Cleantech Group this month announced the release of its annual Cleantech 50 to Watch list, which each year spotlights early-stage companies poised to deliver breakthrough solutions relating to climate and sustainability challenges.
The global list of 50 companies spans 15 countries, including Canada.
“As we’ve seen throughout 2025, innovation doesn’t stand still,” commented Anthony DeOrsey, Research Manager at Cleantech Group.
“These 50 companies represent where the market is heading next—increasing sophistication of AI, new frontiers in resource resilience, and breakthrough solutions in consumer goods sustainability,” DeOrsey remarked.
“Their work shows us not just what’s possible, but what’s urgently needed,” he said.
In Canada, 2025 honourees include Dispersa, Lite-1, and CarbonRun.
Founded in Quebec in 2019, Laval’s Dispersa develops biodegradable bio-surfactants through a food waste fermentation process with industrial applications.
Meanwhile Lite-1, established in Vancouver in 2021, is on a mission to replace synthetic dyes with regenerative pigments that eliminate the need for mining and harmful chemicals.
Notably, the B.C. startup was this year the winner of Web Summit Vancouver’s first-ever PITCH competition.
And Halifax-based Scaleup Venture of the Year CarbonRun was recognized for its river-based carbon removal strategy, which restores salmon habitats while sequestering carbon.
“We congratulate all 50 companies recognized this year,” said DeOrsey. “Their progress shows that the path to a low-carbon, resource-efficient future is not only alive but accelerating in unexpected and exciting ways.”
At the beginning of the year, Cleantech Group also introduced a “Grow, Flow, Slow” framework to identify which technologies are likely to accelerate, advance steadily, or encounter significant headwinds.
Updated throughout the year, this new framework continues to highlight the dynamic forces shaping cleantech markets.
Currently, Grow categories include energy-efficient compute, sources of clean baseload power, and technologies for lower footprint critical minerals access.
Flow areas, meanwhile, include sustainable aviation fuels, green steel, and distributed ammonia fertilizers—sectors moving forward but with important nuances.
And Slow areas, such as alternative proteins and some hydrogen applications, face structural and market headwinds requiring new strategies to scale.
Canadian companies on the 2024 Cleantech 50 list included Ayrton Energy and Litus from Calgary, Nxlite and ThinkLabs AI from Toronto, TerraFixing from Ottawa, and Tersa Earth from Vancouver.