31

Pelamis Wave Power
Edinburgh, UK
Public
Renewables ' wave
Phil Metcalf, CEO

Pelamis Wave Power (formerly Ocean Power Delivery) has developed an offshore wave energy converter named Pelamis. Building on technology developed for the offshore industry, the company claims Pelamis has a similar output to a modern wind turbine. The first full-scale pre-production prototype has been built and is currently being tested at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. If successful, the company plans to create 'wave farms' comprising interlinked machines connected to shore by a single sub-sea cable. A typical 30MW installation would occupy a square kilometre of ocean and provide enough electricity for 20,000 homes. The other centre in Europe for this technology is Portugal.

32
US Renewables Group
West Santa Monica,
California, US
Public
Renewables
Jim McDermott, MD

US Renewables Group was set up to assemble and manage a portfolio of renewable power and clean-fuel assets. It provides the capital, market knowledge and financial expertise necessary to assist top developers to succeed in building the next generation of renewable power and biofuels plants. It has formed a number of funds to carry out its work. Fund II, which closed at the end of May 2007 acquired a 20MW biomass plant in Tracy, California, a 50MW coal plant in Niagara, New York that USRG is converting to biomass and US Biodiesel Group, to acquire biodiesel assets.

33
REC Group
Oslo, Norway
Public
Clean tech
Erik Thorsen, CEO

Alf Bjorseth, REC's founder in the 1990s, was one of the early pioneers of solar power and developed the world's only fully integrated solar-PV company. With a 2007 market capitalisation of '€17bn, revenues of '€800m, and pre-tax profits of '€400m, it is the largest producer in the world of solar-grade silicon and wafers and also makes solar cells in significant quantities. The company has enjoyed high margins and rising share prices due to a silicon market that will continue to be tight in 2008. This, alongside planned production cost cuts and a capacity increase of 1GW, points to a continued good performance this year.

34
Low Carbon Accelerator
London, UK
Public
Financial
Mark Shorrock, CEO

No longer the only dedicated private equity player in this space, LCA remains a pioneer in this field and one of very few pure-play environmental investments easily accessible to consumers, who can buy the shares. A year after their London AIM listing, the shares were trading at a 10% premium to net asset value, withearly investments ranging from Austrian combined heat and power company EnergyCabin to methane capture specialists Eco- Solids. LCA's philosophy is to target enabling technologies in new sectors ' the picks and shovels of the new gold rush rather than the mines.

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Solar power company Nanosolar is another first rank thin-film solar innovator and is playing to win. It has raised over '€68m and has also won a cost-shared, threeyear co-operative agreement by the US Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the Solar America Initiative. An Austrian citizen born in Munich, Martin Roscheisen is one of America's most promising entrepreneurs. He has advanced engineering degrees from Stanford University and Munich Technical University. Founded in 2002, Nanosolar is building two of the world's largest solar production facilities, in California and Berlin, Germany. Google was one of the initial seed investors, confirming the hot status of this giant in the making.

36
Schmack BioGas
Schwandorf, Germany
Public
Renewables ' biogas
Ulrich Schmack, CEO

Schmack is streets ahead its rivals, having sold 201 biogas plants. Its turnover almost tripled to '€90m in 2005- 06, primarily from selling plants that create heat and power using captured methane emissions from animal waste (typically manure, which the famer pays Schmack to dispose of), to which energy crops are added. There have been upheavals though: Schmack's shares dropped 67% last September after a profits warning because rising agricultural crop prices were making the feedstocks too expensive. Founder Ulrich Schmack started the company in 1995 at the tender age of 22 and advises Chancellor Angela Merkel.

37
Lafarge
Paris, France
Public
Materials
Bruno Lafont, CEO

Lafarge is at the forefront of the Cement Sustainability Initiative, an industry project to reduce the sector's environmental impacts ' cement is responsible for 5% of global CO2 emissions and demand is growing at twice the rate of GDP growth in many emerging markets. The measures it has taken include co-firing kilns with alternative fuels such as rice and coffee husks, replacing limestone with lower- CO2 materials and the inauguration of a research institute devoted to innovation in concrete. The company has committed to cutting CO2 per tonne of cement by 20% by 2010. Lafarge heads this carbonintensive sector.

38
Swiss Re
Zurich, Switzerland
Public
Financial
Jacques Aigrain, CEO

Insurance companies ' and reinsurers in particular ' were among the first to realise the consequences of climate change and Swiss Re has been at the forefront of those trying to quantify the risks. It carries out research on the economic consequences of climate change, offers climate change-related products such as catastrophe bonds, weather derivatives and the carbon markets' first insurance product. In April 2007 the company launched a '€329m European Clean Energy fund and at September's Clinton Global Initiative it unveiled its Climate Adaptation Development Programme, to provide drought cover for Africans.