Seventy-Five Business and ENGO Leaders from Across Canada Convene to Coordinate a Whole-of-the-Clean-Economy Push for Greater Government Support
Group Represents a Collective ~$200 Billion and Growing Contributor to GDP
Two days ago, on Wednesday February 18th, a very disparate group braved winter storms, fraught air travel and terrible driving conditions, travelling from across Canada to explore what contributors to the “whole-of-the-clean-economy” might do to advance our collective cause – and in the process advance prosperity and greater climate action for Canada.
The effort is tentatively labelled the Canadian Clean Economy Alliance – CanCEA.
Delta Management Group / the Clean50, CSI and GreenPac acted as convenors for a full day of meetings and wide-ranging discussions which took place at the Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) in Toronto.
Through a series of facilitated work-group discussions, we arrived at a few conclusions:
Our strength is also our weakness. As often very different industries, we often want somewhat to slightly different things. So finding unanimity is hard! But there are definitely a few things we could all agree upon, and expectations we could do so, but it would take more work to refine those.
But we also agreed that’s also part of what we offer Canada: very diverse jobs, and at all levels, in many different sectors, and all of them growing by double to triple digits, while operating from all parts of the country – not just one or two concentrated regions.
Meaning no substantial risk of a mass meltdown that decimates a single town or province, nor the mass layoffs that always follow a drop in the price of a commodity – a price over which we have no control. i.e. oil, steel, aluminum etc. where tariffs or sheiks can explode a market.
The single factor that hurts us most, we agreed, was the recent lack of ambition in fighting climate change, and cutting the cost to polluters of creating that pollution. Most of those commercial operators from the space who were present could point to reductions in their business since the consumer carbon tax was removed – and the recent lack of focus in this area.
Every other part of the world recognizes and is acting on this need – except North America.
And so, as Canada diversifies away from local markets, and facing drastically declining revenues from oil and gas, whilst simultaneously facing a clean up bill of some $260 billion dollars (roughly half of the present federal budget) in Alberta alone, we run the risk of being left behind, with no replacement revenue, unless we keep pace with the rest of the world in expanding the clean economy.
The good news is that forecast growth for the clean-economy sector world-wide is to triple by 2035!
As a whole, the group determined there was some significant advantage to banding together to find commonalities, and to share industry impacts and success factors, and tell the story to both governments and the Canadian public, and a number of senior executives stepped forward to say they were interested in playing a role in helping fit such a group together and funding it.
Collectively, these diverse players in the clean economy, when sectors are connected, represent the single biggest contributor to Canada’s GDP. Bar none. It’s past time for Canadians and governments to properly recognize the existing contributions – and – if properly nurtured – the future potential to ensure Canadians’ prosperity in the future.
Very excited to see where this goes… We’ll keep you in the loop!
