Tips and Tools for Your Greentech Business

June 26, 2020

To mark Micro-, Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises Day, celebrated annually on June 27, WIPO GREEN has prepared a special feature exploring industry trends, useful tools, and examples of environmentally-friendly micro-, small- and medium-sized businesses.

Five tools for your greentech business

SMEs often lack resources and may require support to successfully overcome business challenges. In this list, we explore five free tools that can help you manage your green business’ development, expansion, intellectual property (IP) strategy, and consulting needs.

1. Promote your technology internationally

The WIPO GREEN database is just what green innovators need: a unique catalogue of sustainable solutions and needs from across the world. The database serves as a free international promotion platform for technologies ranging from prototype to marketable products, seeking to establish collaborations for license, joint ventures, and sale. It also contains needs defined by companies, institutions, and non-governmental organizations looking for technologies to address specific environmental or climate change problems.

You can access the database – from any part of the world and free of charge – to explore the technologies and needs currently available. You will need to register – also free of charge – to see more detailed information about each technology or need, to contact the tech or need provider directly, or to publish your own technology or need. Please note that you must represent an organization, e.g. a registered company, to submit technologies or needs to the database.

Bonus: Did you know that WIPO GREEN database users qualify for a discounted use of WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Center’s services?

2. Navigate licensing with ease

The WIPO GREEN Licensing Checklist is designed for those involved in negotiating technology transfer licensing agreements. It provides a checklist of key issues that should be considered when negotiating and concluding such contracts, as well as links to further information.

3. Receive expert advice

The WIPO GREEN experts database helps innovators find specialists with the knowledge and skills needed to move green business ventures forward. Browse our free database to find professionals from around the world with expertise in relevant fields, including assurance and advisory services, business, engineering, finance, and intellectual property. Many of our experts offer pro bono services!

4. Refine your IP strategy

WIPO’s SME Division has developed several resources to assist you in managing your corporate IP assets.

• Practical SMEs guide on industrial designs, a key factor in determining the success of products in the market (available in six languages)
• Practical SMEs guide on trademarks, explaining how to use them strategically to help build and protect your brand (available in seven languages)
• Practical SMEs guide on patents, designed to help you draw maximum benefit from your innovative ideas (available in four languages).

Bonus: Be one of the first to try the upcoming IP Diagnosis Tool that helps you identify your business' IP and provides an automated report with basic information on how to best manage it.

5. Get assistance

WIPO’s Technology and Innovation Support Centers (TISCs) provide innovators in developing countries with access to locally based, high quality technology information and related services, helping them to exploit their innovative potential and to create, protect, and manage their IP rights. Find a TISC in your country to assist you with access to online patent, scientific, and technical resources, assistance in searching and retrieving technology information, and other services.

Bonus tool: Stay up-to-date with the green tech digest

Subscribe to WIPO GREEN’s monthly newsletter to receive the latest green technology news straight to your mailbox.

SMEs in the transition to a greener economy

We asked Ms. Anja von der Ropp, WIPO GREEN Senior Program Coordinator, to share her views on the role micro-, small- and medium-sized businesses¹ play in global efforts to mitigate climate change, and how intellectual property can help them strive in this challenging environment.

“Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and micro-enterprises account for a majority of economic activity in the private sector. They are important engines of innovation, growth, job creation, and social cohesion, and are therefore key economic actors in the effort toward climate-change mitigation and sustainable development.

Climate change may have an impact on the economic performance of SMEs, but the green economy transition also provides business opportunities for SMEs to deliver the necessary solutions, for instance, to improve resource efficiency. In addition, consumer interest in sustainable enterprises and clean businesses is on the rise, which also offers more recognition and customer loyalty to green SMEs.

Innovation plays a major role in addressing environmental challenges, and SMEs are drivers of innovation. Whereas it is common for incremental innovation to occur in larger companies, SMEs account for a relatively large portion of breakthrough innovation. The intellectual property system fosters innovation and the development and dissemination of green technology, however, in my experience, smaller innovative companies may not have an IP strategy. For instance, data from Canada indicates that only 10% of Canadian companies that innovate have an IP strategy in place² . Intellectual property rights such as patents, trademarks, and industrial design rights can convey a certain degree of control over your IP asset: you will be, for instance, able to decide whom to confer the right to use it. In addition, patents signal innovative players in the market to investors or other partners.

Moreover, patents can be classified into specific technology classes, and specifically in green technologies. Promoting the sharing of information on the company’s patent portfolios – for instance, by publicizing what percentage of the firm‘s innovation is “green,” is an important market signal to separate low-carbon innovative SMEs from other economic actors, allowing both investing opportunities and customer recognition.

The sharing of IP through databases can help to signal green and sustainable innovation. WIPO GREEN regularly features innovators in its communications, providing them with a global platform to promote their technology. SMEs are the backbone of the WIPO GREEN user base, with 78% of registered database users representing enterprises with fewer than 100 employees. While multinational companies may have much larger IP portfolios than SMEs, around 600 (almost 20%) of all technologies currently on the WIPO GREEN Database have been submitted by smaller entities.”

Ten green technologies

Almost 600 clean innovative technologies invented by SMEs around the world are published on the WIPO GREEN database. Explore them all or browse this featured shortlist:

• Battery energy storage system (Italy, Genport Srl, 2020. Category: Energy storage)
  GENIOL® is a modular high energy density lithium ion rechargeable Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) designed to be a longer-lasting replacement to lead acid batteries. A smart energy storage system, GENIOL® substantially minimizes the cost of backup power.
  
  
• Wave desalination station (Ukraine, Scientific and Production Company Krok-1, 2020. Category: Water production)
  The wave desalination station is designed for desalination of seawater using energy from sea waves and currents.
  
  
• EV-Gasification waste treatment technology (Japan, Eternal Vision INC, 2020. Category: Waste disposal).
  EV-Gasification treats unwanted substances and waste in a safe way, with minimal resources and without producing smoke or smell. This technology is also suitable for medical waste and rubber waste, etc.
  
  
• Sand replacement for filters with high performance (United Kingdom, Advance Water Treatment Technologies Limited, 2019. Category: Improved materials)
  AFM® Activated Filter Media is a direct replacement for sand, doubling the performance of sand filters without the need of additional investments in infrastructure. AFM® resists biofouling, bio-coagulation and transient wormhole channeling of unfiltered water and outlasts all other filter media.
  
  
• Solar powered boat (France, SeaZen, 2019. Category: Maritime/Waterways)
  A 100% autonomous solar boating service with license-free self-service access. The six-meter long solar boat offers a panoramic 12 square meter platform for passengers. It integrates a 1,600 Wc photovoltaic roof, 2-4 kW electric engines, 11 kWh gel batteries, and GPS fleet management connected system. This is an efficient solar propulsion thanks to the catamaran design and the efficiency of the electric engines.
  
  
• Luxurious electric vehicles (Canada, Dubuc Motors Inc., / D.B.A. – PARAGON, 2019. Category: Electric/Hybrid vehicles)
  With a vision to enable zero-emission mobility technology, the company has engineered a purely electric four-seat sports car conveniently tailored for daily commutes. It seamlessly integrates some of the world's finest technology and engineering to deliver a long-range electric vehicle that will be built upon performance and luxury.
  
  
• Alternative biodiesel fuel (Russian Federation, Recycle CCL, 2019. Category: Energy generation)
  Innovative biodiesel fuel "Permskoye" does not process oils similar to its competitors, but dilutes and liquefies them with an inexpensive high-cetane low-viscose component - diethyl formal (DEF). The invention offers several benefits such as a low net cost of the product and more rational use of vegetable oils.
  
  
• Low-cost air quality sensors and environmental intelligence cloud (Germany, Breeze Technologies UG, 2019. Category: Pollution detection, measurement & monitoring)
  Breeze solves the challenge of air quality monitoring by using the latest developments in sensor technology, bringing affordable, small, and smart devices to users. Breeze sensors are up to 50,000 times smaller and up to 1,000 times less expensive than traditional measurement devices. Economic benefits of Breeze Technologies help to create more livable buildings, cities, and communities.
  
  
• Food excess monitoring platform (Thailand, Lightblue Environmental Consulting, 2018. Category: Food waste)
  The Food Excess Monitor is an integrated solution, fully compatible with a range of devices, that gives organizations an overview of their food and beverage operations. It allows them to find out where, when, and why food waste occurs in their operations, and to make effective and informative decisions to review their standard operating procedures.
  
  
• Sustainable lantern activated by sea water (Philippines, Sustainable Alternative Lighting Corp., 2018. Low energy lighting)
  SALt v1.0 is a sustainable, cost-effective, ecologically designed lantern activated by salt water. Based on metal-air battery technology, it offers an efficient combination of elements and design that last three times as long as the current technology available in the market. The lamp uses salted water or ocean water to activate and generate electricity.

About WIPO GREEN

WIPO GREEN is a global marketplace for sustainable technology, supporting global efforts to address climate change. Through its online database and regional activities, WIPO GREEN connects green tech seekers and providers in order to catalyze green innovation and accelerate green tech transfer and diffusion.