beyond to examine the field firsthand — and offers mini-profiles of leading companies in each technology.
The final chapters look at the job-creation potential of clean technology, and some of the marketing challenges clean-tech companies face (they're not that different from challenges encountered by all green marketers). And, finally, a six-point action plan on how to build a clean-tech future.
It's an easy read, written by two true experts in the field. I encourage you to check it out.
Original post: http://makower.typepad.com/joel_makower/2007/06/capturing-the-c.html
