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Pittsburgh H2O Opportunity Report Issued By World Environment Day Partnership
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The Pittsburgh World Environment Day Partnership released the Pittsburgh region's first economic analysis of the water industry sector: Pittsburgh’s H2Opportunity: An Assessment of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s Water Sector. Completed at a time when the overall water market is growing (up to ten percent annually), the report offers a snapshot of the region’s strengths in water-related industries and highlights future opportunities for innovation and growth.
“Water represents a real opportunity for the greater Pittsburgh region,” said Greg Babe, co-chair of the Pittsburgh World Environment Day Partnership and president & CEO of Bayer Corporation. “All of the WED partners agreed that last June’s World Environment Day was just the beginning of our commitment to improving the sustainability and quality of life in our region. The release of the economic impact report, the planning for the Water Innovation Consortium and the exploration of supply chain potential further demonstrate our commitment,” said Babe.
The report indicates that the region has more than 3,000 firms providing water-related components, products and services that account for over 34,000 jobs and more than $5 billion in direct economic activity.
In addition, water supplies sustain more than $3 billion of output in agriculture and food processing. This region's abundant supply of water is also vital to sustaining its $13.7 billion energy sector.
Key recommendations in the report include:
-- Assess, organize and advance regional opportunities related to water and coordinate resources to support them;
-- Identify the occupational pipeline and workforce needs for the high priority water industry sectors and develop training on more efficient uses of water for energy, industry and agriculture;
-- Strategically identify and selectively recruit innovative firms and industries that can benefit from and be good stewards of the region’s abundance of high quality water;
-- Support innovation and commercialization in water technology;
-- Promote green water management infrastructure; and
-- Initiate partnerships with other regions and identify national and international export opportunities for regional firms.
“Our region has a long history of successful collaboration among industries, universities, nonprofits and government to spark growth and innovation. This report outlines the scope of the water-related industry that already exists and suggests that our regional water industry sector offers yet another opportunity for collaboration,” said Jerry Paytas of Fourth Economy Consulting and principal author of the report.
Some early work has begun to develop a regional Water Innovation Consortium with planning support provided by Carnegie Mellon University.
“The southwestern Pennsylvania region has the ability to develop a regional water cluster initiative that builds on our regional assets and positions us for future market growth. The situation is similar to how we identified and developed cluster efforts before such as the Digital Greenhouse (now the Tech Collaborative), the Life Sciences Greenhouse and the Pennsylvania Nanomaterials Commercialization Center. The water-related cluster now offers us the same kind of potential to combine our existing expertise with our capacity for innovation,” said Jeanne VanBriesen, director, Center for Water Quality in Urban Environmental Systems (Water QUEST) and professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University.
One of the near-term opportunities may be in strengthening supply chains for water-related industries that are already operating here.
“I was pleased to join the briefing today. The Allegheny Conference and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance clearly see the economic potential of further developing a water-related supply chain in our region, based upon the 416 firms the report identified that manufacture more than $1 billion of components for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the treatment, supply and distribution of water. We are adding it to our workplan for 2011,” said Dennis Yablonsky, CEO, Allegheny Conference on Community Development.
The full report, Pittsburgh’s H2Opportunity, is available online from the Pittsburgh World Environment Day Partnership.
NewsClips: Companies Thriving In Water
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1/17/2011 |
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