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Gilles Rhéaume: Clean technology is an integral part of today’s industries. It’s critical to competitiveness. Take the forest products sector—it’s being challenged by an increasing number of international competitors. Canadian companies can no longer succeed simply by producing traditional forest products. So they’re turning to cleantech— using biomass to produce bio-energy and bio-chemicals and regain their competitive advantage.

Jayson Myers: It seems clear today that companies that integrate clean technology into their larger business strategies will be the ones to beat.

John Ruffolo: If Canada wants to be a competitive player in the knowledge economy, it has to make clean technology a key part of its industrial strategy. From a big-picture point of view, with the sustainability of our country—and our planet—at stake, I can’t think of a better area to focus our efforts than clean technology.

Are you seeing ‘cleantech convergence’ happening? Are clean technologies being used in combination to change the ways industries or sectors operate?

Jayson Myers

President & CEO, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters

John Ruffolo

National Leader - Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice, Deloitte

Gilles Rhéaume

Vice-President, Public Policy, Conference Board of Canada

John Ruffolo: We’re seeing this in almost every industry across the board. Oil and gas and mineral extraction companies, for example, are aggressively pursuing technologies that improve the efficiency of extraction processes, minimize land and forest degradation, and prevent water waste.

Gilles Rhéaume: Look at Canada’s automotive industry. New market realities are leading automotive manufacturers to adopt technologies that allow them to produce cleaner vehicles using bio-materials and to create cars and trucks that run on renewable energy.

Jayson Myers: For Canadian manufacturers, clean technology represents two important opportunities. The first is to secure a steady, cost-competitive supply of energy. Better management of our energy resources through their entire lifecycle is a part of this. Clean technologies also represent an enormous business opportunity for manufacturers: in a windmill alone there are 1,800 components that all require manufacturing. Part of convergence is this addressing of multiple challenges and opportunities at once.

How is clean technology changing Canada’s industrial sectors?

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