Nine UK firms appear on Global Cleantech 100

Nine clean technology companies from the UK have been recognised in the fifth annual Global Cleantech 100 – a list that charts some of the most innovative players in the industry.

To qualify for the ranking, companies must be independent, for-profit, cleantech companies not listed on any major stock exchange. This year’s list drew from 5,864 nominated companies from 60 countries and Cleantech Group’s i3 market intelligence platform, which tracks deals from 22,000 cleantech companies annually.

This year’s 100 represent 16 different companies. The US dominates the list with 56 entrants. The UK came in a distant second, with Canada, Germany, and Israel tied in third place with five companies each.

The UK’s nine companies signify an increase from the last two years – when eight made it onto the list. Of these nine, only three were on last year’s list, with Amantys and Nujira the only UK firms to appear in the 100 in each of the last three years.

Steve Evans, vice-president of marketing at Amantys, told Blue & Green Tomorrow, “To be listed for the third consecutive year is a fantastic achievement, and testament to the hard work and dedication we’ve put into applying our technology to the clean tech space.

“At Amantys we see cleantech as a crucially important sector for UK engineering. In recent years, multinational companies such as Siemens, GE and Alstom have chosen the UK to site cleantech development operations, so despite the tough market environment there is a substantial vote of confidence in UK engineering talent.”

Meanwhile, Jeremy Hendy, vice-president of sales and marketing at Nujira added, “Nujira’s company-wide mission is to ensure that our innovations always provide tangible cleantech benefits. This is something that has now been recognised in the Global Cleantech report for the last three years, which is testament to our continued engineering excellence.” 

The composition of the leaderboard also reveals emerging trends in the cleantech sector. 

“We have 51 new entrants on this year’s list, reflecting the popularity of new cleantech subsectors among investors”, said Richard Youngman, Cleantech Group’s managing director in Europe and Asia, and an author of the Global Cleantech 100.

Energy efficiency is the biggest growing cleantech sector in this year’s report, with 27 companies on the list, up from 22 in 2012. Solar’s representation on the other hand has fallen again, down from 20 companies in 2011, nine companies in 2012 to six companies in 2013. 

Organica Water, a provider of Fixed-Bed Biofilm Activated Sludge (FBAS) wastewater treatment plants in urban and residential population centers, won the company of the year award for Europe at a gala at the Canadian embassy in Washington DC on Wednesday.

GM Ventures and VantagePoint Capital Partners won awards in the investor category, while Ambri, developer of an all-liquid metal battery technology for grid-scale energy, won an award for being the highest ranked new entrant.

In August, Ernst & Young’s Cleantech Industry Performance Report said that the cleantech sector has gone through a “challenging period” due to fiscal issues and the financial crisis, but was showing signs of recovery thanks to demand in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ernst & Young’s global cleantech leader Gil Forer added, “The cleantech sector globally has shifted to growth. Resource scarcity, energy security concerns, population growth and increasing consumption, by expanding middle classes in emerging markets, will continue to drive this cleantech market growth.”

Further reading:

UK is fourth most attractive country for renewable energy investment

Global cleantech industry worth $170bn after growing 18% in 12 months

Clean technology investment ‘reenergised’ after Obama climate speech

Eight UK firms make it onto 2012 Global Cleantech 100 ranking