BusinessGreen.com Review of 2008: July to September

July

Ever an entrepreneur with an eye firmly on the zeitgeist, Richard Branson chose July to announce the launch of a new green consultancy. At the same time, a rather more old school consultancy sought to bolster its green credentials as PwC published a major report arguing that halving global emissions is entirely affordable, regardless of what the doomsayers think.

The report's central premise, that there is a financial upside to the development of a low-carbon economy, was underlined with the release of the latest figures showing that globally the renewable energy industry employs 2.3 million people. And a few more staff were added to the sector's roster when the world's first commercial-scale tidal generator came online in Northern Ireland.

In Europe, the WEEE directive celebrated its first birthday amid widespread criticism that it wasn't working, while in the US California secured yet more environmental plaudits, unveiling plans for a regional cap-and-trade scheme and introducing new emission labels for car number plates.

Governor Schwarzenegger also joined forces with a number of other states to take the Environmental Protection Agency to court over its continuing failure to follow the job description that features so handily in its own name.

Finally, renowned oil baron T Boone Pickens predicted prices could hit $300 a barrel just weeks ahead of them beginning their steady slide downwards – then again, who would bet against his prediction in the long term?

August

Just weeks ahead of the global financial system going into meltdown, leading clean tech firms started August by giving an early indication they might just shrug off the worst effects of the economic downturn, defying a stagnant market to pull off several multimillion-dollar IPOs.

Barack Obama also gave the clearest signal in an increasingly fierce presidential race that he understood the scale of the climate change challenge, pledging to invest $150bn over 10 years in clean tech. He also said that he would introduce a nationwide cap-and-trade scheme, just as the first US regional scheme came online.

Shell again found itself reminded of the perils of greenwash when the company received a public dressing down from the advertising watchdog over its attempts to equate the word " sustainable" with its controversial, and highly polluting, tar sands projects.

Back in the UK, there was bad news for the government's plans for a third runway at Heathrow when the EU signalled its concerns about the proposals, and bad news for its biofuel strategy when the new Renewable Fuels Agency admitted only a fifth of biofuel on the UK market met sustainability standards.

The concerns that the WEEE directive was proving ineffective were also underlined when a Greenpeace investigation revealed that countless old computers from the UK were ending up in illegal African scrap yards.

September

September 2008, the month the world changed.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers sent the global financial system into a tailspin the like of which it had not seen since the Great Depression, leaving political and business leaders shocked by their own impotence.

As the shock subsided and the inquest began, the predictions of a shallow recession that had dominated the first half of the year were upgraded to expectations of an extremely tough couple of years.

Alongside everyone else, clean tech and green businesses were left wondering what the downturn would mean for them – generally they concluded it might not be all bad. Late-stage clean tech firms and capital-intensive projects will suffer, but the drivers behind the green business boom remain intact and most observers agreed clean tech will weather the storm better than most sectors.

There was plenty of evidence to support this contention.

Both EDF and Warren Buffet splashed the cash to buy up low-carbon nucelar operators, China significantly tightened its environmental legislation, millions continued to flow into solar and biomass projects, and the UK's proposals for new offshore wind farms found that there were still plenty of firms willing to stump up the money needed to build them.

There was also a bit of light relief amid all the financial doom and gloom when US presidential hopeful John McCain chose climate change sceptic and enemy of polar bears Sarah Palin as his running mate.