by Richard T. Stuebi
Last week, E/The Environmental Magazine announced its Best Green Tech Innovations of 2009.
It’s unclear what criteria were used to select the winners, but I was impressed by the fact that I had not previously heard of any of these products or technologies. Since they were all news to me, I don’t know enough about any of them to have a favorite.
I’m also struck by the observation that the list represents innovation involving large corporations like Ford (NYSE: F) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) as well as tiny start-ups and individual inventors.
I used to pride myself on being pretty well-informed about the cleantech arena, but being unable to remain abreast of developments on so many fronts is a vivid illustration of how robust the cleantech space is becoming. I’ll gladly sacrifice the comprehensiveness of my awareness and understanding for increasing velocity from an exploding number of innovators — including industrial powerhouses — in the cleantech marketplace.
Richard T. Stuebi is a founding principal of the advanced energy initiative at NorTech, where he is on loan from The Cleveland Foundation as its Fellow of Energy and Environmental Advancement. He is also a Managing Director in charge of cleantech investment activities at Early Stage Partners, a Cleveland-based venture capital firm.
