What is Green Technology

The Greentech, Climate Tech

What is Greentech?

- Greentech is often split into two areas that are referred to as climate tech and cleantech. Between them, their technologies look to deal with existing and future damage to the environment caused by humans, as well as reducing or eliminating sources of further damage from our energy production and pollution.

- Although there is current speculation around the use of these terms and whether there are better alternatives out there, we will be referring to each technology as a section within these two areas.

- Climate tech has a focus on greenhouse gas emissions so therefore includes sectors such as carbon capture and afforestation. The focus of these sectors is to reduce the severity of greenhouse gas emissions, either through trapping the already existing gases or considering how greenhouse gases can be reduced moving forward.

- Cleantech looks at cleaning humanity’s impact from the environment. This includes areas like pollution and air quality as well as recycling and waste management.

- These sectors don’t necessarily consider the impact of this work on emissions but know that the work will impact and reduce humanity’s impact on the wider environment. For example, recycling and waste management may require vehicles or machines that emit greenhouse gases but the impact on human waste seeping into oceans or waterways is reduced, therefore its focus is cleantech.

Greentech in 2024

- Within the two areas of climate tech and clean tech, we find a whole host of sectors that focus on certain aspects of business and society that make up the landscape of greentech in 2024. Some of these sectors solely occupy climate tech or cleantech, others overlap and look at both areas in order to create change in society.

- For example, clean energy is concerned with mitigating greenhouse gas emissions while also reducing human impact on the environment through the extraction of resources to be used for creating energy.

- Below you’ll find a useful diagram from Clean Energy Ventures that outlines many of the green technology sectors that are explored throughout this article, and highlights the intersection and difference between cleantech and climate tech:

What is climate tech?

Climate tech is green technology that focuses on the reduction and mitigation of the effect of greenhouse gas emissions. This includes both reducing the greenhouse gases currently being produced, capturing or removing the greenhouse gases that are currently in our atmosphere and reducing the greenhouse gases that will be emitted in the future.

Carbon Capture

Carbon dioxide is the main gas contributing to global heating, therefore the thinking behind carbon capture involves catching the carbon at the source of it being created and then piping it to a place where it can be stored or used. It can be used as the carbon dioxide for things like carbonating drinks but can also be used to create hydrogen which can be used in factories as a clean-burning fuel. According to the IEA, carbon capture could reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by 70%

Carbon capture allows manufacturers to avoid expense in adapting to run on clean energy and the technology already exists in order to get carbon capture projects up and running. It also opens up new business opportunities in creating hydrogen which could then be sold on as fuel.

Biosphere Restoration

Biosphere restoration is the act of restoring biomass and putting structures into place to support its maintenance. This is generally work to repair ecosystems that have an effective on water cycles that are of course interconnected as part of the global environment, and which have been depleted through human activity.

The wearher makers is a group of scientists, designers and consultants who are focused on the holistic water cycle and biosphere restoration.

Afforestation

A subset of biosphere restoration, Afforestation is the creation or establishment of a forest where there was previously no tree cover. This action aids carbon capture but the trees also reduce carbon dioxide levels and add more oxygen into the atmosphere, helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A number of government and non-government organisations partake in planting trees to offset their carbon emissions, including government goals to achieve within a set time as part of the action to tackle climate change. There is also scope to use other technologies within afforestation plans to speed up the process and some businesses build tree-planting into their product as a benefit to the eco-conscious consumer.

Symbiosi investimentos is a Brazilian privately owned investment company that transforms degraded areas into established forests by restoring native species, working within the timber industry to improve quality of wood and quality of the planet.

Agtech

Agtech is short for agricultural technology and includes a whole range of companies that support the agriculture industry to become greener. From smart robots that gather data from crops to reducing livestock manure through Livestock Water Recycling (LWR), this sector encompasses a range of innovative technological developments to improve efficiency of agriculture and mitigate greenhouse gases.

As outlined by Deloitte (2016), agriculture businesses are having to be more open to innovation and change in order to keep up with the changes in the market. Their report also predicts that start-ups and innovators will seek to disrupt the industry through the introduction of new technology.

Future Growing LLC is an industry-leader in Agtech through the development of the aeroponic growing process which removes the need for soil when growing herb crops and places these crops in vertical towers, instead of into long rows in the ground.

What is cleantech?

Cleantech is green technology that increases the performance, productivity or efficiency of production while reducing the impact on the environment. The technology may focus on the impact on a particular environmental element, such as water or air, that would normally be subjected to chemicals or pollutants as part of the production process. Some of these technologies might impact or influence your day-to-day life without you even realising.

Clean Water

Water is essential for human life yet universal access to clean water is not available. Innovative technologies for clean water allow communities across the world to thrive and grow, promoting the growth of families, businesses and education in places where this wasn’t possible before. On top of this, as the global population grows and industries use more and more water for manufacturing, having enough clean water for everyone is a rising concern.

Supporting businesses to clean and re-use water creates a cycle where new water does not need to enter the process, allowing that water to be used elsewhere in the community.

In Summary

Cleantech and climate tech are amazing areas of technology and innovation, offering up opportunities to support businesses, agriculture, health and future generations.

Green technology has seen real ebbs and flows in public interest and government support, but in 2024 it looks like green technology is only going to rise and rise through government targets to reduce the climate’s temperature growth and through the empowerment of individuals looking to invest their money where it will make an environmental and social impact to support generations to come.