As the planet burns, Green Tech companies have become a booming business. But are they enough to save the world?
Green Technology: A Brief Overview
Generally, Greentech is defined as technology that has a net positive impact on the environment, with companies enveloping a wide range of innovations, such as solar panels, carbon capture, and ocean cleanup.
Greentech has its roots in the 1990s when climate change first received widespread international attention; the next decade or two saw a surge of investment into sustainable tech, mostly renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs). After a crash in the years around 2010 – due in part to overblown expectations, the recession, cheap fossil fuels, and Chinese tech outcompeting the West’s – the scene has since recovered, bolstered by consumer pressure and stronger legislations, both international and domestic.
Now, the industry has diversified somewhat. The OG industries of energy and EVs are blossoming; China, aiming to be to Greentech what the Middle East is to oil, dominates here. It’s also strong in newer trends, like energy storage and carbon capture, though it faces some more competition from Western companies here. The US in particular provides by far the most startup funding, thereby contributing to much innovation; its market is boosted by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which grants tax cuts for the use of many types of Greentech. Europe is also a prominent scene, though its market is still lagging behind.
Best 10 Green Tech Companies
1. BYD (Auto Division)
- Location: China
- Founded: 2003
- Number of employees: 290,000 (for BYD as a whole, as of December 2022)
- Current funding level: $4.23 billion profit for 2023
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/byd/
Overview: EVs aren’t the be-all-end-all savior to climate tech; they still create emissions through the mining of their batteries’ metals and the source of the electricity they consume. But they still fare considerably better than all-petrol cars. China’s BYD is, for the moment, their leader (though it’s constantly competing with the US’s Tesla); it produced 3 million cars in 2023, just over half of which were pure battery cars (as opposed to hybrids).
2. Tongwei Solar
- Location: China
- Founded: 1992
- Number of employees: 56,406
- Current funding level: $19.29 billion operating income in 2023
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tongwei-solar/
Overview: Tongwei, once a humble animal food company, is now the world’s biggest solar panel producer. It aims to achieve production of 130 gigawatts (GW) worth of solar cells per year by the end of 2024 (as reported by Washington Post); for comparison, the US had a total of about 177 GW installed capacity.
3. Tesla
- Location: US
- Founded: 2003
- Number of employees: 100,000+
- Current funding level: $1.1 billion in net income for 2023
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tesla-motors
Overview: After singlehandedly bringing the electric car into vogue, Tesla now competes with BYD for top spot, beating the Chinese giant in sales for 2024’s first quarter. Tesla is also a leader in Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), which are vital to integrating renewable energy into existing infrastructure; its Megapack (designed for industrial use) and Powerwall (for residential) have helped it achieve a 15% market share.
4. Sungrow
- Location: China
- Founded: 1997
- Number of employees: 13,697
- Current funding level: $1.3 billion profit in 2023
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sungrow-power-supply-co-ltd
Overview: Mirroring the competition in EVs, China’s Sungrow and, once again, the US’s Tesla vie for the BESS crown. Though Tesla recently knocked Sungrow off its top spot, it still accounts for some 10% of the global market, so Wood Mackenzie. In addition to its storage systems, Sungrow also contributes to the solar and wind industries.
5. Antora Energy
- Location: US
- Founded: 2017
- Number of employees: 135
- Current funding level: Series B; over $230 million raised
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/antora-energy/
Overview: Though the BESS scene is dominated by giants like Tesla and Sungrow, a swathe of startups are focusing on another niche that’s been gaining traction as of late: thermal batteries, or storing energy in the form of heat. This is useful to industry, whose need for heat accounts for nearly 20% of global energy demand. Antora’s batteries ring in a 40% efficiency: 10% higher than the industry benchmark, so the US Department of Energy.
6. Goldwind
- Location: China
- Founded: 1998
- Number of employees: 11,000
- Current funding level: $184 million profit for 2023
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/goldwind
Overview: China accounted for 65% of global wind capacity in 2023; while Denmark’s Vestas has the most turbines installed at 88,782, China’s Goldwind pockets the largest chunk of the global market at 14%. It has over 51,000 turbines with an installed capacity of 119GW, and claims to have avoided the release of 228 million tons of CO2 that way.
7. 4Ocean
- Location: US
- Founded: 2017
- Number of employees: 194
- Current funding level: unknown
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/4oceanpbc/
Overview: At first glance, 4Ocean’s modus operandi is somewhat unorthodox. It sells paraphernalia like bracelets, beach chairs, stickers, and even sponges on its website; for each item sold, the company removes a certain amount of trash from the ocean. It sounds like a non-profit, but it’s not; still, true to promise, 4Ocean has removed 35 million pounds of trash from the oceans as of March 2024.
8. Brimstone
- Location: US
- Founded: 2019
- Number of employees: less than 50
- Current funding level: over $60 million through seed, Series A, and a grant, plus a $189 million federal award
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brimstoneenergy/
Overview: Cement, the second-most used substance in the world after water, is also a major polluter; up to 9% of human-made emissions can be traced back to it. But since it’s clearly not going anywhere, Brimstone figured out a way to remove at least 60% of its emissions by tossing out limestone and replacing it with calcium silicate rocks; it also adds magnesium to the mix to mop up the remaining emissions. The result, so the company, is indistinguishable from conventional cement.
9. Climeworks/Carbfix
- Location: Switzerland/Iceland
- Founded: 2009/2007
- Number of employees: 450+/58
- Current funding level: $810 million (as of 2023)/total unknown
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/climeworks/ / https://www.linkedin.com/company/carbfix/
Overview: They may be two separate companies, but Climeworks and Carbfix now work in tandem to capture carbon and store it underground, preventing it from entering the atmosphere again. Climeworks specializes in capturing parts and recently opened the world’s largest designated plant in Iceland, designed to capture 36,000 tons of carbon from the air each year. Carbfix’s job is to inject the captured carbon deep into the Earth, where it reacts with the rocks and stays permanently stored. As of 2023, Carbfix has stored away over 90,000 tons of the stuff.
10. Pano AI
- Location: US
- Founded: 2019
- Number of employees: 45
- Current funding level: a total of $45 million raised
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pano-ai/
Overview: Wildfires, often fueled by climate change, don’t just devastate the areas they devour; they also release thousands of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. But detecting, confirming, and responding to them early is tricky – even though this ‘determines whether or not a small flare-up becomes a raging inferno,’ so Pano AI. The startup deploys a network of ‘360-degree, ultra-high-definition cameras’ that monitor fire-prone areas. If a young fire is detected by Pano’s AI system, it’s confirmed by human analysts before emergency services are alerted with exact times, locations, and imagery. As of 2023, Pano AI has around 100 cameras deployed in the US and Australia.
Challenges and Opportunities for Green Tech Companies
At first glance, Greentech seems like a golden business to be in. It’s driven by a real-life crisis and is backed by governmental incentives and pressure from the public; this has led a swell in investment, including interest from other companies wanting to integrate Greentech into their practices. But it’s not always that easy. Many facets of Greentech involve lengthy and expensive development processes and are tricky to scale, making their business cases rocky. And while climate change was what spurned these efforts in the first place, its urgency is thwarted by investors who’d rather make money; this is why the bulk of investment flows to mature industries like renewables and EVs, though the cash might make a bigger environmental impact in less profitable niches.
Read also: Top 5 Green Tech Startups in 2024
The Future of Green Technology and Its Companies
But as far as business goes, Greentech has a bright future ahead of it; consultancy firm Roland Berger puts the industry’s worth by 2030 at €12 trillion (about $13.4 trillion), with energy and transportation sectors remaining the ringleaders. When it comes to the planet, though, things don’t look so great. Global fossil fuel subsidies have more than tripled since 2021, and current climate policies are vastly insufficient to limit global heating – not that that matters since droves of countries and major companies are dropping or missing their climate targets anyway. What’s more, funding for technology needed to survive in such a world – known as adaptation tech – is lacking. Greentech has not yet become the savior it’s made out to be. As its size and influence grow in the next decade, it needs to prove it’s up for the job.
