Meeting the world’s rapidly growing population’s demands for energy, food and water as well as the threat posed by climate change has led to a surge of activity from public policy makers to act, particularly in Europe, through increased environmental regulation and government incentives for the adoption of clean technologies and resource efficiency measures.

As entrepreneurs respond by developing innovative solutions to these substantial global challenges, a green industrial revolution is beginning to take place that is generating a swelling tide of investment opportunities.

Most cleantech investors have focused on alternative energy generation which tends to be subsidy dependent and highly capital intensive.  At WHEB Partners, we view cleantech as an investment theme that cuts across multiple industrial sectors.  We favour those businesses with technologies that enable existing resources to be used more efficiently, that have rapid customer payback rather than require a large capital spend, that do not require subsidies to be viable and that have positive environmental benefits.

Examples include:

• Clean industrial processes, chemical and advanced materials

• Energy efficiency and storage including smart grid technologies and transport efficiency

• Waste minimisation, treatment and recycling

• Water treatment, conservation and usage efficiency

• Enabling and non capital intensive technologies for clean and renewable energy generation

Our focus is predominantly on European based investments but we are also active in Asia-Pacifc and North America with local industrial and financial partners who can help us add value to our portfolio companies.