Climatetech - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Though their reasoning varies, industry stakeholders across the board agree on one thing: the climatetech sector will be as large as e-commerce in the next 10 years

- SOUMYA DUGGAL

It was during the mid-18th century that a new chapter in world history began. The discovery of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas ushered in great innovations, mechanising manufacturing processes and opening up new business opportunities as factories sprung up across Great Britain. Almost three centuries on and several environmental crises later, the rise of a new fuel (so to say)—climate technologies—is expected to make the world go round, powering its electric vehicles, green homes and decarbonised industries as governments race to actualise their global climate commitments. Once again, a new business opportunity is on the horizon. What and how big is it?

THE WHAT AND WHY OF CLIMATE TECH

A plethora of seemingly synonymous terms exists today to describe business ventures built with a focus on environmental sustainability: greentech, cleantech, low carbon-tech, climatetech, and so on go the categorisations.

Tracing the etymology of these nomenclatures reframes the humanitarian cause of sustainability in terms of the concerns of commerce and industry: According to a blog by Neal Dikeman, a partner at environmental technology-focussed merchant bank Jane Capital Partners, the word ‘cleantech’ originally meant cleaning supplies equipment. From 2002 onwards, the term came to refer to a popular investment asset class and technology category as venture capital investors’ interest gravitated to the new tech fad of green and clean technologies such as renewable energy and biofuels following the collapse of the dot-com bubble in the previous year. By 2005, ‘greentech’ was also being applied as an alternative for cleantech.