Blowing bubbles

It’s been a favorite San Francisco happy hour conversation piece in recent months to deconstruct when — not if — the emerging “cleantech” bubble will burst.

Cynical or not, the Bay Area is so hog-tied to the dotcom boom and bust at the turn of the century that any emerging investment-frenzied sector is viewed through the lens of when the smorgasbord will run out of cold cuts. Some are even concerned that a burst cleantech bubble will have a devastating long-term impact on environmental innovation because it will make “green” slip back into the uncool category.

It’s clear to me that at least a thinning of the pack is inevitable. As some of the cocktail hour cynics decry, many companies are latching on to the cleantech name even though their products or services are questionable in the environmental innovation department. As is always the case, many energy or environmental technologies that originally sound like good ideas will never make it to the marketplace, due to superior competitors, inadequate business plans or simple bad luck.

Still, the thought of a bursting bubble seems to go against the fundamental definition of what a sustainable industry is supposed to be. Melting polar ice caps and snowballing environmental and climate-change legislation around the country suggest to me that, when it comes to cleantech, we are only now seeing the tip of the, er, iceberg.

That’s why I like how Hill & Knowlton defines cleantech to include “a broad range of technological solutions designed to reduce or eliminate negative environmental impact while offering significant financial returns and economic sustainability.” The firm, which publicly states a refusal to “greenwash” its credentials or those of its clients, reports, “We are now set to embark on … a “green” revolution whose impact will go far beyond the energy industry as transportation, manufacturing and agriculture will all have a major stake in the changing environment.” That sounds more sustainable to me than the next big tech smorgasbord.

Hill & Knowlton hosted a dinner May 9 at San Francisco’s Ft. Mason to release results of a global cleantech survey of 420 senior business decisionmakers. Dubbed “Return on Environment,” the report doesn’t offer any earth-shattering observations, except perhaps the startling fact that 65 percent of the execs polled said their firm has not yet defined an energy strategy. One interesting suggestion is that companies need to expand their C-suite to include a “chief energy officer,” or CNO. (Companies that make room in the budget for that role will see it more than pays for itself.)

The report makes no mention of a cleantech bubble, but you can bet it was widely discussed during the cocktail hour before the dinner. Some in San Francisco are waiting for the next big bubble to burst just like their neighbors are waiting for the next big earthquake.

If there is a major burst, I just hope they don’t call cleantech’s reincarnation Green 2.0.