New Zealand’s big opportunity

If cleantech is the word, what do we need to do to pursue a cleantech future?

First of all we need people to recognise it is good for New Zealand at all levels and the only way you can really do that is education. So you’ve got to get the word out there, get people talking about it, see conversations and debate develop, and for me personally, much more empirical evidence of what is actually happening.

The problem is there isn’t enough of that happening right now even though I am personally aware of hundreds of initiatives. At K1W1, my investment arm, we get probably two of what I would call cleantech proposals a week, and a lot of these things are happening in various parts of New Zealand and people are just not aware of it so somehow we have to start the conversation and then build it into our psyche so it becomes part of our culture.

New Zealand can do this, and I would think it would be one of the easiest countries in the world to do it, just based on our history. It seems like a decade ago now I worked with Pete Hodgson on getting some traction on the Venture Innovation Fund (NZVIF) and I personally believe that is the forerunner for government funding along with the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST) grant system of really just making sure that people in government, Crown Research Institutes (CRIs), universities and the public sector put a lot more emphasis into cleantech.

There is a lot of talk about the need for science and business to work together to grow the economy. How does the vision for cleantech fit in?

My view is the structure is already there if you pull the levers that already exist. So we need a heckuva lot more money in NZVIF and the Seed Co-investment Fund (SCIF), which is for startups. A number of companies I’ve been involved with and invested in have gone through that process and then been able to establish or list offshore. I’m talking about companies like Lanzatech, Living Cell Technologies, Photonz which turns algae into Omega 3, Pure Depth in the US … some of these aren’t strictly cleantech but I take a broad view of the sector.
Icebreaker is a company I invested in which I think is an exemplar in this area, and I would call cleantech, because it takes natural fibre, grown on the land, and uses technology to create an absolutely fabulous range of knitted fabrics.

This is something you’re obviously passionate about?

I think I’ve always had a bent, particularly since we started the Tindall Foundation for clean and green because I think it is the edge for New Zealand. I think we are already ahead of the game. However we could slip backwards and I guess, like everything I do, I like to look for the power of ‘and’. Where is something you can actually do some good by maybe cleaning up emissions or waste?

Right from the beginning I saw this big opportunity. Initially with the Foundation it was how to clean up waste and make some money out of doing that and then it spread to how can we make New Zealand sustainable? And part of that is to create export dollars.

So there has to be a commercial element?

It’s really important, to look at it from a commercial angle. Of around 14 cleantech companies we have invested in, two or three have huge potential but we can’t talk about them yet because it’s very early in the IP phase and we wouldn’t want to lose the value by having that IP stolen. But there are some other things happening with existing companies that we are looking to invest in.

Your name

Listed as anonymous if blank

Subject *

Comment *

Comment composition options

Captcha *

This is a test to prevent automated spam submission. To receive a new challenge click below or click to receive audio challenge.