20 Sustainable Tech Companies to Look Out For
Can tech save our environment? Environmental startups aren’t new, but as climate concerns grow more daunting, more and more companies are tackling these challenges head-on with innovative and tech-driven products, services, and resources.
While the first thought of “sustainable tech companies” likely brings up organizations such as solar and wind energy producers, greentech firms span industries and niches, from construction and engineering to marine contamination, fashion, and post-consumer waste.
The innovative ideas coming from the sustainable tech space are inspiring – let these 20 companies redefine the way you think about environmentally-minded startups.
Companies That Help the Environment
1. AECOM
AECOM is a unique infrastructure consulting firm that delivers sustainably-driven professional services throughout the world. It’s beyond buildings. AECOM consults on projects spanning from cities and transportation to water, energy, and the environment. AECOM’s goal is to use infrastructure to create opportunities to sustain our planet and uplift communities, partnering with other firms who share the common goal to make a difference in the world.
2. HDR
Specializing in sustainable infrastructure, HDR is most recognized for developing high-performance, smart, and beautiful buildings, and frameworks. HDR focuses on architecture, engineering, construction, and environmental services and works together with local organizations and governments to provide guidance to help communities develop and meet sustainability goals.
3. Planet
Planet is a data-driven web-geo platform that uses highly specialized images of Earth to help companies tackle pressing challenges with novel solutions and scale their operations efficiently. Through their data collection, Planet can help business owners measure and understand factors like urban growth, climate risks, supply chains, or even biodiversity to balance their economic growth with ecological stewardship and the social well-being of our world.
4. Aurora Solar
In the same way that solar is a modern solution to old energy, Aurora Solar is on a mission to replace outdated solar sales and design software. Aurora provides a personalized customer experience for those going solar to streamline and uncomplicate the process and make it more profitable for PV sellers by making it easier to go green than ever before.
5. Redaptive
A one-of-a-kind Energy-as-a-Service provider, Redaptive helps sophisticated organizations reduce their energy waste and carbon footprint to meet their sustainability goals by funding and installing equipment that both saves and generates energy. Driven by data, Redaptive’s programs create valuable corporate sustainability initiatives that eliminate logistical and financial challenges along the way.
6. Uplight
Uplight connects over 80 of the world’s leading gas and electric utilities with their customers to help engage and encourage customers toward the goal of more efficient, cleaner, and smarter energy use while lowering their bills and pushing the needle forward on the world’s clean energy transformation.
7. Inspire
Powered by state-of-the-art equipment and brilliant environmental analysts and scientists, Inspire Environmental helps us visualize and interpret seafloor health in a cost-effective and fast way, providing results by the end of each survey day so data can be utilized and applied just as fast as it’s gathered.
8. WeaveGrid
Electric vehicle grid integration challenges have been a roadblock to the impending clean energy transition, and the WeaveGrid platform helps overcome some of the most critical of these challenges. Weavegrid elevates the EV driver experience, facilitates renewable energy integration into the grid, and advances the adoption of EVs.
9. Encamp
Environmental regulations have good intentions, but the difficulty of compliance makes being a good steward of the environment harder than it needs to be. Encamp helps companies transform their environmental compliance activities and increase productivity using high-touch expert support and high-tech software that’s the first of its kind.
10. Sealed
Energy waste is a real problem in homes, and Sealed is on a mission to improve home performance in ways that create real reductions in energy use. With an unprecedented payment program, Sealed covers the upfront costs of custom heating and cooling plans from certified contractors and allows customers to repay them based on their reduced use of energy once all is said and done. Sealed also handles all the work of planning and coordination, removing the barriers to improved energy use, including financial risk.
Sustainable Tech Companies
1. Ecoping
The internet itself has carbon emissions, and Ecoping is on a mission to reduce website carbon emissions to make it a more sustainable digital place. With tools that can calculate the emissions of a particular website, Coping can help companies estimate their website’s carbon footprint and provide tips to lower it, such as using more efficient file formats, compressed images, and lightweight fonts. Plus, companies can track their website’s performance over time to ensure improvement is consistent.
2. TreeEconomy
Treeconomy has found a new source of income from trees by connecting rural landowners to companies looking to offset their carbon emissions, effectively reducing the supply chain of carbon and fighting both climate change and the loss of biodiversity. This game-changing tech company utilizes a remote sensing system, lidar, and satellites to measure the ecosystem of wooded areas and accurately measure the impact of nature-based projects.
3. Worthmore
Worthmore saw the global need for the recycling of e-waste, understanding that the amount of e-waste generated will nearly double by 2030 if things continue as-is. Utilizing the growing numbers of smartphone waste, Worthmore offers recycling, refurbishing, and reselling services for used smartphones, donating the money earned to charities. But this tech startup takes its impact further, allowing users to calculate the exact impact their recycled phone could have, such as removing 33 pounds of waste from the ocean. Considering the 151 million phones that users toss each year, Worthmore has the potential to create massive change.
4. Paboco
Everyone knows paper is sustainably superior to plastic, yet plastic bottles are still ubiquitous. Paboco is on a mission to change that, making recyclable paper bottles more available to support the goal of a world without waste. Paboco has created the first 100% bio-based paper bottle, but also serves as an environmental research company, helping clients like Coca-Cola test a paper bottle prototype.
5. Iadys
You don’t always think of environmental protection when you think of AI robots, but IADYS has created a collection of software and hardware solutions to reduce marine contamination using artificial intelligence. With the help of its small marine-based robots, IADYS has seen great success cleaning the water surface after accidental oil spills and currently has systems being used in places such as Tokyo, Cannes, Monaco, and Norway.
6. Alpha 311
Traditional turbines are large, clunky, and difficult to install. Alpha 311’s alternative, a vertical axis turbine, is everything traditional turbines are not. It’s smaller, lighter, and simple to install. The flexible design allows Alpha 311 turbines to work in many places, but they excel in areas where airflow from passing vehicles is nearby, such as close to railways or highways. The potential impact? Nearly every bridge, building, tower, or road can become a wind farm, creating clean, affordable energy.
7. Sojo
Clothing manufacturing is an extremely outdated industry where workers are often undervalued and underpaid. Sojo’s vision reimagines each step of the clothing life cycle, increasing clothing lifespan to help combat fast fashion and its many dark sides. Sojo offers a clothing repair service that prevents items from being sent to a landfill. It also encourages second-hand shopping, serving as an online platform to discuss sustainable fashion hurdles and progress.
8. Scindo
One of the largest challenges facing waste-free initiatives is plastic. An often unrecyclable material, 91% of plastics are sent to landfills. Scindo, a startup born during the pandemic, is creating an alternative to these landfills, using enzymes to help break down plastic and turning it into a more circular economy that can recycle or renew plastics and reduce our global dependence on crude oil.
9. Tekntrash
Tekntrash is an AI data collection company that helps companies understand what happens to their products post-consumption so they can use that data to encourage recycling and increase sales. Not only does this incentivize manufacturers to sell more sustainably, but it also encourages consumers to dispose of their products properly in ways that won’t harm the environment or add to unnecessary waste.
10. Ulemco
The transportation industry is responsible for producing 27% of 2020’s greenhouse gas emissions in the US. ULEMCO’s goal is to help heavy and large good vehicles (HGVs and LGVs) deploy emissions-free hydrogen-powered vehicles to massively reduce carbon emissions from trucking fleets and other forms of transportation, including a hydrogen fuel cell ambulance prototype they’re currently working on.
The Shift to Sustainability
With a looming climate crisis on our hands, consumers and businesses alike have begun shifting their focus to sustainability. These tech startups are some of the best and brightest, coming up with fresh and innovative ways to tackle legacy environmental problems as well as newer ones that are a result of modern-day overconsumption, energy depletion, and waste.
There’s an abundant need for more forward-thinking and tech-savvy sustainable startups in our modern world. Will your startup be the next one added to this list? Reach out to MacDonald Ventures.
