Canada’s clean technology sector is growing faster than the rest of the economy but steadily losing market share against global competitors, Analytica Advisors reported yesterday in its fourth annual industry report card.
“New @AnalyticaCeline report finds Canada’s share of global cleantech market down 18% while overall market DOUBLED,” Clean Energy Canada tweeted after the report was released.
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Analytica “found that more than 800 clean tech firms in Canada directly employed almost 50,000 people in 2013, making the industry a bigger employer than the aerospace manufacturing sector, logging industries, or pharmaceuticals and medical devices,” Canadian Press reports.
But with $12 billion in manufactured exports, “the study finds that among the world’s top 24 exporting nations of environmental goods, Canada has been the third biggest loser of market share since 2008, behind only the United Kingdom and Japan.”
“We have a terrific industry that’s creating jobs, but our traction in terms of international trade is not as great as it should be because the (global) market is growing so quickly,” said Analytica President Céline Bak.
“It should be fairly straightforward to take the next step so that the investments that have been made in early research—the investments in development and demonstration—are now translated into jobs, exports, and environmental stewardship.”
The report pointed to debt financing as a particular challenge for a young industry trying to move to industrial-scale deployment. Bak warned that “Canada’s clean technology industry could be following the arc of globally competitive satellite, telecommunication, and biotech firms that flowered in Canada only to take root elsewhere in the world,” CP writes.
