Another major Canberra eco-product retailer has fallen...

How do businesses fail in booming markets?

Enviro Friendly Solutions has been a mainstay of sustainable design and product retailing in Canberra for years, and indeed were forerunners in the field.

But the firm went into administration last week, with debts of $750,000. Other major players have also fallen - such as the national firm Solar Shop. Many of those debts will be individual homeowners and they will be hurt badly, and will retain ill-will towards the renewables industry as a result. Solar Shop also owed thousands to the Gungahlin Community Council following a very successful group buying project run by GCC.

Our home has a number of fixtures from Enviro Friendly - the H2Gro greywater capture system, the Water Switch, rainwater tank, Endless Solar hot water system. And our photovoltaic system came from Solar Shop.

So we seem to be pretty damn good at picking the losers!

The conclusion that everyone is jumping to is that it was the fluctuating government subsidy environment that caused these falls. And there can be no doubt that they created the situation that led to the bankruptcies. There are lessons to be learnt from the past two years for any serious public administrator. Those who don't examine and learn from these failures will of course be doomed to repeat them.

But many of these firms - and particularly these two - suffered management and over-extension problems. We personally experienced serious customer service issues with both that would have led to much earlier falls had the markets not been so forgiving due to the subsidies. Sometimes the proverbial chickens do come home to roost...