Few among our number will be sorry to put 2020, an undeniably challenging year, behind us. At the outset, in particular, the prognosis looked grim. Economies across our region were in a state of existential crisis, and unemployment was rife. Clean energy, we feared, might be relegated to the back burner, crowded out in the scramble for survival. If we think back to March, we would have been hard pressed to identify a silver lining to the events that were unfolding.
While we’re not yet out of the woods, it’s already clear that the pandemic hasn’t sounded the death knell for the clean energy transition. Certainly, new projects have been few and far between. But across our region it is striking that clean energy is invariably in the mix in national planning for revitalization and recovery. Meantime, private capital waits in the wings, but it hasn’t gone away. Why?
Simply put, clean energy has won its seat at the table. It’s not just green and box-ticking, it’s economic and competitive. We need it. So instead of retreat this year, we’ve seen the opposite. We’ve seen a hardening of resolve, and a determination to stay the course. As a market, we talk a lot about resilience in our work. What we’ve seen over the past few months is that, as an industry, clean energy is fundamentally resilient.
Our industry has been tested, but so too has our community, that web of interconnectedness that ultimately shapes the market. That community, in our view, has been defined with one question which we’ve heard countless times at our events this year: How can we support you? Sure, competition is alive and well, but we’ve looked out for each other this year. We’ve understood that if the tide rises, it floats all boats.
So as 2020 draws to a close, we would like to thank you for your support and for floating our boat. Against the odds, we’ve run some amazing events this year. We couldn’t have done it without you.
And as we look forward to 2021, we would like to ask you the same question: How can we support you?
