As requested by the United States Trade Representative (USTR), this report examines
global markets for renewable energy services as well as issues related to the international
trade of these services, for the purpose of providing information that would be useful in
conducting trade negotiations and environmental reviews. The report finds that demand
for renewable energy services is driven largely by government policies including those
that stem from national obligations under international environmental agreements. To
a lesser extent, demand for renewable energy services is also derived from technological
advances that have improved the cost-competitiveness of renewable energy technologies,
concerns regarding the environment and energy security, and other factors. While the
wind energy industry is the largest in terms of installed capacity among the five
renewable energy sectors (which are: wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and ocean
energy) discussed in this report, the biomass energy industry is the largest in terms of
electricity generation. The United States is the world’s largest market for biomass and
geothermal power, while Germany, Japan, and France are the largest markets for wind
power, solar power, and ocean power, respectively. There are few barriers that
specifically target trade and investment in the renewable energy services sector, although
regulatory barriers that apply separately to related sectors, or horizontally to all industry
sectors, may affect trade and investment in the renewable energy industry.

Environmental Consulting & Engineering market and business segments by client or customer, service and media.

It was presumed that the passage of NAFTA would stimulate considerable growth in markets for environmental goods and services in Mexico, and the rapid development of an environmental industry in Mexico. This paper quantifies the growth and evolution of environmental market in Mexico since 1995, and characterizes the contribution of imports and Mexico’s own environmental industry. NAFTA has not brought proportionally more pollution to Mexico as many feared, but it is gradually bringing higher standards of environmental performance due to the influx of multinational firms operating under their own guidelines. The challenge is to turn these standards into the norm rather than the exception, and working with Mexican authorities to apply similar standards to their environmental infrastructure.