Sustainability is not an option, it’s an imperative, Anil Srivastava, Virtual Island Summit

Anil Srivastava is the CEO of Leclanché. We spoke about his current projects and his up coming talk at the Virtual Island Summit

1 min pitch: what you are doing now?

Leclanché is primarily focused on two end-user or key markets – energy storage for electricity networks; and e-transport for the electrification of “fleet vehicles” including maritime vessels, trains, buses, and trucks.

How was the last year, what worked well, what didn’t move as quickly as you would have liked?

The high point for our last fiscal year was the fact that we were able to grow our order book from $130m CHF in September of 2019 to $170m CHF as of June 3, 2020.

The low point was that we missed revenue recognition by about $50m (CHF) and their associated margin.

This wasn’t due to lost business; it was primarily due to a delay in our St. Kitts project caused by the slowness of closing a land-lease agreement with the government and of several other projects whose revenue moved into fiscal year 2020 from 2019.

Anil Srivastava – Adapting to COVID-19

How have you adapted to the current corona times?

During this unprecedented COVID-19 period, our team initiated several health and safety measures to monitor and minimize the impact of the virus.

First, we implemented physical distancing in our offices and manufacturing facilities to protect our colleagues as much as humanly possible. We relaxed office worker rules to allow employees to work from home.

At the same time, we worked early and quickly to secure the supply of raw materials we needed, and that was essential to our production process.

Despite these efforts, we did have to cut one shift at both our Willstätt, Germany, and Yverdon, Switzerland plants largely due to border closures which prevented employees from living in France from crossing the German and Swiss borders every morning. That third shift has since resumed in both locations.

Fortunately, the impact on our business and financial results is limited. And we will continue to follow the various national institutes’ policies and advice as published by various government jurisdictions.

We are doing our best to continue safe operations focused on the health and welfare of our employees while working to deliver products to our customers within agreed upon timeframes.

What are your plans for the future?

We have two major initiatives underway that will help to reshape our company and prepare it for significant growth.

First, we are forming two joint ventures with Eneris Group, Poland, in order to gain access to gigawatt-scale manufacturing capacity without having to invest our own capital.

This capital lite direction will also us to scale rapidly over the next two years.

Secondly, we are creating a new subsidiary to focus on the build-own-operate market. This will allow us to take large scale projects, such as our St. Kitts solar energy production and storage facility, and fund them separately in partnership with outside investors.

These projects will generate long-term revenues and profits without overly burdening Leclanché with huge upfront capital costs for construction.

Anil Srivastava: The Virtual Island Summit

What will you be talking about at this event? 

The Virtual Island Summit talks about supporting the needs of island communities worldwide. Yet we believe that when it comes to matters of the environment and sustainability, we all live on an island – call it “Island Earth.”

We have a mutual responsibility to our planet. We can’t continue to pollute and inflict damage to our island home as if we can simply pick up and go somewhere else when we’re finished.

Sustainability is not an option; it’s an imperative. We believe we need to change the dialogue so that all companies, governments, and individuals are doing their part.

I will be addressing how our 110-year old company is “all-in” and how we’ve dedicated our business to do our part.

And we’ll issue a challenge to businesses to rethink and accelerate their commitment to their employees, stakeholders, and whichever island they live on. We don’t get another chance to get this right.

Q. What inspired you to attend it?

A. We had a very good experience in last year’s initial conference and in the reaction to our sharing information on our St. Kitts project.

We were surprised to see how many like-minded individuals and organizations were in attendance and their thirst for knowledge and real solutions.

If we can inspire other islands around the world to emulate what we’re building on St. Kitts – regardless of which commercial solution they select – then we can have a huge impact globally in reducing CO2 emissions.

Anil Srivastava-Keeping up to date with the latest investments

Q. Which influencers and websites do you follow to keep up to date with the latest developments?

A. My go-to websites and influencers are Bloomberg Climate and select insights from McKinsey & Co.

In terms of influencers, my top three are Michael Liebrich, founder of Bloomberg BNEF; Jigar Shah, co-founder, and president, Generate Capital; and French President Emmanuel Macron.

How can people find out more about what you are working on? We’re publicly traded (Swiss SIX: LECN) so all of our major developments are reported regularly. Follow us, as well, on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Q. Anything else you’d like to add / we should have asked?

A. Let’s not get too excited about technology for technology’s sake – it is the proper application of technology that will win the day.

In the e-transport/mobility market segment, we believe the right mix of technologies is lithium-ion batteries and hydrogen – a dual approach that will support short and long-distance fleet travel.

To register for the Virtual Island Summit please access the website: www.virtualislandsummit.com

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