expand our business supplying recycled paper to China. Two years ago I went on a trade mission led by the Prime Minister, where UKTI enabled us to gain access to high-level government offi cials. By speaking to them I was able to get a better idea of whether it was a project that they would support and whether it tied in with their environmental priorities. As a result we have expanded our activities in China and we’re now doing £25 million of business there a year.” In February 2007 Colin led a UKTI seminar mission to
India, which resulted in the UK fi rm EcoMethane (part of EcoSecurities) winning India’s fi rst landfi ll gas power generation project in Turbhe, Mumbai. UKTI facilitated the talks with the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC), which capitalised on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as a means of delivering profi table environmental improvements. Colin points out that, up until that time, although India had many landfi ll sites, gas was not being recovered from them. This presented a huge opportunity for EcoMethane to enter the market with a solution, which would generate carbon credits and revenue for the NMMC, as well as profi ts for EcoMethane. Colin led a further mission in 2008, when the offi cial opening of the landfi ll gas power generation scheme took place. These are just two examples of how UKTI has opened
doors for UK fi rms operating in the environment sector, but there are many other opportunities available too, Colin points out, and UKTI can help businesses to identify them. “In the environment sector there are a large number of SMEs with clever technologies and fi nding a focused, low cost way of entering the export market is always a big challenge. It can be tough getting started.” He continues: “UKTI can carry out market analysis and put people in front of key decision makers who have a serious interest in doing business - this is one of its greatest strengths.” He says that UK companies have a lot to offer the rest
of the world. “The UK is a world leader in environmental solutions: we have the best regulated markets in the world; we invented carbon trading; we have a very effective Environment Agency; and our universities are world- beating. These are big selling points.” Over the past 17 years Colin has seen the environment
sector completely transformed. “In recent years the sector has seen rapid growth and is one of the most exciting businesses to be in. Back in 1993, waste management simply involved collecting waste and dumping it in landfi ll. Now we recover the value from the waste – either by generating renewable energy or by selling recycled products. In fact over 40 per cent of Viridor’s profi ts now come from recovering value in waste, either from generating renewable energy or from recycling.” Viridor’s fi nancial performance refl ects the profi ts to
be made in the environmental sector, with profi ts having grown by over 20 per cent each year since 2000, to a total of £65 million in 2008/09. In April last year the company
Colin at the offi cial opening of the landfi ll gas power generation scheme in Mumbai in 2008
“Waste is incredibly important as a form of renewable
energy. It is the biggest form of renewable energy in the UK and provides 1.5 per cent of the country’s total electricity – either through burning the waste or obtaining gas from the waste. In the UK alone, waste could represent at least six per cent of all electricity by 2015, so it is hugely important. Being green is good for business,” Colin says. Looking forward, he says: “I think we will see continued
growth throughout the environment sector and will see more attention to resource productivity - and rightly so. We’re using too many resources, for example, raw materials such as pulp for paper, topsoil and so on. Worldwide, there are the same issues – where are we going to get our energy and raw materials from in the future? We will have to fi nd ways of using less and of recovering value from the waste we do generate. Technology will also continue to develop and much more profi table business models will be established.”
To fi nd out more about how UKTI can help your company to capitalise on international opportunities
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signed a 25-year Private Finance Initiative recycling and waste management contract with Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority worth £3.8 billion – recognised as the largest municipal waste contract in Western Europe. It shows what the UK’s environmental sector can do even in the current diffi cult economic conditions.
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