Bear Stearns Crisis May Pinch Clean Tech

An article in GreenBiz news today warns that the Bear Stearns Crisis Could Curb Clean Tech Growth, an industry sector that has been experiencing an investment boom and been on a steady, fast increase. Near the end of 2007, clean tech venture investment hit $2.6 billion up from $590 million in 2000 and with an increase of individual deals from 63 in 2000 to over 160 in 2007.

The ever-expanding credit crisis in the US is rippling through the global economy and GreenBiz reported that “As share prices around the world continued to fall sharply in the wake of the weekend collapse of U.S. investment bank Bear Stearns, experts on Monday warned that clean tech projects could soon find it significantly harder to raise project financing as a result.”

However, the experts assembled in the UK last Monday gave a positive long term outlook for clean tech and noted that the current market conditions pose a short term problem.

“Clean tech is not recession-proof,” said Justin Adams, director of technical strategy, venturing and innovation at BP. “But the drivers behind current interest in the sector are enduring and will remain with us whether we go through a shallow or deep recession — there remains a huge upside to clean tech investments.”

At GreenBiz, Experts Warn Bear Stearns Crisis Could Curb Clean Tech Growth