The World Wildlife Foundation and The Cleantech Group (CTG), described as helping “clients accelerate sustainable innovation,” named Israel the top cleantech innovator in a press release Tuesday.
Israel secured the top spot for its ‘high-impact cleantech start-ups’, strong venture capital activity and government support. The report points out: “Israel has increased its supportive government policies and has early stage cleantech-oriented funds as well as substantial M&A activity, even while cleantech company revenues remain low.”
Israel, Finland & US top global clean tech innovation index http://t.co/6ypR6LQaA6 See who's leading #CleanRevolution pic.twitter.com/OitqQAK7Yt
— The Climate Group (@ClimateGroup) July 1, 2014
The annual report, compiled by the Cleantech Group and World Wildlife Foundation, compiled data on 40 countries reflecting their level of innovation, government support and infrastructure, and existing cleantech companies in fields such as alternative or renewable energy, water technology and other environmental technology. …
Yet while Israel’s overall score put it on top, other countries bested it in the individual categories. Israel pulled ahead with a particularly strong score on its Emerging Cleantech Innovation score: 8.92. Only three other countries scored above a five on the measure, which included data on early-stage investment, high impact companies and environmental patents. Most scored between zero and two.
Israel edged out Finland and the United States to achieve the top spot.
Israel’s Trade and Economic Office provided context for this achievement:
Filtering through 40 countries to compare clean-tech business creation and scale-up data, the report reveals Israel comes out on top, thanks to its high rate of clean tech performance and innovation, which is all produced from a resource-constrained geography.
Identifying the planet’s emerging clean tech leaders today is critical. The report stresses yearly project finance investment in renewables around the world is forecast to hit US$400-500 billion by 2020, with market size projected to rival the oil and gas equipment market by 2015, at US$330-$390 billion.
Israel’s leadership in water technology is one factor in the cleantech rankings. Israeli innovations have benefited other nations in improving agricultural yields. A few months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a technology cooperation agreement with California Governor Jerry Brown, which would help the latter deal with the state’s drought conditions. A number of other states benefit from Israeli technology in monitoring water quality and making the most their water resources. Another Israeli company has developed a process to create fuel from excess industrial heat.
[Photo: IsraelNewTech / YouTube ]