Our colleagues at Cleantech for Europe organized the annual hashtag#CleantechforEuropeSummit in Brussels last week. hashtag#Policymakers, hashtag#innovators, and hashtag#investors all gathered together under the same roof.🏛️ And the message was clear: 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲! 🏗️👩‍🏭

It’s hard to summarize a full day of excellent panels, discussions, announcements and meetings, but here are some of our favorite takeaways from the day.

💰 From the get go, Julia Reinaud emphasized two key messages. (1) We need to address the core issue of hashtag#marketdemand. We need to create conditions and environments where it is easy for innovators and industries to bet on hashtag#cleantech. (2) 𝗗𝗲-𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀. We can’t say it enough, but we need to introduce financing mechanisms, like public guarantees, which can help hashtag#derisk investments and attract private capital.

🏦 This leads us to an excellent point made by Anna Skarborg, of P Capital Partners 👉🏻 We need to think about additionality. How do we ensure that the capital we inject brings in 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴? We need to use public funding to leverage private capital — not use public money where private capital is already going.

🇪🇺 Martin Hojsik, Vice President of the European Parliament, put it bluntly: “𝗪𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗮 𝗹𝗼𝘁. 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝘁.” To give cleantech companies a real chance to compete, we must clear roadblocks and inject capital at scale. Some ventures will fail, others will thrive—but in the end, Europe will make a profit and can seize leadership in scaling and deploying clean technologies.

💼 Policy, policy, policy. Its importance cannot be overstated, a point echoed by many speakers throughout the day. Kurt Vandenberghe made it clear: the Green New Deal is here to stay, no question about it. However, there’s still a critical need for de-risking measures and 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 to provide investors with the certainty they need.

🏆 We were excited to see some Nordic companies join the Cleantech for Europe scale-up coalition! Congratulations to Stegra, Baseload Capital and Heart Aerospace!

…And much much more. We had a great time in Brussels, and if there’s one message to leave you with it is this: It’s time to scale! 🚀🚀