Today, the world faces a challenge that looks increasingly insurmountable. The COP26 target to limit global warming to 1.5 C appears under threat—2023 is likely to become a record-breaking year for global temperatures.
Within this context, movements towards a greener economy, incorporating more sustainable commercial practices that promote business as a force for positive social impact, are gathering pace.
Cleantech is among the most prominent of these movements. Encompassing a variety of industries, functions, and technologies, cleantech is an innovation-led field aimed at solving the world’s key decarbonization challenges.
“Cleantech is a very broad technological field as it cuts across disciplines and industries, and concerns everything from cutting down consumption, circular solutions, changing production methods, and the use or production of energy,” explains Stine Haakonsson, associate professor at Copenhagen Business School.
Growing ever more important each year, in 2022 the Global Cleantech 100 top companies raised $6.7 billion. The industry is also becoming a burgeoning area of opportunity for business school graduates.
Cleantech: Cross-industry solutions for global problems
With the climate crisis an existential threat felt across all business sectors, cleantech is therefore a term used to define a range of cross-functional and cross-sector solutions.
Among the leading companies within the sector, you’ll find those specializing in agriculture, energy, materials, and transportation and logistics. That’s alongside those working on developing technologies to enable change.
Often reliant on collaboration, active participants within cleantech extend beyond just companies, with public organizations and academic institutions also part of a wider ecosystem that’s key to finding solutions.
“Most of the radical solutions are to be made in such cross-sectoral and cross-industrial collaborations,” explains Stine (pictured).
A focus on solutions means companies operating in the cleantech space typically emphasize innovation. Many of the key players are small, agile, less established firms.
“It’s a space where we see a lot of innovation with a lot of smaller, thriving companies,” explains Andreas Rasche, professor of Business in Society at the CBS Centre for Sustainability and associate dean for the CBS Full-Time MBA.
Though, he adds, large multinationals share the same issues and are increasingly focusing on business model shifts to achieve a more sustainable future.
There are 19 countries among the Global Cleantech 100, however the US leads the way with the most firms in the list, while Canada follows behind. Their prominence is due to the large amounts of venture capital funding they have available for cleantech startups.
Countries with a strong tradition of sustainability are also prominent within the sector, including the likes of The Netherlands, Denmark, and Finland.
What career opportunities are available in cleantech?
Increasing prominence means each year cleantech is attracting MBA graduates looking for impactful careers where they can turn their talents towards benefiting the planet, as well as their paycheck.
In 2022, energy and cleantech were among the most popular industries for graduates from the Copenhagen Business School Full-time MBA.
“It’s an area with lots of opportunities for business school students, in particular those students that want to combine entrepreneurship with sustainability,” explains Andreas (pictured).
With such a vast range of areas comprising the field, students can launch cleantech careers across multiple sectors and functions.
Focus on renewable solutions means that students can land opportunities with specialist firms that produce solar or wind solutions, for example. Likewise, circular goods companies that aim to eliminate waste through the reuse, refurbishment, recycling, or remanufacture of goods can provide job opportunities.
Larger firms often house teams that focus on intrapreneurial solutions to achieve their sustainability goals, this can be a source of opportunities for grads who’d prefer to work for a more established company.
The global sustainability shift means opportunities in the cleantech space are likely to increase moving forward. Regulatory pressure is forcing companies’ hands when it comes to sustainable practices. As the price of sustainable solutions falls, it’s also becoming a significant area where companies can gain a competitive advantage.
With such a wealth of options, choosing the type of company to work for is a fundamental question grads should ask themselves, thinks Andreas.
“Are you more of a startup person who can deal with a lot of uncertainties and changes? Or are you more of a person who integrates well into existing hierarchies, who can accept that things move a little slower?”
How to launch a career in cleantech?
So, what’s required to successfully embark on a career in the cleantech sector? Cleantech poses a significantly different path to other MBA sectors such as finance, where opportunities are concentrated among established companies and innovation is less of a priority.
MBA grads who are agile, have a growth mindset, and are comfortable with managing change have good prospects within the sector. A strong understanding of the fundamentals of business will also help grads enact the changes at a business model level that companies require.
Those with resilience and leadership skills have a strong chance of success, explains Andreas: “It’s not a normal job, where you just manage something quite steadily—you have lots of ups and downs. This, of course, requires a certain degree of self-management.”
As a fundamental challenge that touches on global, political, economic, and social issues, knowledge of the broader context surrounding sustainability is perhaps the most important requirement for students aiming to enter cleantech, he adds.
Those who can adopt these various elements will be able to embark on a career path that not only houses many opportunities for professional growth, but also the sense of personal achievement that comes with making a positive impact.