Here’s how our climate team picked 10 promising companies to watch

As the team at MIT Technology Review set out to choose companies for this year’s edition of our annual list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch, the challenge felt more daunting than any year since we started compiling the list in 2023. This year is shaping up to be one of the hottest ever recorded. The world must begin to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to address the climate crisis, which is already affecting communities around the globe.

Wildfires, floods, and other climate-fueled disasters are killing thousands and costing billions of dollars. At the same time, political shifts and international conflict have stalled progress, particularly in the US. Technology alone can’t solve climate change.

But we believe innovations can help us make real changes and improve lives around the world as we try to address one of the most pressing challenges of our time. In this project, we look for companies developing technologies that can help us face the climate crisis. Some are driving down the greenhouse-gas emissions fueling climate change; others are working to reduce the dangers that communities face from extreme heat, drought, or other shifts brought on by a warming planet.

We focus on companies that have established a track record, whether through research findings, capital raised, or deployments. When we set out to build our list, we start by soliciting nominations from our team of reporters and editors. We ask experts for suggestions and reach out to academics, researchers, investors, and analysts.

Once we have a pool of nominees, we then consider each one, digging through literature, reports, and patents to vet both the technology and the business. We judge each company not only on its own merits, but also on how it might fit into our list overall. We want the final slate of companies to represent a range of industries and include firms based around the globe that are at different stages of development.

We also aim to strike a balance between highlighting companies previously included and introducing new names. Finally, we consider some of the most important trends and events of the year and look for nominees that reflect those developments. The dismembering of US federal regulations and cuts to financial government incentives for innovation means that the country is no longer a leader in climate tech.