What role should government play in eco-innovation?

In its infancy, innovation often doesn’t pay for itself, especially when that innovation requires costly infrastructure to support it. And when it’s technology that will rid our planet of pollution, resolve an energy crisis or safe-guard our environment for future generations, isn’t it our job as a society to help it succeed?

The question then becomes: how much help should we give the corporate innovators who stand to profit from helping our society achieve that success?

Take the recent hubbub about Plasco Energy Group and the Ottawa municipal government. The corporate headquarters for Plasco and the location of its pilot facility, Ottawa is somewhat tied to their success in transforming garbage into clean energy. In effect, the city and Plasco are business partners in a key pilot project.

The controversy surrounds a city councillor and a top garbage bureaucrat who travelled to British Columbia on Plasco’s tab to attend meetings to discuss their experimental waste-to-energy technology. Critics pointed to the decidedly ‘grey area’ of public officials accepting benefits from private companies, especially when both have a financial stake.

The controversy overshadows the more important issue: the need to support innovation that will benefit our world today and tomorrow. 

A garbage gasification plant near Red Deer, Alberta, for example, is estimated to save the county $400,000 per year in trucking costs. That doesn’t even factor in the energy produced from waste that would otherwise be building up in our landfills. Isn’t it our responsibility to ensure these technologies reach commercial viability?

But where do we draw the line between supporting innovation and benefiting the for-profit enterprises behind them?