Laurie Simmonds, president and CEO of Green Living Enterprises, asks voters who care about healthier communities, green jobs and cleaner electricity generation to do their homework before they head to the polls. The view expressed is her own.

Is the green economy important to Ontario’s future? That’s a question that I am particularly focused on as we head into the final day of a provincial election campaign. It’s also a key question facing Ontario voters. Who will help us build healthier communities, with good jobs for this generation and the next?

In the last 5 years, I have witnessed a staggering growth of green businesses in Ontario. I have also watched the launch of many new environmental science and technology programs designed to fill the skilled labour demands of this sector.  Ontario’s colleges have been at the forefront, with 35 new diploma or certificate programs launched in the past three years — 14 new ones in the last year.

But the case for a green economy isn’t just anecdotal. A recent Harvard Business Review article argues that “sustainability is an emerging business megatrend, like electrification and mass production, that will profoundly affect companies’ competitiveness and even their survival.” And the numbers bear them out: despite the challenging economic environment, clean energy finance and investment in the G-20 countries totaled almost $200 billion in 2010, up a third from the year before.

That investment is happening at every level of the economy. Every year I see the on-the-ground investment that Ontario businesses are making in green enterprise, from small part-time businesses to large plants with significant investments in technology and manufacturing. Ontario business owners are investing their hard-earned cash in their green ventures, hoping to position themselves to take advantage of this megatrend. After all, what happened to businesses in the past that ignored those other megatrends of electrification and mass production? They failed.

And so the question as we head into this election becomes, which party offers us the best developed plan to ensure that Ontario is positioned to take full advantage of this sustainability megatrend? It clearly is not the Conservatives, who have derided green investment at every turn, pledging to end the feed-in tariffs for green energy and repeal (parts of) the Green Energy Act.

And while the NDP has traditionally been seen as supportive to environmental issues, they have announced that they will curtail private sector investment in the green energy sector. It is a bizarre stance by the NDP, to throttle the flow of private sector funding just as investors are finally acknowledging the opportunities in this field.

Only the Liberals have detailed a plan that would see continued public sector investment and private sector partnership in green energy and significant investments in clean transportation. It is a plan that would position Ontario to become a North American leader in the development of a green economy, building healthier communities with high-quality jobs for this generation and the next.

Think it’s a pipe dream? Take a look at Germany. Of all of the EU countries, Germany has made the most sustained investments in green energy and other environmentally positive initiatives, building its green economic base with public and private investment. As the EU teeters, which economy remains rock solid? Germany’s.

But don’t take my word for it. Do your homework as you consider your vote. Both the Pembina Institute and GreenProsperity.ca have analyzed the party platforms from an environmental point of view. You’ll find their ratings online. Read up. And then cast your vote for the party you believe will position Ontario for a sustainable future.

The following post comes from Tom Rand (PEng, PhD), director of VCi Green Funds and author of Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit.

Have we built an economy that’s running rapidly toward ecological collapse? Yep. Has any major party wholeheartedly embraced the sorts of carbon reductions required to avoid that collapse? Um, nope. Does the economy require a wholesale reconfiguration in order to be able to embrace long-term sustainability? You betcha! Does the Green Party have at its core the sort of restructuring that might work? Yep.

But I’m not voting Green in the Ontario election. Why?  Because there is too much at stake in the potential loss of the nascent Green Energy and Economy Act (GEA). The GEA is the single most progressive, forward-thinking piece of environmental legislation in North America. At this point in history, it just doesn’t get any better. It’s the real deal. If we lose it, Ontario will lose our first, real concrete step toward competing in the emerging low-carbon global economy.

But even worse, if Ontario blinks at this juncture, many American States that are closely watching will back off their budding legislative efforts to build their part of the low-carbon economy. The large financial institutions, which have finally emerged as participating players on the project-finance side (it’s banks that drive all large infrastructure projects, including renewables) will back away. It will take a decade to get the momentum back.

If Ontario loses the GEA, there will be heard all over corporate North America a collective “I told you so!”. The political risk associated with any really progressive climate legislation, whether it’s Green, Blue, Orange or Red in origin, will become the main hurdle to engaging the corporate partners that we need on side to move our infrastructure forward. The little bit of momentum the economically engaged environmental movement has in Canada –  the stuff that’s way past the feel-good stage — will subside. Worse, the GEA will become a lesson in what NOT to try.

Greens, your time will come, but this is not it.

For Ontario voters, pick your battles, and use your arrows wisely. It’s hard to compromise, believe me I know. Idealism is always easier, because you can always tell yourself you’re right and the world is wrong. But that’s just not good enough right now.

Results matter. Support the party that built the GEA, as they’re the only ones in a position to protect it. For Greens, the party-building can continue after the Oct. 6 election, and I’ll be there to help.

Nova Scotia, which under an NDP government has been more proactive on the clean energy and environmental front, has launched a competition through its technology commercialization agency, Innovacorp, called the Nova Scotia CleanTech Open. Entrepreneurs have until Dec. 1 to submit their entries. It’s a bold initiative for a small province, and perhaps Ontario officials should ask themselves why they haven’t done the same thing. “The winner of The Nova Scotia CleanTech Open will receive $100,000 in cash, $200,000 negotiable seed investment, mentoring, and in-kind business building services, including one-year free rent of turn-key space at the Innovacorp Enterprise Centre,” according to the CleanTech Open web site.

Good luck, and congrats for taking the initiative.

Had a chance last week to sit down with Dr. Harry Lehmann, executive director of Germany’ federal environmental protection agency. He was visiting Toronto to speak at the inaugural Sustainable Energy Initiative Seminar Series, hosted by the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Lehmann’s presentation was insightful, as it offered some historical context that is often lacking when pointing to Germany as a green-energy success story. The point being that Germany didn’t get to where it is today overnight, or even over a few years. It started more than three decades ago with a focus on energy conservation, driven by concerns related to the 1970s oil crisis and the Chernobyl disaster a decade later. Renewables didn’t enter the picture in a big way until the late 1990s, but this still gave Germany more than a decade to build itself into a green energy powerhouse. Lehmann’s message to Ontario, as you’ll read below, is to “be patient.” We have a vision, one that may have flaws but is pointing in the right direction, and we need more time to nurture it.

On a side note, I did ask Lehmann one question that has been on the minds of many environmentalists: If Germany plans to accelerate the phaseout of its nuclear power fleet in a post-Fukushima world, won’t this put greater reliance on coal and increase — not decrease — the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions? Isn’t the nuclear phaseout counterproductive to a serious climate strategy? Lehmann said it may appear to be the case, but pointed out that Germany is part of a European-wide carbon trading system. Take nuclear out of the equation and the lower supply of emission-free energy will lead to an increase in the price of carbon. German utilities can choose to burn more coal, but it will cost them. For this reason, he says, the market will shift to less carbon-intensive energy sources, such as natural gas — and more renewables. The cap-and-trade system in Europe, in other words, will prevent the shutdown of nuclear plants in Germany from leading to increased reliance on coal. Curious to know what my Clean Break readers think of this explanation. Feel free to weigh in.

My Clean Break column about Lehmann’s visit to Toronto is pasted below. (more…)

I’m a big fan of CBC Radio’s Quirks & Quarks, as well as show host Bob McDonald, so I couldn’t have been more excited when asked to come in for an interview.  My interview was aired today (in Toronto FM 99.1) and will replay during the week, but you can listen to the segment by clicking here. Thanks to the Quirks & Quarks team for the opportunity to chat about Mad Like Tesla.