Can green innovation and protectionism work hand in hand?
Technology promises to help solve some of the biggest challenges we face as a society. Many would argue that there is none greater than climate change. From the devastating forest fires that destroyed whole neighbourhoods in LA in early 2025, to floods in Valencia, landslides in the Philippines, and droughts in southern Africa, a warming world is risking lives and fundamentally changing how we live.
There is plenty of innovation out there: new materials are replacing plastics, and robots are monitoring forest fires and ocean pollution. But how do we turn this wave of ingenuity into real change before it’s too late?
As global policymakers grapple with green policies, businesses look to reach carbon-neutral goals, and consumers attempt to live more sustainably, we ask what role technology can play in providing a solution to the crisis.
We spoke to Puja Balachander, a green tech founder and director of venture at Carbon13, which builds and accelerates businesses addressing the climate crisis.
TFD began by asking her what she thought would be the key technologies to effect change in the next decade.
For her, it is not so much about what those technologies are, but how easy and quickly they can be adopted.
“What makes a technology adoptable is by comparing it to the status quo of whatever industry they are disrupting and asking ‘how is this technology enabling the solution to be the same or cheaper than the status quo and can it be dropped into existing processes?’” she said.
Start small
She used the example of Fermtech, a start-up in the Carbon13 portfolio, which ferments spent grain to produce a sustainable cocoa alternative.
“It’s the same cost, if not cheaper, than current protein ingredients, and it’s exactly the same process to integrate it into formulations,” she said.
Another firm that went through their venture program has developed a robotic arm that can segregate different types of plastic in a cheaper way than traditional methods.
“It’s a super simple solution. The standard is to use a vacuum to suck up specific things, but the company found that using a robotic arm to mechanically grab waste is an inexpensive way of solving the problem.”
The biggest challenge for green tech start-ups is getting a foothold in markets, and she has some good tips for those attempting to shake up traditional industries in the next decade.
“Turning innovation into success in the next few years will be about approaching the right scale of player, at the right time,” she said. One of the key roles for investors will be helping green tech start-ups find what she called “that early beachhead market”; someone willing to “take a green premium, change some of their processes and get you to the point of validation so you can graduate to the next level.”
In the built environment, for example, there is what she describes as “an insane certification process”, a Kafkaesque nightmare for companies such as Carbon Cell, which has created a green alternative to polystyrene.
So, while the firm’s end goal is to use the material as an alternative to polystyrene in insulation panels, it has first looked to the packaging market to prove the material’s worth and kickstart a supply chain.
Another key tip for burgeoning green tech entrepreneurs is to start small.
“We had a company, called Cocoon Carbon, that takes steel slag and processes it into a cement-like material that can be used to decarbonise concrete. They had to prove that steel companies would send them their waste products. They started with a desktop prototype, so they just needed small samples of steel slag, and they messaged a bunch of manufacturers to get these samples and were able to show that they could do it at this super small scale.”
What makes a technology adoptable is by comparing it to the status quo of whatever industry they are disrupting and asking ‘how is this technology enabling the solution to be the same or cheaper than the status quo and can it be dropped into existing processes?
Can protectionism boost green tech?
She remains optimistic about how green tech companies can grow in the next decade, partly because there are now “more playbooks” on how to do it, and more venture capitalists will be looking to invest.
When it comes to government input, there is a lot of concern that President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate agreement, which aims to limit global temperature increase to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, could have major consequences in the US and beyond.
Balachander wonders if the pledge to rebuild American industry might end up favouring green policies, for instance, if the US decides to invest in battery factories in order to stimulate local manufacturing.
“Maybe there is something to be said for an overlap in green innovation and protectionist policies, and maybe that would actually work out in our favour,” she said.
And there is good reason for the US to do so.
One country that has been making huge strides in terms of green policy is China. According to the World Economic Forum, it has increased spending on green companies by nearly 70% from 2018-2013. It is building a new generation of energy infrastructure faster than anywhere else in the world, has put millions of EVs on the road, and is the world’s largest solar market by capacity.
It is also leading the world when it comes to battery tech, said Balachander.
“China is super-protectionist and has effectively subsidised building their battery supply chain before there was any demand for the end product. In the process, it created an incredibly cheap and profitable battery industry, and everyone has no choice but to use their supply chain because it’s so cost-competitive. US tariffs might be changing this, but the fact remains there are few viable alternatives that can meet the scale required.”
As well as investing in green infrastructure, it is also important that governments offer incentives to consumers, as the UK has done with electric vehicles and solar panels.
AI saviour?
So far into Trump’s administration, it has seemed that where the government leads, tech firms will follow, for instance, in abandoning DEI policies.
Balachander thinks that the US is less likely to pull back on sustainability, partly because of local manufacturing and clean jobs interest – many of the jobs and tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), for example, are in Republican states, but also because their biggest cash cow right now is AI.
AI has already proved the benefits it can bring to the climate crisis, from modelling weather patterns to improving the efficiency of the energy grid. However, it is a double-edged sword because the infrastructure needed to run AI is incredibly energy and resource-hungry.
“Big tech firms are going to need more of those data centres, and there’s not enough grid capacity, so they need it to be decentralised. It’s easier to do that with renewables.
Firms are not going to be pulling back on things that make business sense.”
In December, Google announced that it was partnering with a climate investor and a clean energy developer to build renewable power and storage co-located with data centres. There could be more such announcements in the coming years, she thinks.
AI has great potential to help society in the battle against climate change, but it will not be our sole saviour, thinks Balachander.
“Just as the internet wasn’t our saviour either. But every climate tech company needs to be using AI. It can speed things up pretty significantly in any situation where there are lots of variables in a complex system. As will quantum.”
Circular economy
The final piece of the puzzle, as we look to make real change in the coming decade, is consumers themselves.
In 2023, shocking pictures of a mountain of clothes in the Atacama desert, which had become visible from Space, went viral, perfectly illustrating how we need to change fast fashion and the throw-away culture and move to something more circular.
Again, Balachander is a pragmatist.
Alongside policies such as Europe’s Right to Repair bill, which will force manufacturers to provide spare parts for electronics and white goods, she thinks there will need to be lasting incentives for consumers to change their buying behaviours.
“You can’t just hope that consumers have a moral epiphany and are willing to do the inconvenient thing out of some higher sense of purpose. Almost no one has lasting behaviour change unless you’ve changed the incentives really significantly,” she said.
She is starting to see palpable change.
“Everyone I know buys on Depop or Vinted (online marketplaces for second-hand fashion) because you can get designer stuff cheaply. It’s not because people are trying to be super sustainable. I buy all my electronics second-hand because it is so much cheaper. And companies are seeing that and want a cut of the second-hand market, so they are starting to bring that into their supply chains.
“The less you put on consumers, and the more you just make it ‘the easy choice,’ that’s the way that behaviour change happens.”
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