The media discussion on global CleanTech keeps tends to be focused on competition between the US, Europe and China for dominance in renewable energy jobs (and manufacturing), and on a comparison on total investment by both countries.  The outcome of these discussions is often that the US and Europe are loosing the CleanTech war, and that innovation is driven by Asia. 

Unfortunately, a lot of valuable information gets lost in this policy debate that ignores innovation, investment and economic development at local, regional, and (in some cases) country-wide scales.  CleanTech clusters, consisting of highly variable business ecosystems, and widely diverging portfolio companies, have developed in response to the global green economy stimulus.  Moreover, they are leveraging the local business culture, human capital and resources for economic development.  Clusters may be comprised of physical incubators, entrepreneurial services, economic development groups, universities, immigrant groups and investors, and are serving various economic development mandates.  Since clusters come in all flavors and CleanTech domain foci, there was a need to connect across geographic boundaries, and to scale the opportunities presented by the local markets.

The Global CleanTech Cluster Association (www.globalcleantech.org) was formed to support this emerging trend and to move the CleanTech market by linking companies and value systems between clusters globally.  In a strategic partnership with CleanTech Acceleration Partners (www.cta-partners.com),  portfolio screening of best-in-class companies is aimed at driving investment  in return-driven ventures, local supply chains, and job growth.  Currently totaling 39 clusters in Europe, North America, and Australasia with nearly 5,000 companies in their combined portfolio (e.g. CleanTech San Diego has nearly 800 companies; CleanTech Finland around 600 companies), the clusters represent a mix of venture/PE/mezzanine/infrastructure deals across all CleanTech sub-domains attractive to investors across the entire investment value chain.  Just in January 2012, four new clusters have been launched (Melbourne, Australia; Washington, DC; San Jose, CA; Loos-en-Gohelle, France), sustaining momentum generated since 2010.

This emerging cluster trend is not only providing more granularity in the CleanTech policy debate, but indeed shows innovation occurring in many forms and at a wide range of geographic footprints.