During this week, I went to Florianopolis (Santa Catarina State capital) to make the journalistic covering of XIX Seminar of Technological Parks – this is the reason I am posting so much in this weekeend. My piece was published here.

It was a very interesting event and this year themes were Inovation and Sustainability. For my happiness,  entrepeneurs in Brazil are becoming more consciencious that technology can improve development and also sustainability. CELTA incubator, held in Florianopolis has graduated 52 comapnies, with 3200 employees, and US$ 350 mi of incomings.

The project Sinapse do Conhecimento sellected 200 new inovators projects in Santa Catarina state. Surprisingly, 34 were related to agrobusiness and 17 directly involved with sustainability. Bellow, there is my text:

Green Technology is an option for investments along crisis
Since September 2008 the world was embedded in the financial crisis with the crash of the Mortgage Subprime speculative bubble.  The economists ask themselves about what investment sector would be safer. In the same time, the world deals with the challenge of fighting the weather changes.

Storage, energetic efficiency and clean industrial processes are the sectors with the largest growth in the green technologies field. It’s a large market: only in water management and energy generation are invested US$ 30 trillion-year. The source of this information is Seth Ayers, specialist on ICT of the World Bank, along the plenary session about Sustainable Technology of the XIX Technological Parks Seminar, in Florianopolis.

An example that can illustrate the size of this market comes from Chile: this Andean country spent $ 50 millions-month in solid waste management. And the results are not always efficient. Taking this in consideration, the Chilean engineer Andrea Arriagada founded the GeoCiclos, company that produces equipment for industrial composting and humidification.

“Earn capital, elect the target of the business and ensure the economical sustainability of the enterprise are the main difficulties”, explains Andrea. Besides that,  it’s required a change of mentality and ways of incorporation environmental variables in the daily life. The solution is “pay attention to the opportunities and use the technology to create more sustainable products.”

Photo: The GeoCiclos compost home system - Vina del Mar city site

“Beside this market potential, some enterprises are not still mature to receive the investment”, says Oren Pinsky, director of Stratus CleanTech found in Brazil. Operating since 2006, the Stratus has R 60 millions to invest en environment, biodiversity, water and energetic efficiency. These investments focus are enterprises in the end of their incubation process in technological parks.

However, some countries offers positive examples. “Finland invest proximally 3,4% of its GDP in bioenergy and allows $ 750 millions in Technology and Innovation. The private sector invests 7% of the GDP in green technologies” tells Tupani Kaskeala, ambassador for the Development in the Finn External Relations Ministry.

This Nordic country outsourced the CleanTech Finland brand and provides services in more than 70 countries. In Latin America, the investment focus is in the bioenergy sector. This strategy runs well: Finland is the leader in UN ranking of economical competitiveness associate with sustainable development.

Thanks to the innovation investment, Finland allowed itself to raise its GDP with less wasting of energy and natural resources. An example is the water used in paper industry. “ In the end of the cycle, it’s cleaner than when it was collected for the plant”, says Kaskeala.