Overview
As the team at MIT Technology Review set out to choose companies for this year’s edition of our annual list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch, the challenge felt more daunting than any year since we started compiling the list in 2023.
This year is shaping up to be one of the hottest ever recorded. The world must begin to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to address the climate crisis, which is already affecting communities around the globe. Wildfires, floods, and other climate-fueled disasters are killing thousands and costing billions of dollars. At the same time, political shifts and international conflict have stalled progress, particularly in the US.
Technology alone can’t solve climate change. But we believe innovations can help us make real changes and improve lives around the world as we try to address one of the most pressing challenges of our time.
In this project, we look for companies developing technologies that can help us face the climate crisis. Some are driving down the greenhouse-gas emissions fueling climate change; others are working to reduce the dangers that communities face from extreme heat, drought, or other shifts brought on by a warming planet. We focus on companies that have established a track record, whether through research findings, capital raised, or deployments.
When we set out to build our list, we start by soliciting nominations from our team of reporters and editors. We ask experts for suggestions and reach out to academics, researchers, investors, and analysts. Once we have a pool of nominees, we then consider each one, digging through literature, reports, and patents to vet both the technology and the business.
We judge each company not only on its own merits, but also on how it might fit into our list overall. We want the final slate of companies to represent a range of industries and include firms based around the globe that are at different stages of development. We also aim to strike a balance between highlighting companies previously included and introducing new names. Finally, we consider some of the most important trends and events of the year and look for nominees that reflect those developments.
Details
The dismembering of US federal regulations and cuts to financial government incentives for innovation means that the country is no longer a leader in climate tech. Like last year, the 2026 list is largely composed of companies that are based outside the US. China is an obvious hotspot for technological innovation across energy and climate. This year’s list includes two Chinese companies: WeLion is building semi-solid-state batteries for electric vehicles, and Envision Energy is installing huge amounts of wind power and energy storage in China and around the world.
Several sectors stood out this year as being of particular importance. One of the biggest stories of the year is the rising demand for electricity, driven in part by AI data centers.
Energy storage is a key piece of that puzzle because it can smooth out variations in the electricity supply as grids incorporate more renewable power. We’ve included several energy storage companies on this year’s list. Energy Dome is building long-duration energy storage systems on the grid that rely on compressed carbon dioxide. Moment Energy is a Canadian company working to repurpose EV batteries for grid-scale storage. And Form Energy, which we also included in the 2024 edition of this list, is producing iron-based batteries that can store energy for multiple days.
A wide range of technologies is represented here: everything from mobile flood barriers to next-generation nuclear reactors. Some of the awardees might be familiar from our past coverage; others are just emerging and may be less well known.
We believe we’ve put together a list filled with businesses that are rising to the challenge of this moment. Political will has weakened even as the damages wrought by climate change continue to mount. By helping us make progress on tackling the climate crisis in such difficult times, these companies point to a better way forward.
Source
Originally published at www.technologyreview.com.