Yesterday, an exciting announcement was made which will positively affect Ontario and more specifically, the city of Guelph. Following the Government of Ontario’s move towards green energy and its “feed in tariff” program, Canadian Solar Inc. announced they will be opening their first Canadian manufacturing site in Guelph, to create solar energy panels.

At full production, the plant will build enough panels to turn sunlight into 200 megawatts of power annually – enough to power about 150,000 homes.

This is a big win for Guelph as the $30 million plant will create 300 – 500 new jobs.

Siemens, an OES alumni organization, also plans to open a manufacturing facility to make blades for wind turbines at a location to be determined in Southern Ontario which will create approximately 200 jobs for Ontario.

Read more about these initiatives: Guelph gets new solar panel plant, The Star

Are sustainability and growth competing objectives? Not at the 2009 Ontario Economic Summit.

This is just one theme being explored during the “Go Green and Prosper” session at the Summit, happening November 2-4, 2009 at Niagara-on-the-Lake.  Highlighting the session will be a joint presentation from Gerald Butts, President & CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada and Galen G. Weston, Executive Chairman, Loblaw Companies Limited.  Earlier this year, Loblaw made a commitment to source 100% sustainable seafood by 2013.  The company has also announced an ambitious clean technology project for its Cambridge distribution facility that “could potentially reduce the environmental impacts of the transportation and storage of perishable goods”.

Ziya Tong, co-host of the popular Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel will facilitate a question and answer session and moderate a separate panel exploring alternative energy and conservation themes. The panel will feature Ken Field, Chairman of Greenfield Ethanol Inc. , Laura Formusa, President and CEO of Hydro One and Paul Rak, President of VeriForm, an innovative metal fabicator with green thinking at the core of its business strategy.

Sustainability and prosperity will also be themes covered in our “Big Impact Infrastructure” session.  The Summit is pleased to welcome Bill Smith, Senior Vice-President, Siemens Canada Limited to the panel. Siemens recently completed a study on behalf of the United States Conference of Mayors with some very interesting findings regarding municipal infrastructure budgets, climate change technologies and economic opportunity. The Metropolitan Infrastructure Sustainability Study can be found at the Siemens website: http://w1.siemens.com/entry/cc/en/sustainablecities.htm

A limited number of spaces to participate at the Summit still remain for interested senior leaders from business, government, labour and academic sectors.  Not-for-profit entities are also welcome to inquire about participation.  Learn more here.

For Ontario manufacturers today, finding ways to reduce costs and improve margins call for ever-more creative solutions. Paul Rak, President of VeriForm Inc., in Cambridge Ontario, found significant savings in a most unlikely strategy: Going Green.

We sometimes think of green alternatives as more expensive. VeriForm turns that notion on its head. Between 2006 and early 2009, VeriForm implemented 42 energy conservation projects. It required an investment of just over $46,000, however, the total energy savings per year has been just over $89,000 – nearly doubling the initial investment. How’d they do that?

By installing centralized programmable thermostats, adding triggers on bay doors and other insulating initiatives, VeriForm reduced natural gas costs by 90%. What’s even more remarkable is that by adding power capacitors, T5 lighting and other staff ideas electricity costs fell by 58%, even though during this same time period, the plant doubled in physical size and sales increased 45%.

“Going green is unusually easy and extremely profitable. It really is good business. The average ROI on our energy conservation projects has been just 6.2 months. Over the next 10 years these energy savings will yield for VeriForm approximately $1.42 million in additional profit.”, says Paul Rak.

Find out more about these and other programs and learning lessons by visiting veriform.ca

This year, the Summit is planning to go green, travel, and get creative. Well not exactly, but we are featuring three critical discussions:

• the Green Economy and the Great Lakes region,
• Tourism and Investment strategies, and
• the Knowledge-driven Economy.

Leaders of the province will come together to identify the best approach to weather the current economic storm and build capacity to seize growth opportunities when the storm ends.

Ontario is in the midst of a major economic transition and we must redefine our strengths in a new economy. While we are losing manufacturing jobs on both sides of the Great Lakes, we can work with our neighbours to build a “green corridor” to create jobs and investment opportunities. By bringing tourism and investment dollars to the province, we can strengthen the economy of Ontario. We can generate wealth and innovation by moving beyond industries with the “traditional players” in manufacturing and resource sectors, and explore the potential of knowledge-intensive, creative industries.

Ontario needs a strong vision for growth and we are confident that by working together we will get there from here. Share your thoughts in the comments.