Clean tech bleeding cash

Photo: Analytica

Canada's clean technology sector, once pegged as a growth industry with the potential to be worth $50 billion by the year 2022, is bleeding money and falling behind international competition, a new report says.

Using financial data provided by 148 clean tech companies, the 2017 Analytica Advisors report finds an industry that has grown quickly, with 850 firms and 55,200 direct employees, up from 729 firms and 38,800 employees in 2011.

In its first annual report on the industry in 2011, Analytica said clean technology had the potential to become an industry worth upwards of $50 billion in Canada over the course of the next decade.

That goal is now "out of reach," said Analytica president Celine Bak, without a significant change in how financial markets make capital investments.

"When I made that call several years ago, there was an assumption at that time that financial markets would move more quickly than they have," Bak said.

Now anticipated revenues by 2022 are expected to be closer to $18 billion.

Only green power generation companies had positive returns on sales between 2011 and 2015.