ICG Sustainability Update – February 2021
The ICG Sustainability Update is our monthly published comment focused on energy-, waste-, raw material-, emission- and water-efficiency.
Resource Efficiency
According to analysts, the green technology and sustainability market is expected to grow from $8.7 billion in 2019 to $28.9 billion by 2024, at a compound annual growth rate of 27.1% during the forecast period. The major factors driving the growth of green technology and sustainability market include the increasing environmental awareness and concerns and the increasing consumer and industrial interest for use of clean energy resources to conserve the environment. The “internet of things (IoT)” technology segment is estimated to hold the largest market size, which is driven by green networks in IoT and will contribute to reduce emissions and pollution, exploiting environmental conservation and surveillance, and minimizing operational costs and power consumption. IoT has broad range of applications including carbon footprint management, green building, water purification, water leak detection, fire detection, and sustainable mining and exploration. The use of green technology and sustainability solution is increasing rapidly especially in the green building application, owing to the growing integration of technology while designing and constructing buildings. Green building considers the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. The major considerations include energy and water efficiency, resource efficiency and the building’s overall impact on the environment. North America is expected to be a major revenue generating region for the green technology and sustainability market. The region is considered the most advanced region in terms of technology adoption and infrastructure. Looking at China, the government will soon present climate and energy plans, as the country is responsible for most of the increase in carbon emissions over the past decade. According to climate scientists, over the decade through 2018, emissions increased by 12%, or 4.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Breaking out the numbers by country, however, some 89% of the additional greenhouse gases came from just two countries: China, which alone accounted for 69% of the increase, and India. Emissions from the EU, Japan and the US fell, and by 2018 were lower than they were in the 1990s. That’s why the climate and energy plans that will be presented in China’s 14th 5-year plan represent the most important policies being made anywhere in determining the fate of the planet. If they live up to the promise of President Xi Jinping’s pledge to reduce the country’s emissions to net zero by 2060, we may have to start lifting our expectations of what’s possible in terms of decarbonization. The days when China could argue that those numbers were huge only because its population was large, or that they were necessary to catch up with richer countries, are now in the past. The country’s per-capita emissions these days are on a par with most western European countries.
