New Internet research tool helps Asian businesses go green and stay that way

PRESS RELEASE

New site devoted to covering Asia’s booming sustainable business development

HONG KONG – A new Internet portal, aimed at acting as a primary source for executives looking for news and views on the burgeoning sustainable business sector in the world’s fastest growing economic region, was launched today at www.CleanBiz.asia.

Founded by veteran communicators in the Asia Pacific region, CleanBiz Asia employs a combination of high-value original content from a network of expert correspondents and contributors and carefully sanitized reports from a variety of public sources to present the most broad-based, informative source of business information on the multi-billion dollar sustainability sector across the Asia Pacific region.

From Australia to Japan and India to Taiwan, governments and businesses are investing tremendous resources in a wide variety of sustainable development ventures, ranging from massive projects to capture energy to fuel the region’s resource-hungry mushrooming economies to international efforts aimed at environmental conservation to research and development on some of the world’s most advanced clean technology.

With Asia leading the world in just about every facet of the sustainable business sector, CleanBiz Asia’s mission is to fill a gap in the market for a single source of timely and valuable information on the business of sustainability and all the myriad elements that are driving it to become the world’s most exciting industry.

The not-for-profit portal was founded on the belief that forward-thinking business leaders are creating competitive advantage by addressing a wide range of environmental issues. They realize that strategies incorporating environmentally-friendly practices improve the bottom line by cutting costs and saving resources, and that there is real gold in going green.

“With China rapidly establishing itself as an economic giant and Asian growth driving the global economy, the region has become the clear leader in business opportunities,” said Fergus O’Rorke, Executive Editor of CleanBiz Asia. “Not so very long ago Asia was considered a laggard in sustainable business practices but we are now seeing their rapid adoption as economies flourish and the dangers of not acting responsibly and sustainably become all too clear. How Asian business behaves, for good or for ill, is becoming an increasingly deterministic factor in the sustainable development of the global economy. CleanBiz Asia is dedicated to covering that story.”

Almost overnight, perceptions of China have changed from being the worst environmental offender to being a global leader and sustainability trailblazer. In 2009, it overtook the United States to become the planet’s largest producer of wind-generated electricity. In the five years to 2010 it reduced the energy intensity of per unit of GDP by a fifth and aims to cut another 16 percent in the next five years while reducing pro rata carbon emission by 17 percent.

Asia’s other clean tech tigers, such as India Korea and Japan, are on the cusp of establishing a “first-mover advantage” over the United States in the global clean tech industry. This leaves the US, and many other OECD members looking like the laggards.