These 15 companies are developing innovations in the field of climate technology

Our goal is to highlight companies that we believe can help mitigate climate change. This year’s list includes companies from a wide range of industries with headquarters on five continents. If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend you take a look. Each company has a profile in which we explain why they were included on the list, what impact the company could have, and what challenges they are likely to face.

In the meantime, I’d like to share a few thoughts on this year’s list as a whole. Because this list of companies illustrates some key themes I see frequently in my climate technology coverage.

1. To combat climate change, many things need to be built on a large scale and quickly.

Some of the companies we’ve included on this list stand out for the extent to which they develop and deploy technology. And we need scale, because to combat climate change we need to reduce tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions to net zero every year.

BYDfor example, was on our list for 2023, and it was a clear decision from our team to re-introduce the company.

For a while, the title of the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer depended on how you defined an electric vehicle. If you take plug-in hybrids into account, BYD is at the top. If you take the purist view and only count fully battery-powered vehicles, Tesla wins.

But now BYD is knocking on Tesla’s door even to achieve that purist title, selling more than the company in the final quarter of 2023. The company’s outstanding speed and scale of bringing electric vehicles to the road make it a company I’m keeping an eye on.

Other companies are still growing but are making significant progress. LanzaJet has just opened a factory in Georgia capable of producing nine million gallons of alternative jet fuel each year. That’s just a tiny fraction of the billions of gallons of fuel consumed each year, but it’s a huge step forward for alternative fuels. And First solara US solar manufacturer, just opened a $1.1 billion factory in Alabama and plans to open another in Louisiana in 2025.

2. Because climate impacts are embedded in long-standing systems, we need creative new ways to address old problems.

There are parts of the race to combat climate change that most people are probably familiar with. Fossil fuels and the associated emissions are clearly visible in power plants or gas-powered vehicles, for example.