Top Ten Climate Entrepreneurs
Published by Climate & Capital Media on October 26, 2020
Welcome to Climate & Capital Media’s inaugural “Ten to Watch” list, in which we highlight leaders delivering real change to address the world’s growing climate emergency.
Ten to Watch represents an important group of young entrepreneurs offering economic and financial climate solutions. From low-cost energy for the developing world and unconventional collaborative financing systems to software control of energy systems and kinetic energy generation, these leaders are working to address some of the biggest issues of energy and climate change.
In recent months, we’ve spoken with climate change experts, investors, and the candidates themselves to understand not just who has demonstrated creativity and early success, but who is making bold moves to scale their impact and change the dynamic of the market. We’ve chosen these climate entrepreneurs for their impact, creativity, innovation, global reach, and the diversity of their work.
Although here you will meet ten leaders we admire, our research uncovered hundreds of young entrepreneurs around the world taking big risks on enormously different approaches to a range of problems. It’s also worth noting that our team — steeped as we are in this world — walked away genuinely inspired by the ventures’ determination to find unique and effective climate solutions.
Along the way, this selection process has stirred debate in our newsroom, challenged our beliefs, and made us all sit up to listen closely. Each venture offers compelling potential for returns — not just economic, but also environmental and societal.
We’d like to thank Danny Kennedy, CEO of New Energy Nexus, for his invaluable help in sourcing some of our candidates. This remarkable collection of experts owes much to his advice and network.
This is our strong belief: That a great entrepreneur offers the world a way to see potential and lays down the first flagstones on the path to a just and sustainable climate economy. After our conversations, we are convinced that each of these emerging leaders does exactly that.
We hope this group and the solutions they’re building spark new ideas that lead to bold action.
Responses have been edited for clarity and length.
Illustrations by Stefanie Wong