The next investment cycle will result in big returns for private and corporate investors alike in a broad range of areas related to efficiency and resources.

The need for resource savings has placed large industry at the forefront of a green industrial revolution. If mechanisation defined the 19th century, and telecommunications defined the 20th, then efficiency is sure to define the 21st.

There is no other possibility when faced with the metrics of population growth – where we recently passed 7 billion – and dwindling resources.

Against this backdrop, the environmental directives that have also helped spur companies towards efficiency savings are only way-markers on a…