Nicholas Parker

Feature News

Is The World Ready For Your Innovation?
Our current retail system is set up to sell new products, which are used and then disposed of – very much a linear (and inefficient) process. The Closed Loop system implies that once products are used they can be reconditioned and brought back into the sales loop
Europe`s future depends on cities resilient to climate change
Around three quarters of Europeans live in cities. Most of Europe's wealth is generated in cities, and urban areas are particularly at risk due to climate change.
Microsoft Taxes Itself - Will it be enough to drive change?
This week, Microsoft is announcing an unusual initiative that it hopes will change how the company operates. Microsoft is charging every division and data center for the carbon emissions they generate. Will it be enough to drive change?
Life Cycle Approaches Key to Canada's Competitivenes
The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy today released a new report that identifies the need for Life Cycle Approaches in environmental and economic decision-making by companies and government.
Clean mining association launched
A new industry association has been launched aimed at supporting and advocating technological advancements to make the mining industry cleaner and more environmentally responsible.

Nicholas Parker

Chairman, Cleantech Group & Chairman, Corporate Knights, Canada

Nicholas Parker is Chairman of the Cleantech Group - the market-leading research company that introduced the cleantech concept to the investment and business community in 2002, and Parker Venture Management, his private investment and advisory business.

Previously Nicholas accumulated over 15 years experience starting and investing venture funds worldwide through limited partnerships, family offices, corporate funds and endowments. During this time, he pioneered the first "sustainability" driven private equity funds and participated in one of the first solar IPOs. In the 1990s, he also founded, built and sold an environmental finance firm.

He's advised economic development agencies, major corporations and institutional investors, spoken at most major industry events and been quoted by the leading media publications Nicholas has authored or edited more than ten publications related to cleantech, finance and international business, starting with Investing in Emerging Economies in 1993. He's currently Chairman of Corporate Knights Media, the Blue Economy Initiative, and the WaterTAP Corporation, as well as on several boards, including Government of Singapore Energy and Cleantech Advisory Panel and the Canadian Centre of Excellence for Commercialization of Research.

From 2003-08, he was Chairman of E+Co, the award-winning investment company for clean energy enterprises in developing countries. Nicholas earned a BA Hons. in Technology Studies (Carleton University, Ottawa), an MBA (City University, London), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). He has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America while currently residing in Toronto.