Green Technology, The Dawn of A New Economy
Our last geological era called “Holocene” (or at least the last 10000 years) was thought to be climatically stable. The Holocene provided necessary condition for the preservation of our species, functioning ecosystems, and biodiversity.
The main drivers of global change were solar variation, plate tectonics, meteorite impact or other non-human induced large-scale shifts.
There is now overwhelming evidence that the human impact on our planet has pushed the world into a new geological epoch, named as “Anthropocene”.
The main driver of global change, is the growing human population’s demand for energy, goods, services and information, and its disposal of its waste products.
In the last 250 years, global change has caused climate change, 85% of our species becoming extinct, fish-stock collapse, desertification, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, pollution and other large-scale drastic changes.
Our current technologies and systems are inefficient today to provide a solution.
For example, in a great TED talk, Sara Menker by using Machine Learning on current food and agriculture systems is predicting that a global food crisis may be less than a decade away.
To preserve our planet and therefore us, it is necessary to re-instate our “Holocene era” and regenerate our planet.
One of the key solutions to regenerate our environment is by the propagation of Green Technology business solutions.
Business because growth-driven solutions are the most efficient way to scale and achieve a measurable impact in our current economy.
Technology because new technology such as AI, IoT, Blockhain have matured to enable connected and convenient solutions, which are key features for today consumer market.
How do you define Green Technology?
Most people think of Green technology as Clean tech, or any technology associated with clean/renewable energy.
Green Technology is a much larger domain than Clean Tech.
The term green technology (also called environmental technology) refers to a technology that is considered environmentally friendly based on its production process or supply chain.
In broader term, green technology refers to any technology whose use is intended to mitigate or reverse the effects of human activity on our environment.
The field of “green technology” includes a continuously evolving group of sciences, methods and materials, from techniques to generate energy to reduce waste.
Why is Green Technology becoming a booming sector?
There is today a convergence of several drivers for Green Technology growth.
The first one in undeniable the environmental challenges we are facing: the United Nations just gave end of last year a 12 years deadline to crush climate change. In addition to climate change, we are also facing some serious depletion of our natural resources and an estimated food crisis within the next few decades.
Additional strong drivers are market and technology.
The market is definitively ripe for Green Technology.
Technology has enabled convenience and Price. Renewable energy for example is today in par or even lower than fossil fuel.
Most consumers have adopted a sustainable mindset: Sustainability is now an imperative for brands, as values-driven consumers increasingly demand options that don’t harm the planet and its people. According to a recent study on mindful customers, 83% of people surveyed would always pick the brand that has the highest record of sustainability and 90% feel that companies/brand have a responsibility to take care of the planet.
There is also more corporate sensitivity toward environment and an increasing business concern. A recent Blomberg article highlights that among the 25 largest US companies reviewed by Bloomberg, 21 said they had identified “inherent climate-related risks with the potential to have a substantial financial or strategic impact” on their business.
The third large driver is technology.
Technology such as artificial Intelligence, Sensors, Robotics, data analytics, machine learning, and biotechnology are allowing us to create practical measurable solutions.
A recent article of the World Economic Forum refers to “How technology is driving a fourth wave of environmentalism”.
According to this article, 86% of executives surveyed — from companies with $500 million or more in annual revenue — agree that emerging technologies will help their business while improving their impact on the environment. Ask the question of C-suite executives alone and the figure increases to an astonishing 91%.
The decrease in cost as well as the increase in investment has also propagated some sectors in Green Technology, such as Renewable energy and Agtech (or precision technology)
What is the market size of Green Technology?
Giving you an estimate for the Global Green Technology is very hard as they are many definitions for this sector and therefore differences in the assessments. My objective here was to give you some legitimate sources to give you an idea on the market size.
A recent European study for example is predicting this market for Green technology to reach 3530 billion of euros in 2020. Another estimate from Plunkett Research is estimating the Green Tech sector to be about 5.3% of global GDP for 2017 or approximatively $4.13 trillion.
The energy sector, in this estimate, is unquestionably a major part of the green tech field.
According to the Energy Information Administration 2017, the amount of renewable energy produced is expected to more than double in 2050. In 2017, renewable energy represented around 24.5% of the Global Electricity production. Similarly, the green building material market is expected to grow at a 12% CAGR to 20222.
How can you structure Green Technology?
Because Green technology is a very vast domain including many sectors, it can be organized in a lot of different ways.
From a Global perspective, climate change, carbon neutrality and circular economy are becoming topics increasingly discussed by corporations, governments and organizations.
At We Grow Green Tech, we believe solutions need to be developed at the Global and Local level.
Global with ESG and government, Local with solutions enabling measurable impact and responsibility sharing.
With a sustainable market mindset and advances in technology, profitable convenient connected solutions can be created to allow each of us to be an instrument of change.
Environmental challenges become business opportunities.
Using this approach, we, at We Grow Green Tech, looked into the environmental market in term of scalable profitable business solutions.
Our objective was to accelerate Green technology growth AND impact.
We defined six main verticals as our goal was to create an ecosystem/cluster of companies with complementary technologies and practical solutions with a measurable impact.
This is certainly not meant to be an official way of classifying green technology.
Our first vertical that we will be presenting today is renewable energy. The energy sector, with its many facets, is unquestionably a major part of the green tech field and is already well-known and adopted. As you may all know, California has set the goal to become 100 Percent Clean Electric Power By 2045 and will become the leader in this space.
Our second vertical is our food system. There is some amazing innovation and change occurring into our food system, driven by climate change, increasing population, possible food shortage and strongly inefficient food supply chain and system.
Our food system is relying heavily on meat: This vertical includes regenerative agriculture with carbon soil sequestration techniques, precision technology, and new food products focused on environmental footprint and nutrient density. A typical example for example would be Pavo, a San Francisco early stage company that combines sensors, data analytics and blockchain to optimize crop growing, processing and distribution and reduce food waste.
Our third vertical is Ocean ecosystem. It includes solutions from ocean energy, sustainable aquafarming, bio-based materials to biodiversity regeneration. A local startup example would be Smartcatch, a Silicon-valley based company that has developed a smart fishing technology to reduce waste observed at large fisheries.
Our fourth vertical relates to what we refer as Plastic economy. Plastic has become a very large problem. According to a recent article of National Geographic, Of the 8.3 billion metric tons that has been produced, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. Of that, only nine percent has been recycled. The vast majority — 79 percent — is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter.
In addition to that, Microplastics are becoming a very large problem everywhere. Microplastics are small, barely visible pieces of plastic less than 5 mm that enter and pollute the environment. Recent studies have found microplastic in more than 90% of bottle samples as well as in our gut. This vertical encompasses solutions to recycle, reuse but also bio-based alternatives.
Our fifth vertical relates to waste solutions, which we would be covering later. It includes solutions associated with E-Waste, Chemicals, Medical, Plastic, Fabrics, Food and Natural Resources. For example, more than 5 billion people could suffer water shortages by 2050 due to climate change, increased demand and polluted supplies, according to a UN report on the state of the world’s water.
Our last vertical relates to Green Building. Building and construction sector accounts for more than two-thirds of total greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. As a result, the global Green Building Market is a very dynamic market and is expected to witness high growth over the forecast period.
Please stay tune as we cover in more details each of these verticals in our future articles.
Thank you for your time and attention.
We Grow Green Tech
In It to WIN IT!
