Clean Tech
Clean tech companies sell technology products and services that solve environmental problems, ranging from traffic monitoring solutions to bioplastics made from sewage sludge to new solar cell technology. These innovations offer the promise of creating a more sustainable world while transforming our economy. Autodesk is the design engine that accelerates the clean-tech revolution.
Clean Tech is a Dynamic Force in the Economy
Climate change, resource depletion, water scarcity, and other global environmental challenges have unleashed a wave of innovation. Entrepreneurs worldwide strive to address such issues through breakthrough technologies and new business models. Fortune 1,000 companies are heavily focused in this area, often collaborating with smaller firms to tap into new ideas. The resulting clean tech industry is a dynamic force in the economy today.
Clean tech centers of innovation have emerged worldwide. Reflecting the diversity of environmental challenges we face, the range of technologies involved is equally broad and expanding, from green building materials and utility metering devices to advanced battery systems and renewable energy.
Emerging legislation and federal initiatives worldwide also drive the industry. China’s Long-Term Renewable Energy Development Plan, for instance, will dramatically expand the nation’s small hydroelectric, wind, biomass, and solar energy generation capacity in the next decade at an estimated total investment of US$270 billion. In the U.S., 45 states have adopted renewable portfolio standards or net metering legislation that provides a platform for increased renewable energy use. Private investors are active, as well. Clean tech venture capital investments equaled $5.64 billion in 2009, with notable concentrations in North America, Europe, and Asia—about a quarter of all global venture investments and the most of any single category. |
Clean Tech Companies Face Distinct Challenges
Yet clean tech companies face several distinct challenges:
- Capital—Product development is more capital intensive than in many other sectors, so it is critical to streamline, process, and minimize errors.
- Time—Clean tech products often integrate with infrastructure and broader systems, so bringing a product to market is a complex, lengthy process.
- Communication—It can be challenging to describe these novel ideas to potential investors, partners, and customers.
Digital Prototyping Helps Clean Tech Companies Innovate, Overcome Challenges
Digital Prototyping helps companies overcome these challenges, and is central to the Autodesk approach. It enables manufacturers to design, visualize, and simulate the real-world performance of clean tech designs, digitally. Our customers can innovate and commercialize their ideas more quickly, making mistakes on the computer desktop—where the cost is low—and not in the marketplace, using photorealistic images and animation to sell their ideas. Business can also improve collaboration and communication with their customers, partners, and suppliers using Autodesk® PLM 360 product lifecycle management software.
Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program
The Autodesk Clean Tech Partner Program invests in both leading and emerging clean tech companies by providing the Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping. Our commitment to the industry is broad, with programs focused on North America, Europe and Japan.
Cleaner Clean Tech
Digital Prototyping also helps clean tech companies become cleaner and greener. Dedicated to solving environmental problems, it’s important that these firms design and manufacture their products in a sustainable way. Autodesk solutions for Digital Prototyping make it easy to explore alternative designs to see which ones best meet a product’s commercial and sustainability objectives.
