Accounting for some sixth of the international trade and service provision in the area, Germany’s environmental technologies (ET) sector is one of the largest in the world. Predominant in the sector’s offerings are state-of-technology systems. Bavaria’s ET sector is comprised of more than 2,000 companies, most of them SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises). Their offerings include everything from planning, development and operating services to manufacturing facilities.
Maintained by the country’s chambers of industry and commerce, the system providing information on Germany’s ET companies has some 11,000 entries. Of those, nearly 25% are headquartered in Bavaria. Most of them provide remedial products and services; others—with these including companies found in mainstay areas of production and service provision—are suppliers of preclusive protective systems.

According to the EU, the world’s market for environmental technologies currently has an annual volume of EUR 550 billion. Experts forecast that this figure could rise to EURO 750 billion by 2010.
Eighty percent of this growth in the volume of environmental protection products is to be found in knowledge-driven sectors of manufacturing. Today’s manufacturing of such products requires input from the industrial engineering (found in close to half of all goods), measurement, control and regulation (providing input in one sixth of all products), electronics (9%) and metal processing (76%) sectors. Found throughout the state, Bavaria’s ET scientific institutes and companies are experts in creating advanced energy technologies, waste processing, soil remediation, water processing, air quality preservation, and medical care products and services. A prime driver of their outreaches to each other and to the international ET sector is Bavaria’s Environmental Pact.

Bavaria’s research community is a leader in all fields of environmental technologies:

• in such long-established fields as regenerative energy, cogeneration, fuel cell technologies, and processes preserving air, water and soil quality
• in such specialized areas as insulation and heat transport, as advanced forms of cultivation, as sustainability-imparting materials, and as the formulation of environmental scenarios.

Bavaria’s research consortia
The state of Bavaria provides support to a large number of research consortia. These consortia enable exchanges among companies, institutes, institutions of higher education and other environmental players.

These consortiums include:

• BayFORREST – Bavaria’s consortium for research into waste disposal and recycling
• KW 21 – advanced power plants
• FORTVER – Bavaria’s consortium for research into turbulent combustion
• BayFORETA – Bavaria’s consortium for research into technologies enhancing efficiencies of energy use and application

ET companies and research institutes form part of a large number of networks, many of them special-focus, and many set up by chambers and associations of commerce. These networks include KUMAS e.V (Center of Environmental Expertise in Augsburg and Swabia) and UKON (Northern Bavaria’s Network of Environmental Expertise). BAIKUM is a platform set up to foster the innovativeness and international-level viability (volume of exports) of Bavaria’s ET sector.
In 2006 and as part of Bavaria’s Alliance for Innovation, the state’s environment cluster was set up. Its office is in Augsburg. The cluster avails itself of support provided by Bavaria’s ministry of economic affairs, infrastructure, transport and technology. Its supervisory body is an association of Bavaria’s chambers of commerce. The cluster’s brief is to link up the initiatives existing in Bavaria’s regions and in ET’s industries; to assist companies in their development, production and marketing of ET products and services; to serve as a central point of contact for and information on the state’s sector; and to be a nodal point of its integration and cross-industry development.

The state is the venue for trade fairs showcasing advanced environmental and waste disposal technologies. These fairs include Munich’s IFAT and Analytica. Also held in the state is a large number of congresses and symposia.

Each of Bavaria’s regions is home to an ET industry featuring a high degree of expertise and of intermeshing between its academic and business communities.

Augsburg/Swabia
Based in the region are nearly 300 pacesetting ET companies. Their output constitutes one reason why the office of Bavaria’s environmental cluster was set up in this region, which is also home to KUMAS e.V. (see above), to Bavaria’s Institute of Applied Environmental Research and Technologies, to the State Office of Environmental Protection, to co2ncept plus (the office of the Business Association for Emission Trading and Climate Protection), and to an ET incubation center.

Munich/Upper Bavaria
Munich and its surrounding region of Upper Bavaria are home to some 560 ET companies. Many of them maintain large-scale research departments. The close working relationships existing among these companies have been fostered by such projects and programs as ÖKOPROFIT (ÖKOlogisches PROjekt Für Integrierte UmweltTechnik—ecological project for integrated environment technologies). These, in turn, have fostered the introduction and utilization of ecologically-efficient technologies by the region’s companies by leveraging their ties to ET suppliers.

Nuremberg and Central Franconia
Central Franconia has some 700 suppliers of ET, making the region one of Germany’s leaders. These companies are joined by local research institutes in forming part of a large number of networks and in participating in such programs as UKON (see above), tim (Technology and Innovation Network Central Franconia), Club for the Application of Environmental Technologies, COUP 21, Nuremberg’s networks, the EBA Center, Solid, etz Nuremberg, and igh—the association of the institutions of higher education in the Nuremberg region.

Straubing/Lower Bavaria
Straubing’s center of expertise in renewable resources is comprised of the city’s scientific center, its TFZ facility for technologies and support, and of C.A.R.M.E.N. e.V. The research conducted is both basic and applied in nature. Also provided is support for projects and expert counsel. Many of the technologies created are turned into market-making products by the companies located in the adjoining industry park of Straubing-Sand. ET start-ups base themselves in BioCubator, the city’s dedicated incubation center.

… is available in „Key Technologies in Bavaria“. This databank contains listings on Bavaria’s ET companies.