C21 specifically defines the term as follows: ‘Cleantech includes all goods, services, processes and business models, across all economic sectors and across the value chain, that contribute significantly to sustainable development. The main components of this contribution are reduced GHG and other pollutant emissions (like toxins, particulate matter, noise, etc), decreased demand for natural land, increased efficiency of other resources, as well as beneficial effects on society and culture’.

Important to note in this respect is that cleantech is specifically not a particular industry sector, or group of sectors. Rather, it is a quality factor – relevant for all industries, and all economic actors.

The ‘Cleantech Strategy for Switzerland’ positioning paper, developed for swisscleantech in 2010, provides a conceptual framework on how to analyse Switzerland’s actual cleantech challenges, and it offers concrete action points for addressing them (German, French, executive summary in English). Swisscleantech’s 5-year anniversary publication ‘Future swiss made’ expands on this, including domains such as foreign policy, research cooperation, development and cooperation, etc. (German, French).

At the ‘Cleantech21 Foundation’ we equate ‘cleantech’ to ‘sustainable’. Practically, our work is equally focused on ‘tech’ as on ‘reg’.