Ahead of COP26, PLANETech – a joint initiative of Vincent Tchenguiz’s Consensus Business Group and the Israel Innovation Institute – has published a landmark climate report in collaboration with Israeli government agency, the Israel Innovation Authority.
The report, entitled ‘Israel’s State of Climate Tech 2021’, marks the first time Israel’s growing climate tech landscape has been mapped – and reveals the country’s current and future potential to contribute to addressing global challenges caused by the climate crisis.
Commenting on the report, Vincent Tchenguiz, Chairman of Consensus Business Group, said: “I am keen to form networks between Israel, the UK and the rest of the world to create opportunities for knowledge sharing, funding, partnerships and deployment at the scale required to protect our planet. Israel is at the forefront of climate tech innovation and PLANETech is helping promote the next generation of climate technology businesses. Much has been published about what is required to achieve the Paris Agreement goals, but what is certain is the need for wider collaboration. There are many R&D centres of Fortune 500 enterprises in Israel, which are aiming to utilise technology to lower their emissions and reach net zero targets. I hope that this report provides insight for other nations seeking to develop their own climate tech sector.”
Key Findings:
- Around 10% of high-tech start-ups founded in Israel in 2020 operate in the climate tech sector
- The country is rapidly becoming a world leader in precision agriculture, lab-grown meat, irrigation systems, water desalination and other climate technologies
- There are 1,200 start-up and growth companies in Israel developing climate technologies in the following five challenge areas: Climate Smart Agriculture, Clean Energy Systems, Sustainable Mobility & Transport, Eco-Efficient Water Infrastructure, and Alternative Proteins
- The majority of these innovative companies are less than seven years old and the fastest growing start-ups operate in the fields of Alternative Proteins and Green Construction
- Locally developed and adopted technologies are already responsible for emission reductions around the world which may be greater than the emissions Israel itself generates
- Broad deployment of existing technologies, as well as scale up and adoption of early stage technologies, have the potential to reduce global emissions by about two thirds
- Climate tech start-ups in Israel have attracted a total of USD 2.97 billion of investment between 2018 and 2020
- Total investments in the first half of 2021 amounted to nearly 40 percent more than total investments in the three previous years
- However, the main challenge for the start-ups’ growth is access to capital, regulatory hurdles, and the difficulties of market scale up opportunities – most of the largest global climate tech funds do not invest in Israel
- A comparison between the success rate for Israeli green deal submissions with that for all Horizon programs indicates that Israel is far from realising its global potential in Europe’s largest climate funding programme
- There is an increasing commitment from government regulators to engage the varied stakeholders in the ecosystem and show leadership by adopting an overall vision for a carbon neutral Israel
- A strong governmental mindset and leadership are instrumental in creating strong momentum and transforming Israel into a global leader in climate tech innovation
- Israel’s success driven start-up and growing companies, ground-breaking academic research, knowledge and expertise of R&D centres, and the umbrella of a supporting government, are contributing to the country’s position as a global tech powerhouse
- Israeli technology has historically been key in addressing a variety of global challenges
- For example, Israeli cyber security companies are at the forefront of companies fighting cyber terrors around the world
- 41% of global cyber funding is invested in Israeli companies and one in every three cyber unicorns in the world is Israeli
- There is a unique opportunity for the 7,000 existing start-ups, specifically in the AI industry to pivot into solving global climate change challenges