What is Greentech? 7 startups to Watch in 2022

Following COP26, world leaders will work together “to turbo-charge the uptake of clean technologies”, by imposing worldwide standards and policies. An important outcome for COP26 was to encourage private investment in low-carbon technologies. It’s hoped that the development of green technology will help draw in trillions of pounds in private finance for cutting emissions in the coming years.

The growing demand for climate action and the important role that technology will play makes Greentech a key part of the world’s response to climate change. Greentech has a role to play across all sectors, including important carbon-producing sectors like steel, road transport, agriculture, hydrogen, and electricity.

As a forward-looking and conscientious company, we don’t just care about a company’s journey through to growth, we also care about the future of the planet. So, let's take a look at the Greentech startups to watch in 2022.

First thing's first, what is Greentech?

The term “Greentech” refers to all environmentally friendly technology that doesn’t disturb or destroy the environment. As our planet’s natural resources are either used up or the environmental cost of extracting them becomes too high, the introduction of Greentech offers us all a hopeful vision for the future.

Greentech is not limited to certain sectors or existing technologies. Rather, it loosely describes all technologies that innovate or adapt our infrastructure, hardware and habits to help protect the climate.

Now we've got that covered, let's go through our top picks for Greentech companies to watch in 2022.

1. Magway

The Covid-19 pandemic was responsible for a shift away from the high street and an acceleration of the take up of online shopping. Every order placed online has an impressive journey to complete. It makes its way from the place of manufacture to a warehouse (carbon emissions), it’s then stored, packed and sorted (more carbon emissions) before making its way onto a logistics solution and delivery (and, you guessed it, another dose of carbon emissions).

Magway aims to reduce carbon emissions and pollution whilst creating an improved and more efficient logistics infrastructure.

In reality, the vision of Magway is to create a network of tunnels that can host vehicles powered by magnetic motors. This solution will take goods between logistical hubs using tunnels located overground, underground and suspended mid-air. This method could be used to transport and manage everything from groceries to general merchandise.

The potential environmental benefits are enormous, on the scale of millions of tons of CO2 being eliminated from the atmosphere, not to mention the associated efficiencies created for the road network by removing vehicles and the improvement in air quality.

Magway has attracted investment from the UK government, institutional investors and crowdfunding as it develops and rolls out proof of concept.

The scalability of this Greentech makes it a truly exciting one to watch. Whether utilised locally around a warehousing complex or integrated into a regional hub such as an airport, there's one thing that's certain, Magway has an exciting future.

2. Oxwash

Oxwash was founded with one thing in mind, to disrupt the established laundry industry and put an end to the environmentally damaging practises of its competitors.

The winner of a global best practice award in 2020, Oxwash is the world’s first sustainable laundry company. Sustainability runs through the DNA of this startup, and everything from the pick-up to drop-off is cleverly engineered to be climate-friendly.

• Collection/Delivery: E-Cargo bikes used (zero emissions) saving 6.7 tonnes of CO2 per bike, per year!
• Preparation: Biodegradable detergents with no toxic or harmful chemicals used. Precisely calculated based on weight, preventing excess chemicals from being used and wasted.
• Washing: Solar panels and renewable energy power the washing machines. Each machine recycles the wash water saving 32 litres on average per 8kg load.

This new approach to an industry renowned for high volumes and waste proves that sustainability is achievable in any marketplace and meaningful differences to the climate can be made in unlikely places.

By re-engineering the processes and technology used by the sector, Oxwash not only reduces emissions, waste and the release of harmful chemicals, it also prevents 95% of damaging plastic microfibres from entering our oceans.

Now present in three locations across the UK, this promising Greentech startup is attracting plenty of investment and you can expect them to expand across the UK and beyond in 2022.

3. Ripple

Ripple is an energy startup, re-imagining the way consumers think about energy suppliers and offering a unique way for people to purchase electricity. Providing ownership opportunities on inshore windfarms allows customers to join a co-op and benefit from energy savings.

Ripple’s mission is to “make clean energy ownership affordable and accessible for everyone, everywhere”. Here’s how it works:

• Ripple helps you understand your energy usage and needs.
• Ripple provide a quote based on your energy needs and how much of their wind farm you’d like to use.
• You then buy part of the wind farm and become a co-op member.
• Partner suppliers then deliver electricity to your home through the national grid, allowing you to benefit from special tariffs.
• You have the ability to switch suppliers throughout the life of the wind farm.

As the economies of the world move towards a zero-carbon future, solutions such as this one provide a new and unique way of supplying electricity to customers. Financing renewable energy and other green infrastructure projects is often difficult and complex. This method allows consumers to become owners, essentially financing their own energy supply and then benefitting from savings.

Ripple has an advantage in that it can pitch projects of different sizes to suit a range of retail investors. By not being limited to the demands of large institutional investors they can be more dynamic and inventive in the projects they pursue.

Ripple has oversold its initial project, which comes online in December 2021, so you can bet on further projects being announced in 2022, and we can't wait to see what's in store!

4. Sylvera

COP26 has highlighted the growing demand for action by citizens. This demand is not only placed on countries, but also the private sector.

Sylvera is in the business of carbon offsets. The term “carbon offset” broadly refers to an overall reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, (or an increase in carbon storage through land restoration or the planting of trees), this net reduction is used to compensate for emissions that occur elsewhere.

What makes Sylvera an exciting Greentech startup is that they are a rating provider for carbon offset companies. The first rating provider in the world.

Providing third party and reliable data on performance, permeance, co-benefits and risk allows Sylvera to score projects and give customers the ability to make an informed (and responsible) choice.

Being independent of carbon offset sales, Sylvera offers reliable and transparent data without conflicts of interest arising.

They have utilised the latest technology to provide thorough and regular data on a project’s performance. Previously, monitoring has relied on performing manual assessments on small sample areas of a project. Sylvera differentiates itself by gathering geospatial data that spans entire projects and is able to assess performance with increased confidence. Data can be captured and updated as frequently as satellites pass over a project site, ensuring ratings are up to date and relevant.

As we accelerate towards net zero economies, carbon offsets and tradeable carbon credits will become ever more important, especially to industries that will need to prove their climate credentials to ever more climate-conscious customers. In this space, Sylvera is well placed to give buyers the necessary assurances they need to transact carbon offsets with confidence.

5. Tred

Tred is a UK based fintech startup with some serious green credentials. They offer a “green debit card that helps you save the planet”.

The card itself is made from recycled plastic and its delivery to your home is offset by Tred. They also offer a virtual-only card (available on your smartphone) making it so green it doesn’t physically exist!

Your spending activity is used by Tred to calculate (and visualise) the carbon footprint associated with it. This gives you an accurate and personalised account of how your behaviours impact the environment, giving you a new and unique layer of insight.

Not only that but each time you use your card money is given to reforestation projects based around the world.

These features alongside the traditional debit card offer and user-friendly app to help you control your spending and manage your debit card make Tred an irresistible offer for environmentally conscious individuals.

This is a disruptive moment for fintech and the result could be sector-wide adoption of these features. COP26 was a watershed moment for the planet, but far from issues being solved, the planet is finding its resolve tested and its focus sharpened as we all look to adapt to and adopt a sustainable but successful economy. Tred is at the forefront of a Greentech approach to personal finance, expect big things in this space through 2022 and beyond.

6. Treepoints

Treepoints is a subscription service that aims to make it easier for businesses and individuals to take positive climate action.

Treepoints stated mission is “to help individuals and businesses understand their impact on the environment and then do something about it”.

They make it easy (and affordable) for people to have positive impacts on the environment by offsetting carbon and supporting green projects all around the world.

Treepoints helps you to understand and manage your carbon footprint and allows you to contribute to the fight against climate change.

Using the emissions calculator, you can account for your carbon footprint and see the impact of your activities on the environment. The calculator is powered by data from the World Bank, WWF and University College Berkeley, giving confidence to its accuracy.

The next step is to sign up and subscribe, with monthly payments helping to support quality climate projects at the forefront of climate change, helping to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases, carrying out plastic recycling initiatives and assisting tree planting programmes.

The overall impact that your subscription has can be tracked and viewed. In addition, you can earn exclusive rewards from the (eco-friendly) partnerships that Treepoints benefits from.

As personal and corporate climate responsibility becomes ever more important, watch this space for big things from Treepoints in 2022.

7. Recycleye

For a company whose Greentech credentials come from it assisting in the processing of recycling, it has a suitable mission statement: “to use 21’st century technology to solve the most rubbish problem of the century”.

Recycleye uses cutting edge technology capable of detecting and classifying waste items as they pass by on a waste stream conveyor belt. The data and software behind the technology allow the waste to be classified by material, object and brand.

In the UK, a large proportion of waste is still burned rather than recycled and this means there is a huge opportunity to capture these materials and re-purpose them.

Using the largest dataset in the world, created by using artificial intelligence and deep learning, Recycleye’s vision hardware is able to revolutionise current waste infrastructure.

Traditionally, waste sorting is done by hand, making it unreliable, dangerous and prone to error, often making material recovery facilities inefficient. Recycleye aims to remove the need for manual intervention and provide sophisticated and highly reliable robotic systems that ensure the recycling centres of the future are able to recover as much material as possible.

As Recycleye continue to develop and refine their technology and integrate it into recovery centres, the scope to scale up and expand into different markets means 2022 could be an exciting year in the world of rubbish.

Summary

The UK hosts some innovative and dynamic green technology startups that have the potential to make truly meaningful changes in the fight against climate change. The public appetite for climate action means that all established industries are now vulnerable to new players successfully disrupting them with pioneering Green technology.

It’s a positive sign that markets as diverse as energy and laundry are being approached by entrepreneurs in a climate-conscious and responsible way.

There are real opportunities following COP26 to ensure the growing demand for climate action is encapsulated into all aspects of our economy and the climate is placed at the forefront of business strategy and investment.

An important part of this new approach will undoubtedly be carbon offsetting and startups like Treepoints and Sylvera have a huge role to play in building confidence and engagement in this market.

2022 and beyond will be exciting in terms of the development and adoption of green technology, these companies, and others will be leading the way.

Hi, we’re Accountancy Cloud

Navigating the markets with a fast-growing startup can be a difficult and unpredictable journey. Especially if you’re balancing the disparate priorities of profits, growth and climate responsibility. Having a strong ethos and clear mission statement is admirable and can make business strategy decisions easier. But often the expertise of external professionals will be a valuable resource with the benefit of previous market knowledge and experience.

In order to maximise the value that green technology founders can achieve, they need to be able to focus on key elements of the business, ensuring startups are best placed to grow, leverage opportunities and mitigate risks. Allowing startups to be dynamic and have the available resources to do as much good as possible.

It is important to remember that when you’re involved in driving a startup through its growth phase, you need to understand the market, consumers and apply a strategy while still being able to react to new economic conditions should they arise.

In other words, there’s a lot to think about and plan for.

This is especially true in a post COP26 world where environmental regulation and other constraints are likely to change quickly, urged on by public unrelenting pressure and resistance to lobbying from incumbent businesses.

At the beginning of the exciting journey of a green technology startup, it’s important to make the right decisions and get the right support. Here at Accountancy Cloud, we support fast-growing technology companies with both finance and accounting solutions. We’ve helped entrepreneurs and founders achieve their growth targets and we support them from the early stages all the way through the growth cycle, up to achieving a successful exit.

We understand and value both corporate and climate responsibility and are passionate about supporting you to meet your goals, whether that’s on the balance sheet or in the atmosphere.

The experienced and dedicated finance professionals on our team assist technology businesses; helping them to provide information to CEOs and founders needed to understand challenges and make timely strategic decisions.

We offer startups a market-leading full-stack finance function. Giving access to management information and reporting tools through our intuitive and simple dashboard that provides live data. We don’t just provide software, but a combination of intuitive technology with dedicated financial experts specialising in tax, payroll and much more, giving you and your decision-makers the time to focus on more critical aspects of your operation.

Here at Accountancy Cloud, we’ve helped businesses to achieve exits to likes of Facebook, Coinbase, and Just Eat amongst others. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you meet your goals for 2022 and beyond.