Australian Financial Review
Tuesday 27/3/2007 Page: 5
One of Australia's fastest-growing clean-development companies, Global Renewables, has quit the country and taken its cutting-edge recycling technology to Europe, driven by the federal government's failure to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions. Global Renewables, a subsidiary of GRD Ltd, has moved its head office to Manchester and intends to list on the London Stock Exchange within two years, after winning a $5 billion contract in Britain to process all Lancashire County Council and Blackpool Council's waste for 25 years.
Global Renewables' move follows the closure by Danish company Vestas of its Tasmanian wind-turbine manufacturing plant, leading to the loss of 65 jobs, and world's first solar billionaire Zhengrong Shi leaving Australia due to lack of funding. The small local market also makes it unlikely Origin Energy will build its solar manufacturing plant here, and Tasmanian wind company Roaring 40s had abandoned two local projects to concentrate on China. Global Renewables chairman John White said his company had little future in Australia, and that this country was '10 to 15 years' behind Europe. He hoped to come back when Australia 'does get serious about renewables'. A recent Ernst & Young survey ranked Australia 14th in the world in attractiveness for renewable energy investment.
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