 The West Midlands has been Britain's industrial heartland for more than three centuries. Now though a new business revolution is taking place that is set to change the region's corporate landscape for ever. Unnoticed by all but the most astute observers, a thriving environmental economy has evolved over the last decade. The sector's size - now more than 30,000 employees in some 1,700 companies
- was initially identified by AWM two years ago. Exhaustive research and background preparation work - in this country and overseas - followed that unexpectedly pleasing discovery. Last year, AWM was the catalyst for a specialist regional campaign to both promote and stimulate the new economy. EnviroTRADE WM made its first formal appearance at et2002, the UK's biggest showcase for the environmental industry last year. Now, having evolved and expanded its strategic focus to include overseas markets, it is returning to the et2003 exhibition at the NEC this month. Its presence at the three-day event, which starts on April 8, aims to present a simple corporate message as AWM's Dave King explains. "If you are in the environmental economy, then expertise in all its aspects is available here in the
West Midlands," he says. At the strategic level, the Enviro- TRADE WM team has a twin-fold aim. "We hope that companies operating in this region will come to learn about the myriad business opportunities available within this new sector," says Mr King. "We also want to persuade potential customers from outside the West Midlands to look at what we have to offer in terms of our supply chain base." Mr King's background is in manufacturing, but he became involved in the creation of EnviroTRADE WM in his role as AWM's environmental technologies cluster development manager. Even before the NEC event, he's effervescently optimistic about the importance of the environmental industry to the future strength of this region's economy. "In general terms, it's been one of the most diverse and dynamic business sectors throughout OECD countries over the last 20 years," says Mr King. "Last year, it was calculated that the worldwide market for environmental goods and services was already some $515 billion, which was expected to rise to $688 billion by the year 2010." Until AWM teamed with the Environmental Agency to produce its 2001 report though, the scale of the new economy within the West Midlands had not been identified. "We already knew about the sector's major players, such as Severn Trent, South Staffs Water, Haden Drysys, Whale Tankers and Jones & Attwood," recalls Mr King. "To everyone's surprise though, the research identified some 1,600 companies operating throughout the environmental industry, mainly SMEs." Their areas of expertise ranged from waste management and consultancy, to instrumentation
and process control; from wastewater and landscape gardening, to air pollution and energy management. The size and buoyancy of this region's environmental economy was further underlined through separate research by the Department of Trade & Industry. "It calculated that even in 2000 the evolving business cluster in the West Midlands had already become the UK's third largest with almost 29,000 employees," says Mr King. The latest official forecasts are that the region's environmental sector is likely to swell to 45,000 jobs within two years, and to an imposing 60,000 by 2010. According to Mr King, those projections are firmly grounded in reality, not least because of the growing pressures on companies and organisations to "think green". "The government's targets to dramatically cut the amount of material put into landfill sites have been very important," he says. "The EU's directives on, for instance, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, and End-of-Vehicle Life are also becoming major influences." Mr King and his colleagues within EnviroTRADE WM believe that changing strategies within the region's traditional industrial base will also play a major role in expanding the new sector. "Environmental technology as an industry is growing rapidly, but there are also enormous opportunities for existing manufacturers to diversify," he says. "There are so many opportunities, for processes, products and services, and the number is growing constantly." For instance, bio-conversion, where waste food products are converted into methane gas that is used to create electricity, is one fast-growing area attracting significant interest. Companies who have developed expertise producing fuel cells for the automotive industry are increasingly realising the merits of hydrogen as a future power source. "Even before we officially launched, the feedback from local companies was extremely positive, and the last year has witnessed tremendous growth," says Mr King. "I think the et2003 exhibition will allow us to move the initiative to a new level." | 
