Fabienne Herlaut, managing director of Ecomobilité Ventures, formerly train operator SNCF’s corporate venturing unit, now representing four France-based corporates – SNCF, Total, PSA Peugeot Citroën and Orange – said: "SNCF is one of the major transport companies in the world. Transport makes up about 30% of carbon dioxide emissions. On the contrary, train is a very clean transportation mode, making up less than 1% of total emissions. The initial fund, Ecomobilité Partenaires, fully owned by SNCF, was set up to identify innovative solutions to transport passengers not just from station to station but from door to door by identifying partnerships with small companies to offer clean transportation."
The firm became independent of SNCF in November last year, when it secured the backing of the corporates for a €50m fund. Oliver Guthmann, an investment manager at BASF Venture Capital, the corporate venturing unit of the Germany-based chemicals group, said: "Clean technology is an important investment area for us. The synergies between start-up companies and BASF are significantly higher in the clean-tech space than in other areas."
Others do so only where there is a direct link with their core business. Aleksander Bruvik Myrlid, an investment manager at Statoil Technology Invest, the corporate venturing unit of the Norway-based oil and gas company, said: "We have set goals for clean technology and environmental technology to invest in things linked to our business as an oil and gas operator. We have identified some areas we want to investigate further, such as those linked to water management."
Some do so because they believe it is the right thing to do. Yosuke Yamamoto, a manager in corporate planning at Japan-based industrial group JSR, said: "Environmental issues such as global warming are one of the biggest megatrends society needs to solve and we should flourish by contributing to such social issues."
Some corporations run their quasi-venturing units to explore ways for small companies to work with the various divisions of the business rather than take minority equity stakes.
Marie-Anne Brodschii, at Veolia’s Innovation Accelerator, which dealt with 300 young companies on behalf of France-based waste services provider Veolia since 2010, said: "In the water sector if you are a young company with technology for water treatment you need to knock on the door of hundreds of decentralised clients.
"You can come to us to deploy the technology, and, working together, help them accelerate deployment of their activities. We can source technology solutions which allow us to be more efficient."