Across the world, women and girls remain disproportionately affected by the negative impacts of climate change. While it remains a global phenomenon that impacts everyone on the planet to some degree, female health, education and economic opportunities are all hit harder than those pertaining to men.
Despite this heavier burden, women are also frequently left out of the climate conversation, with fewer opportunities to contribute their views, perspectives, resources and talents towards finding equitable solutions for this collective crisis. A recent UN Gender Composition Report found that across the top-level climate decision-making, negotiations, advice and technical bodies, women’s voices are rarely given equal representation.
Fortunately, the tide is turning. As emerging technologies and new business practices are integrated into the global economy, they are opening more avenues for female participation in combatting climate change. Nowhere is this change on display more tangibly than in the tech-based startup scene, where women innovators, entrepreneurs and business leaders are making their presence felt.
Why are women integral to the Climate Startup Scene?
After a long history of male domination, female voices, leadership, ideas and investments are entering the broader global startup ecosystem, particularly regarding climate-facing solutions. Female leadership is essential here because emerging research suggests that companies run by women not only generate more revenue but also invest more in R&D, while creating more inclusive and engaged workforces.
At a point in history where time is of the essence to forge more equitable and sustainable solutions to the interconnected parts of the climate crisis, this kind of innovative, inclusive leadership is vital to secure better results, faster.
As well as tangible results in the field, female leadership and inclusion at every level of the climate discission also makes a crucial difference when we’re talking about money – the lubricant of all progress on addressing climate change. By 2026, private equity firms will control an estimated $11 trillion in managed assets, meaning that they hold the key to supporting or stymying the world’s transition to a truly sustainable economy.
Female leadership is an essential part of the equation here. Not only do female success stories inspire other women to venture into entrepreneurship and innovation-based fields, they also perpetuate an investment cycle into more sustainable assets and outcomes. Female-led venture capitalist firms are more likely to invest in lower-polluting sectors and enterprises, and they are more likely to invest in other female-led organisations. Sustainable Ventures, a European climate tech hub, has almost a quarter of its capital (23%) invested in all-female founding teams, a full 12 times more than the industry average of just 1.8%.
When women reach leadership positions in financial institutions and in tech-led enterprises, they are more likely to support other ventures looking for similar outcomes. Their success reinforces that of others, while opening doors for new market entrants, further accelerating the spread of sustainable innovations and capital flows.
CLIX and CLIXai – All-Female Innovation on Display
At the upcoming World Future Energy Summit, technological solutions are a central theme for a platform dedicated to supporting faster action and better results on combatting climate change. The Climate Innovation Exchange (CLIX) has a history of promoting industry-changing ideas and promoting increased investment flows to the visionary leaders that make them a reality.
For the 2025 summit, hosted by Masdar and part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, CLIX and its new sister initiative that focuses on AI (CLIXai) will only feature startups that are female-focused, founded, or operated. This was a deliberate decision on the part of the World Future Energy Summit in response to the ongoing gender disparity that remains apparent in the climate conversation globally, regionally and in specific nations, even those aiming to lead the charge on inclusive climate progress.
The following mini summaries give a flavour of the breadth, depth and potential impact of these startups, while highlighting the importance of greater female participation in the climate tech scene as well as its financing and political backing.
CLIX
Startup Name: Aquaai
Product/Innovation Name: Fishlike Platform
HQ: United States of America
Representative at CLIX: Liane Thompson, CEO
Summary: Inspired by real-life marine biology, Aquaai’s Fishlike Platform mimics the behaviour of real fish to monitor and assess aquatic ecosystems. Providing real-time data that is essential for environmental conservation and aquaculture management, this is a game-changing solution in the ongoing fight to conserve and restore our seas and oceans. The solution is fully autonomous and 3D-printed, further enhancing its safety and sustainability credentials.
Startup Name: Nuwiel
Product/Innovation Name: E-Trailer
HQ: Germany
Representative at CLIX: Natalia Tomiyama, CEO
Summary: The NÜWIEL E-Trailer is the first bicycle trailer with electric drive and zero-force sensor technology that makes it possible for anyone to move heavy weights in a sustainable, safe and effort-free way. Deployed with clients in the postal and retail industries, the trailer represents CO2 emissions reductions of 97% and operational saving costs of 50%, compared to traditional methodologies.
Startup Name: N&E Innovations
Product/Innovation Name: Vikang99 antimicrobial agent
HQ: South Korea, Singapore
Representative at CLIX: Didi Gan MD
Summary: This potent antimicrobial agent can turn food waste from a harmful source of emissions to a valuable and reusable product. Vikang99, itself derived from the food waste, uses a non-toxic, chemical-free formula that can eliminate bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other substances. Essentially, this makes it a 100% natural antimicrobial compound that is already being used in disinfectants, masks, sustainable food packaging and other products, making them more sustainable while improving their safety.
CLIXai
Startup Name: Seabex
Product/Innovation Name: Seabex SAS
HQ: France
Representative at CLIXai: Amira Cheniour, Co-founder & General Manager
Summary: Seabex is an AgriTech company revolutionising irrigation management through its AI-powered, sensorless platform that provides precise water usage recommendations for farmers, alleviating water waste and operational costs.
The Seabex SAS has a proven track record of reducing water consumption by 30%, and increasing crop yields by 20% through optimised irrigation. With 300 clients, and 50,000 hectares of more than 160 crop varieties under management, the firm continues to expand its reach across France, North Africa and the GCC.
Startup Name: Umgrauemeio
Product/Innovation Name: Pantera
HQ: Brazil
Representative at CLIXai: Eimi Arikawa, Chief of Revenue Officer
Summary: Umgrauemeio will showcase Pantera, an integrated AI solution that coordinates high-resolution camera surveillance for rapid wildfire detection and response actions. Pantera can detect wildfire outbreaks within seconds, pinpointing the exact location needed for responding units to converge and stop its spread before it can reach catastrophic levels.
Currently, Umgrauemeio monitors over 17.5 million hectares of land in Brazil, but aspires to deploy its Pantera solution globally to protect forests, wildlife and our shared environment.
Startup Name: GoCodeGreen
Product/Innovation Name: Decarbonize digital products
HQ: United Kingdom
Representative at CLIXai: Jennifer Hiley, Partner – Climate Tech
Summary: Accurately tracking and reporting CO2 emissions are the essential first steps to successfully identifying the right ways to lower them. The GoCodeGreen carbon calculation and decisioning engine helps businesses of all sizes and sectors to better calculate, report, and reduce their ICT and digital carbon emissions.
Clients of GCG have reported that this solution has enabled them to identify opportunities to reduce their carbon impact by 31% on average in ‘Release’ and 51% in ‘Use’, with a maximum observed reduction opportunity of up to 73%.
Inclusion is the key to unlocking a Sustainable Climate Future for all
Each of the featured startups highlights distinctly different forms of innovation, engineered in different parts of the world, and applied to different industries and operations – and these are just six of the dozens of startups taking to the stage at the summit itself.
This underlines the broader reality that addressing the vastly complex and interconnected challenges of climate change is an undertaking that requires every resource in humanity’s collective toolbox.
Inclusion matters not only as a measure of equitability and access to opportunities, but also as a vehicle for faster progress. Barring female inclusion to the climate change discussion and response, by design or negligence, can only curtail that progress by cutting off invaluable flows of new ideas, innovations, investment and leadership.
Explore all of the incredible innovations listed above, alongside hundreds more, at The World Future Energy Summit, and learn more about its unique role in supporting sustainable solutions to the global climate crisis. The next edition of the summit will be held 14-16 January 2025 at the ADNEC Centre, Abu Dhabi.
