DESPITE GLOBAL HEADWINDS, INNOVATION THRIVES AT THE INTERSECTION OF TECHNOLOGY, BUSINESS & IMPACT

SAN FRANCISCO, CA --Cleantech Group releases its annual Cleantech 50 to Watch list, spotlighting the early-stage companies poised to deliver breakthrough solutions to the world’s most pressing climate and sustainability challenges.

“Against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical and economic uncertainty, global tariffs, policy reversals, and development bottlenecks continue to reshape project timelines and investment flows. Yet, even amid these headwinds, a new generation of entrepreneurs is redefining what is possible—accelerating advances in clean energy, sustainable materials, food and agriculture, and digital-enabled climate solutions. These 50 companies represent where the market is heading next: increasing sophistication of AI, new frontiers in resource resilience, and breakthrough solutions in consumer goods sustainability. Their work shows us not just what’s possible, but what’s urgently needed.”

-- Anthony DeOrsey, Research Manager at Cleantech Group

Interview with Anthony DeOrsey

By Suzanne Forcese

WT: Anthony, you have said: "While policy uncertainty and economic turbulence create understandable headwinds, this moment is not the time for retreat—it is the time for decisive action and collaboration.” How is Cleantech Group uniquely poised to meet the headwinds?

DeOrsey: One of our strengths at Cleantech Group is that we are consistently identifying ways to do things better, as opposed to suggesting that the world should give modern conveniences up. More resource efficiency, more resilience to damage and physical threats. When macroeconomic times are challenging, the enthusiasm around specific technologies may change, but the overall theme is still strong right now.

We help our clients understand where the solutions to their problems today may lie, for example:

• Reducing need for resources (electricity, water, materials) is more critical than ever in today's environment of high prices and trade uncertainty.
• Designing long-term performance into decisions - see the many technologies catching on in grid right now (transformers, line reconductoring, high-capacity cables, line monitoring). These are all technologies that support better performance and capacity, but also long-term resilience to disruptions.
• Avoiding risk of asset loss by engaging more technologies for adaptation & resilience (think monitoring solutions for risks like wildfires and floods).

WT: Regarding the Cleantech 50 To Watch, please explain the "Trend Watch" and how the focus has shifted from one year ago.

DeOrsey: To start, we took a different approach to the “Grow, Flow, Slow” Trend Watch this year. This is a framework that was born out of necessity – at the beginning of 2025 we were preparing our annual look-ahead (delivered in a public webinar at our Cleantech Forum North America in January). When we thought hard about it, we concluded that while we’d have positions to take on all the technology trends, direction would change quick in many of them throughout this year, so we put together a high-level framework that could be updated consistently. We used this for the Cleantech 50 to Watch and will use it again in the Global Cleantech 100.

Within this rapidly evolving landscape:

• Grow categories include energy-efficient compute, sources of clean baseload power, and technologies for lower footprint critical minerals access.
  
  
  
• Flow areas include sustainable aviation fuels, green steel, and distributed ammonia fertilizers—sectors moving forward but with important nuances.
  
  
  
• Slow areas, such as alternative proteins and some hydrogen applications, face structural and market headwinds requiring new strategies to scale.

The key themes observed this year, without question, are the areas of energy-efficient compute, consumer goods sustainability, and crop science. There are two categories of movement from last year: areas that shifted, and areas that went from strength to strength. There’s more in the second category than the first, but it’s worth noting the shifts in the first category.

In 2024, with much of the policy support and corporate ESG momentum still intact, there were high concentrations of companies in carbon removals (7), clean fuels & chemicals (6), and in some type of building materials (5). In 2025, the concentrations in those spaces were 3 in carbon removals, 3 in clean fuels and chemicals, and none in building materials.

The challenges here are different for each space:

• In carbon removals, there are many companies offering credit-based carbon removal solutions. There is likely an over-supply to technology into a market not ready to absorb it. Many carbon credit sales today are based on voluntary commitments.
• Producing clean fuels requires significant capital expenditure to stand up demonstration and pilot facilities. The macroeconomic environment today makes that riskier than it was a few years ago. There’s an added challenge that many of the eventual adopters of cleaner fuels do not have full clarity yet on where they’ll implement them. Take hydrogen as an example -- there are clear challenges on using hydrogen in applications like steel production and distance transport, and thus, is dulling the pull-through effect on hydrogen production technologies.
• With building materials, there is a combination of challenges: there was a wave of promising demonstration projects supported by the U.S. Office of Clean Energy Demonstration, which has now cancelled many of those projects. While plenty of these technologies will compete on their economic merits in the future, the acceleration they were seeing in recent years has slowed.

WT: How is the AI Revolution impacting the Trend Watch?

DeOrsey: Energy-efficient compute, driven by the advent of advanced AI and the many potential ways that compute can be deployed. There is of course the centralized model of hyperscalers running advanced AI training in a large data center – that is creating a clear demand signal today. However, there will also be “edge” cases of advanced AI running on chips that are in-situ in applications like robotics and mobility. This is opening new opportunities.

WT: Please give us some examples:

DeOrsey: Some examples of energy-efficient compute innovators in this year’s Cleantech 50 to Watch:

• Gallox Semiconductors: Gallox’s gallium oxide devices target mission-critical applications like high-speed EV charging and grid transformers, with the biggest upside coming from scaling manufacturing to beat silicon carbide and gallium nitride on cost.
• SEMRON: SEMRON aims to be cost-competitive in high-value edge AI markets like smartphones and AR/VR, with broader adoption possible as manufacturing scales and compute costs fall.
• Neuralwatt: Neuralwatt delivers instant ROI by optimizing GPU power use in data centers through a no-code software layer that cuts energy costs and emissions
• Palanquin Power: Palanquin’s rack-level, series-connected power architecture enables cheaper, denser converters with high efficiency, where success depends on rapid data center customer adoption

WT: Is the changing and uncertain landscape creating an opportunity for "Renewables"? Do you have some examples to offer?

DeOrsey: Where we would have seen this most reflected in previous Cleantech 50 to Watch lists would be on the energy storage side, both short-duration and long-duration. Utility-scale solar and wind, for the most part, are commoditized technologies dominated by global incumbents, whereas we follow emerging innovation.

That said, we certainly expect a challenged pace of adoption for new types of long- duration storage in the U.S., given the slowed deployment of solar and wind with the repeal of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits and new barriers to project permitting. That will mostly affect U.S.-based projects, though. Globally, there is still much motivation to firm up renewables' capacity with short- and long-duration storage.

• Unbound Potential: Developing a membrane-free redox flow battery for large-scale, low-cost, long-duration energy storage
• Haliogen Power: Membraneless redox flow batteries for long-duration energy storage using non-flammable, affordable materials.
• Levistor: Laminated flywheel energy storage system optimized for ultra-rapid EV charging and high-power short-duration grid support

An additional one to mention along this thread is Active Surfaces, a 2025 Cleantech 50 to Watch company that is developing thin-film solar perovskite materials that are lightweight, flexible, and can be deployed at point of use, versus requiring a centralized point of installation.

WT: What are you noticing in the water sector?

DeOrsey: AI in data centers is going to exacerbate water access complications, as many data centers still rely on air cooling, which typically require some type of evaporative cooling. The innovations that will help in this regard will be in liquid cooling – either direct-to-chip or immersion cooling – that can absorb heat directly from the IT equipment, versus it needing to dissipate in the air and then be cooled. To the earlier topic of energy-efficient compute, that’s an indirect benefit of these technologies, less electricity use, and as a result less heat and less water for cooling.

In terms of this year’s Cleantech 50 to Watch, we saw a handful of interesting water technologies, and in highly diverse application spaces:

• Laiier: Ultra-early liquid leak detection with adhesive printed sensors to protect assets from damage, water waste, and downtime.
• Carbon Run: Restores river health and removes CO2 by enhancing river alkalinity.
• Active Membranes: Electro-active membranes to improve desalination and water treatment efficiency.
• Page Technologies: Printable sensors to advance water efficiency and soil management for healthier, more productive farms.

WT: When we look at the big picture everything comes back to water. Can you give us a glimpse of innovators in other sectors impacting the water sector.

DeOrsey: Related to water this year there was also a noticeable bump in companies from multiple corners of consumer goods sustainability, plastics, and textiles most notably, with new technologies both for newer formulations of materials but also for recycling of both.

Beyond plastics and textiles, we saw new approaches to sustainable dyes as well, an area that is under-recognized and frequently overlooked. Last year there were 6 companies along these themes on the Cleantech 50 to Watch; you can see the variety and volume of companies along the consumer goods thread on this year’s list, below:

• Syntetica and solution are both leveraging unique depolymerization processes to tackle some of the trickiest textile recycling problems (nylon and polyester).
• Dispersa is delivering the world’s first waste-derived biosurfactants for cleaning and personal care products.
• Plastic waste being addressed on both sides of the ledger with improved approaches to recycling (Radical Dot, Driven Plastics, Extracthive) and new bio-based materials from waste ( TômTex Inc. ,Carbon Cell, Sengong).
• Dyes in consumer goods, a long-unaddressed pollution challenge, may soon see cleaner avenues to production with Sparxell (plant-based cellulose) and Lite-1 (microbial-based solutions).

WT: In a year from now when we look at the next 50 to Watch List --- what do you envision?

DeOrsey: I expect many of the themes seen this year to persist – compute efficiency, consumer goods, crop science. However, I think the technologies associated with increased adaptation & resilience will make a stronger showing next year. Think about things like advanced AI and new sensing techniques for wildfire prevention, faster storm warning and flood prevention, and early weather forecasting. Take special note of Beyond Weather in this year’s 50 to Watch, delivering faster and more cost-effective forecasts beyond the typical 14-day horizon -- the implications of this ability to forecast even further ahead and more accurately has enormous implications for many industries (power generation & transmission, mining, logistics).

I expect AI to hit more spaces like this that can have force multiplying effects. An area that went from strength-to-strength in this year’s list was that of crop science and novel fertilizers (2 on last year’s list, 4 on this year’s). In a year when the global agricultural trade system has been shaken up, and climate effects continue to disrupt weather patterns, I predict this will be an area that feels a greater sense of urgency from the demand market.

Crop science is an area that has not yet leveraged AI to the full extent possible – I expect that to change and expect to see new and disruptive companies emerge in this theme over the coming year.

This year’s honorees reflect the cleantech sector’s resilience and ingenuity in the face of global uncertainty. From AI-driven breakthroughs to novel approaches in recycling and agriculture, the Cleantech 50 to Watch demonstrates that innovation continues to push boundaries, even in turbulent times.

We congratulate all 50 companies recognized this year. Their progress shows that the path to a low-carbon, resource-efficient future is not only alive but accelerating in unexpected and exciting ways.

Download your complimentary copy of the 2025 Cleantech 50 to Watch list and supplementary report here here