Sustainable Businesses and
Clean Technology Markets
in Megacities
Financed by:
Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems
An explorative study of the dynamics in Mexico City and Cairo
Why focus on cities
Urban agglomerations consume over 67%
of the world’s energy and account for more
than 70% of global CO2 emissions (IEA, 2008).
Currently, 50% of the world’s population lives
in cities, and 20% more is expected to join in
the following 30 years (UN, 2008).
Cities like Mexico City produce more
than 12.000 tons of residues every
day (Transparencia DF website), and
have more than 4’000.000 vehicles
(EFE, 2006).
Modern cities concentrate people, materials,
money, information and knowledge
as never before rendering them important
foci for spreading technology and knowledge.
Megacities
By UN’s definition, megacities are cities with more than 10 million
inhabitants. Overcrowding, uncontrolled growth, infrastructure/technology
problems and climate change represent huge challenges for politicians,
researchers and citizens.
Common problems
Water shortage/quality
Air pollution
Traffic/Noise
Food shortage
Fossil fuel dependency
Waste management
Approach
Megatech will use a buttom-up
approach. Identification and specification
of stakeholders. Then linked together and
analyzed as components of the bigger
system (political, legislative).
• Identifying, analyzing and understanding
the cities’ needs and demands from
a sustainability/environmental perspective.
• Studying Swedish CleanTech supply
and creating a meeting arena for
matching supply and unmet demand.
Simplified Business Model
PreAssess
ment
Mega-city:
Social
System
Sustainability
Programme
Sustainability
Business Arena/
CT charter
Sweden:
CleanTech
Supply
Demand
Dissemination:
Sustainability Arena for
meeting demands and
supplies
Swedish
companies
Strategies
• Literature review about environmental problems
in specific venues. Classification and categorization.
• A first round of interviews with local actors from
academia, government, industry, media and society
will provide an insight on local environmental
problems, decision-making and innovation processes
from the stakeholders’ perspective.
• Gathering information about Swedish supply,
clusters, SME’s. Classification and
DataBase creation.
• Matching supply and demand using categorization.
• Providing information about conditions, requirements,
barriers, drivers and enablers for successful
development of business ideas and the solution
of urban problems.
Contacts
For a better understanding and a closer insight on the issues the
project wants to address, local contacts in each city come
from the following institutions:
Cairo
American University of Cairo
National Cleaner Production Center of Egypt (ENCPC)
UNIDO MED-TEST
International Finance Corporation (IFC)
Ministry of the Environment
Mexico City
National Technical Institute (IPN)
Autonomous University of Mexico (UAM)
Mexican Center for Cleaner Production (CMP+L)
Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (SEMARNAT)
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
Project members:
Leo Baas, Ph.D
[email protected]
Olof Hjelm, Ph.D
[email protected]
Santiago Mejía D, doktorand
[email protected]
Division of Environmental Technology and Management
Department of Management and Engineering