We have talked about green technology many times before, but something we haven’t really talked about is what green technology actually is. Now we want to remedy this, by showing you all of the possibilities inside the term ‘green technology’.
What is green technology?
First of all, green technology is known by many other names. One of the most common is green-tech, which is simply shorthand, but it also has different names depending on the type of technology, such as – clean technology (clean-tech), ecological technology (eco-tech), environmental tech or climate-tech.
These different names all serve one overarching purpose – To create a technology which protects the environment and repairs the damage we have done to it. Effectively, it means that these technologies improve operational performance and efficiency, and reduces all unnecessary costs.
The wellbeing of nature is at the very core of green-tech. The result of the integration of such disruptive technologies should lead to the development of a low carbon economy, one that is both environmentally friendly and which improves peoples’ health.
But reaching these goals is not always so easy. Even though the benefits are clear – green-tech makes many things better, healthier and cleaner – there has to be an overarching value with this technology – economical profitability.
Profitability is an important feature mainly because of funding from investors. This funding is what serves for further research and development. Any invested capital is very important for green-tech startups, as they are one of the most expensive to scale and often need more time to develop.
The future in connection with nature
This technology started trending in the 1990s and then was hit hard during 2006 – 2011. Many venture capitalists and investors had invested over $25 B into green-tech startups, with more than half of that capital being lost.
Luckily for us, the popularity of green technology didn’t stay down for long, and is right now experiencing its golden age – in fact green-tech is now the 3rd largest VC investment sector behind IT and biotech.
Maybe one day we will reach a new concept where all of humanity will work around green technology. Imagine our potential future cities.
In the future, we believe that the job market within the green-tech sector could be amongst the biggest in the world, providing income for families while having a positive effect on the planet. This will be particularly important in developing countries.
Green technology could be integrated into almost all of our basic operations, such as:
- Water production & waste water treatment
- Elimination of greenhouse gas emissions
- Recycling & waste management
- Self-sufficient and net-zero buildings
- Circular economy – From the waste to the source
- Renewable energy and its’ efficiency
- Clean vehicles powered by renewable sources (electricity, hydrogen)
- Bio-quality, local food, which we can produce in our urban and alternative proteins
Just imagine a morning in such a city.
In the morning, you wake up and take a shower with self-made water from your hydropanels. You make your breakfast with local and ecological food, while using renewable energy to power appliances. When you leave your house, you are hit by unbelievably fresh air because all of the emissions are being captured right from the source. Then you start your EV or hydrogen-powered car and go to work and take the trash with you which can be recycled and reused as a resource.
Sources
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/green_tech.asp
https://www.greentechnologyinfo.com/what-is-green-technology-green-technology-info/
https://usgreentechnology.com/green-technology/
https://www.tecamgroup.com/10-examples-of-green-technology/
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cleantech.asp
http://www.cleantech.org/what-is-cleantech/
https://www.valuer.ai/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-cleantech
