Chapter 08 · Finance, data & evidenceData, Technology & Verification Systems
Clean technology
Definition
Products, services and processes that reduce negative environmental impacts through improved energy efficiency, sustainable resource use or environmental protection. Cleantech spans energy generation and storage, transport, water and wastewater, materials, manufacturing, agriculture, and recycling and waste; the term doubles as the name of the venture investment category built around these sectors.
References
Definition (reduce waste, improve resource efficiency, minimise pollution); sector breadth; history from late-1990s energy focus.
Term's popularisation (Cleantech Venture Network, 2002); eleven-segment taxonomy; asset-class framing; distinction from greentech.
Overview
What it means
"Cleantech" was popularised by the Cleantech Venture Network (founded 2002) as venture capital moved into environmental technologies after the dot-com bust, differentiating itself from earlier "end-of-pipe" greentech by emphasising competitive returns alongside ecological benefit.
The label deliberately fuses technology and finance: cleantech indices, funds and taxonomies classify companies into segments from solar to smart agriculture. A newer subset, "climate tech", narrows focus to emissions mitigation and removal. The definitional looseness is itself notable — no authoritative taxonomy fixes the boundary, so the term functions more as a market category than a technical classification.
How it is used
Investors classify funds and companies as cleantech; governments run cleantech industrial strategies and export promotion; corporate venture arms screen for cleantech deals; statistics track cleantech investment cycles (boom, bust, resurgence).
Why it matters
Cleantech is the vocabulary in which capital meets environmental technology — a market category that has channelled hundreds of billions into the transition's hardware.