Will Water Finally Have It’s Moment In 2025?

In the 2025 Global Cleantech 100 a tipping point is seen emerging in this year’s Global Cleantech 100 companies

In the 2024 Global Cleantech 100, the 15th iteration of the report, Cleantech Group CEO Richard Youngman noted in his foreword that in the first edition of the report, there were nine water related companies on the list, and that number was never reached again.

In 2024, there were two, but the theme shows a glimmer of a return in 2025 with six companies on the list.

“Water continues to play a side role in overall cleantech investments, but we see tipping points #1 (supply economics) and #3 (resilience urgency) emerging in a noticeable way in this year’s Global Cleantech 100 companies,” Youngman said.

Water-intensive industrial operations (food and beverage, mining, chemicals production) are increasingly in the market for technologies that can reduce both exposure to water scarcity challenges and energy use.

Moreover, the effort to onshore production of sensitive industries, primarily semiconductors, will require strategic planning around water reliance in new facilities.

Two new takes on the reverse osmosis process through unique membrane formulations have landed on this year’s Global Cleantech 100 list: AquaMembranes and ZwitterCo.

Youngman points to a corporate urgency here noting that Micron was an investor in Aqua Membranes and BHP and Munich Re Ventures were investors in ZwitterCo.

Centralized wastewater treatment is viewed as a venue of demand opportunity, as well. This year’s Global Cleantech 100 list boasts a mini value chain of wastewater treatment technologies:

Moleaer uses nanobubble aeration techniques to flatten energy demand in aeration processes and reduce the need for chemicals to reduce residue.

Aclarity has developed a novel electrochemical approach to PFAS destruction.

Indra Water is decentralizing the electrochemical treatment approach and bringing modular treatment units to site-of-use, while also leveraging internally developed automation and analytics for OPEX reduction

Pani Energy is bringing AI to wastewater treatment and desalination plants through granular sensing and diagnostics to prescribe surgical chemical inputs and membrane maintenance.

Viewing the AI-enabled piece in tech as a hot investment for 2025, Youngman says, “Keep an eye on the AI-enabled elements of adaptation and resilience tech – the forward-looking nature of most adaptation tech lends itself to taking value from predictive measures and command-and-control. AI-enabled adaptation tech companies never dip below 20% of the adaptation mix.”