Happy and Prosperous New Year!

Stay tuned to learn more about the new processes and technologies that Spans will be able to offer to solve your water and sustainability issues

Incisive Media (http://www.incisivemedia.com/) will host the “Asian Venture Capital Journal Private Equity and Venture Forum 2011” on December 1-2, 2011 at JW Marriott, Mumbai. SustainAsia is one of the supporting organizations.

SustainAsia’s members, associates and partners are entitled to a 20% off on the standard registration fee [please quote the VIP code “SAEM1” when you register]. For details and enrolment, please see the message below. You can find information on the event at http://www.avcjindia.com/

I will be moderating a Cleantech session on day two (Friday 2nd December at 12:15) of the AVCJ conference in Mumbai: If you are interested in attending this event, please enrol with the organizer directly:

Growing interest and opportunities for investing in clean technology and renewable energy
Factors such as increasing population, rising oil prices and mounting concern over carbon emissions have led to growing interest in investment opportunities in clean-tech companies among Indian investors. Venture capital and private equity funds invested $816 million in 32 green firms in fiscal year 2011 as favourable changes in regulations and tax incentives and the introduction of government initiatives to promote green energy raised interest in the sector. But despite the current buzz and notion that this is a largely untapped market, investors are finding backing of clean technology or renewable energy companies a dogged quest as the dearth of sound opportunities makes good deals few and far between. Companies in this cluster are not scaling up or maturing fast enough to absorb large amounts of capital and offer returns. Experienced ‘green’ investors will debate the following:

• What option makes sense for PE investment: companies that adopt technologies or models and implement them locally, such as hydro-power generation or smaller tech innovation deals?
• Can the Indian intellectual property regime protect the interests of overseas partners and is this a concern for limited partners?
• In a market swamped with clean tech ‘flavour of the month’ investment opportunities, what processes can you employ to cut through the bad investments and find the real deal?

For inquiry, please contact Anil Nathani:

Tel: +852 3411 4938 or E-Mail: Anil.Nathani@incisivemedia.com

See you soon in Mumbai.

With best regards,
Nitin Verma
India Representative

SustainAsia Ltd

Model Engineering nv/sa (ME) is an inventive consultancy, R&D and engineering firm with a novel approach, advanced technology and over 33 years worldwide expertise in sustainable water solutions. ME’s expertise covers advanced water and wastewater treatment (clear water), sustainable water management (water efficiency) and green energy (biogas) for industries and communities.

By using a novel model based approach, ME develops and applies its sustainable water management methodology 5D-WM™ and treatment technologies AS+™ and AN+™ as to achieve more with less: more energy from wastewater, more water for reuse at top quality and more water efficiency in less space and with less energy, less waste and less cost for a drastically smaller water and carbon footprint.

Sustain Asia is a cleantech investment advisory firm based out of Hong Kong. Our primary services include sustainability consulting, investment advisory and technology incubation.

SustainAsia is a corporate sustainability and clean & green technologies investment advisory firm in Asia Pacific. Since 2004, SustainAsia provides advisory services, expertise and tools to high performance companies and investors seeking to enhance their long term economic performance while minimizing their environmental impact.

SustainAsia provides independent expertise on cleantech & greentech investments as well as environmental and energy infrastructure projects in Asia Pacific, assessing risks and opportunities, as well as participating in the due diligence of private equity investments, project financing or merger and acquisition transactions.

SustainAsia is the Asia Pacific partner of Enablon, a global leader of governance, risks and compliance IT solutions. SustainAsia is also the Joint Venture partner in Greenware Technologies, a provider of next generation end-to-end wireless intelligent monitoring solutions.

Please read more about the new range of services we now offer at www.sustainasa.com

This is an interesting article about water politics and National Water Policy(NWP). We feel that difficult situations would continue to arise and the only way to solve them is through better planning and engineering. We also feel that the NWP is outdated and needs to be revised to address the challenges of both modern and rural India.

We feel that there is an urgent need for the the government to incorporate the following in the NWP:

• Polluter pays principle
• All industries, including agriculture should be encouraged/forced to use treated water – the primary idea is to treat wastewater as a valuable resource
• While the GDP has grown significantly, the price of water is still very low. We feel that the price of water should be linked to the GDP.

We, at Spans, feel that this is a great development for the Asian water sector. The Asian water sector requires huge investments and private operational expertise. Such funds would greatly help in enabling the adoption of improved/advanced technologies and better water management practices.

We believe that sooner or later India too would require a similar dedicated water fund. Currently the Indian water market is highly fragmented with very few deal opportunities. However, we feel that a trend is emerging where smaller indigenous firms are partnering with international companies to create sustainable solutions that would work in the Indian setup.

In this light, I would like to add that currently Spans is also looking for strategic and financial partners who like us are passionate about water and also believe in the business opportunities in the water sector. Let us talk if you think we share a common goal!

(Article from WSJ, May 2011)

http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/05/02/investors-in-india-like-clean-tech-but-find-few-deals/

“There has never been a greater need to ensure that everyone on the planet has access to a safe and sustainable water supply,” said Wade Miller, Executive Director of the WateReuse Foundation. “This partnership will allow our two organizations to pool resources and make a greater impact on advancing the science behind providing alternative sources of water supply.”