Newly appointed chairman Einar Vangsnes (left) and outgoing chairman Bjarne Paulsrud.
After eight years on the board of Green Business Norway (GBN), including a four-year term as chairman, Bjarne Paulsrud (67) is handing over the chair to Einar Vangsnes (44) from TergoPower. Anders Tørud from NLI takes over as vice-chairman, and Harald Kleiven from Cambi is a newly elected board member, joining Olaf Sveggen from Fugro Oceanor, who has been re-elected for a further two-year term.
At this year’s annual general meeting, the management briefed members on activities in 2013, the outlook for GBN, and the organization’s priorities going forward. The Polish waste and recycling market, water and wastewater treatment, and renewable energy (biomass and solar) remain high-priority market segments for the years ahead. New markets on GBN’s radar for 2014 include the Persian Gulf region, especially the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the American Midwest, especially Minnesota, and the Balkans, especially Bulgaria.
In partnership with Nordic Innovation, GBN headed a Nordic consortium studying market opportunities in the Gulf region and the UAE. Building on the relationships already established, GBN is now preparing to set up a business intelligence (BI) program in the UAE, focused in particular on the water and wastewater and waste management sectors. Local networking, market surveillance and project development activities are well under way and will provide the foundations for the BI program, scheduled to be up and running during 2014.
In the course of the GBN-led pan-Nordic project targeting the UAE, several Swedish and Danish cleantech and energy businesses expressed interest in joining GBN.
«I see great potential for developing and professionalizing GBN to become a serious player in industrial development that can draw on a Scandinavian membership base to make its mark in international markets,» said Einar Vangsnes, the newly elected chairman of GBN. «Bolstering GBN’s market development role in partnership with our member businesses will be the number one task for the board over the next few years.»
GBN will continue to refine and enhance its two existing internationalization models: business intelligence (BI) programs and private-public partnerships (PPP). «These programs are GBN’s structural capital and are cited as major strengths in our conversations with Scandinavian businesses that are looking to become members of GBN,» said Thor Sverre Minnesjord, CEO.
Under a private-public partnership arrangement with the County of Telemark, GBN has been studying market opportunities in the American Midwest, particularly Minnesota and North Dakota. The level of interest in the expertise, technology and solutions offered by our member businesses suggests there are plenty of opportunities for targeting the oil and gas industry, the waste management and recycling industry, and the municipal sector, especially water and wastewater services. Through the platform established by the County of Telemark in Minnesota and North Dakota, GBN will seek to pursue future commercial opportunities in partnership with those member businesses that have their sights set on the U.S. market.
For more information please contact Thor Sverre Minnesjord, CEO: thor@greenbusiness.no
