For companies that focus strategically on the right products and services, the market for Canadians to export clean technology, or cleantech, to China, still has room to grow, says Tom Rand, managing partner of ArcTern Ventures, a Toronto firm that invests in cleantech startups.

If your investments were a person, who would they be? Perhaps a bespectacled accountant tallying pennies in a cubicle. Or maybe an exhausted analyst with shoulders hunched over an Excel spreadsheet. If you’re like many Canadians, you aspire to be a different kind of investment: one who stays late at the office, but also volunteers on the weekends.

E-Squared featuring Tom Rand, Senior Advisor, MaRS Cleantech and Ken Green, Senior Director, Centre for Natural Resources, Fraser Institute

Right now, politicians from around the globe are meeting in Paris to figure out the next steps in reducing climate change.But a number of Canadian entrepreneurs have spent years sussing out technologies that may help us get to a future of cleaner power.

Canada’s emerging leaders across the clean energy spectrum are ready to play big. Morgan Solar will produce solar energy for less than 5c/kwh in the oil-rich Mideast. Woodland Biofuels can produce renewable transport fuel from wood and agricultural waste for less than the gasoline it replaces.

Clean tech is Canada’s fastest-growing industry and perhaps its best-kept secret. According to Ottawa-based Analytica Advisors, which tracks and benchmarks the space, clean tech currently consists of about 700 companies in Canada, employing 41,000 people and generating $11.3-billion annually. Most of these companies are exporters, with 52% of sales outside of Canada and 42% outside of the U.S.

Tom Rand talks about what can be done politically to move forward on addressing climate change

"Our Government recognizes that innovation holds the key to long-term economic stability for the people, communities and businesses of Ontario," said MP Davidson. "Our investment in Woodland Biofuels will lead to opportunities for job creation, growth and long-term prosperity in Ontario, and will strengthen Canada's position as a global leader in clean energy."

Woodland Biofuels Inc. is receiving a contribution to operate a plant that will produce low-costbiofuel from waste. Patricia Davidson, Member of Parliament for Sarnia–Lambton, announced the funding today on behalf of the Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).

Greg Nuttall likes to take visitors to the very top of his 10,000-square-foot chemical plant, tucked behind a secluded research building outside Sarnia, Ont. He runs up a couple flights of metal stairs, which give way to three sets of ladders woven into what looks like an outsized, freshly assembled Erector set rising from the snow