Sacramento Business Review, produced in part by Sacramento State’s College of Business Administration, celebrated the launch of its fifth issue Thursday. The magazine’s new issue discusses the emerging trends in Sacramento’s economy.

At the kickoff event, Sanjay Varshney, the Review’s chief economist and the dean of business administration, discussed the idea of greener energy as well as the city’s current economic situation.

The keynote speaker was Marc van den Berg. Van den Berg is a Venture Capitalist associated with VantagePoint Venture Partners who has more than 25 years of industrial experience serving in executive roles in both technical and business capacities at small; private; and large, public companies.

At the Review’s launch event, van den Berg presented his proposal titled, “Future Green Energy” in which he discussed energy generation.

While it is expensive, van den Berg said he believes CleanTech is the next transformation to a greener environment with hopes of growing a “multi-trillion dollar market opportunity world-wide.”

“Globally, it has a big future,” Varshney said in response to van den Berg’s speech. Varshney also said that van den Berg’s ideas will potentially lead to younger generations considering the idea of solar energy. This will in turn lead to possible jobs on a global scale.

After van den Berg’s speech, Varshney and fellow executives of sponsor organizations moved on to talk about the 2011 market forecast. Speakers updated the audience on the latest news from various sectors, such as real estate, labor markets, and the banking industry.

“As we begin the year 2011, we feel more optimistic than we did last year,” Varshney said. “Multiple challenges still confront us and dampen hopes for a rapid recovery, but we believe the recession in Sacramento did end in 2010, paving the way for very gradual progress on the jobs front.”

Yvette Villasenor can be reached at [email protected]