Understanding Green Technology

What is green technology

Most often the laymen nowadays question about Green Technology.

What is green tech? People ask whenever they are told anything related to it. Small and medium business owners are also not much aware of it.

Our world is undergoing a massive threat right now. The environment is at its worst, and we are living in environmental debt hereon. Environmental debt means whatever resources we use in these coming days cannot be recovered by Earth by any means.

But the revival of the atmosphere is a must for the future that stays on. Several good initiatives¹ over the years have resulted in some results. One such effort is termed Green Technology.

It is a brolly term and there is a whole world within it.

Understanding the concept of Green Technology -What is it?

Over the years, with massive exhaustion of resources, governments and countries realize using technology to build up empires is not going to help. Building the right technology, the environmentally friendly one is what can reverse the challenges.

In short, our environment was destroyed by the advancement of technologies and also war at the beginning of the 19^th century. Now, the world aims to use technology but without troubling the environment in any way.

That’s where the term green technology was invented. Green means clean and clean would mean technology that is environment friendly.

Pretty young in the market but has many eyes fixed on it- It has found some major investors over the years. China is a leading investor in Green technology. They back technological advancements that use renewable energy sources, considered less harmful for the world.

Some stats & facts

Using green tech as a goal statement can massively improve the world’s inclination towards it. Even though it was the beginning of the 19^th century saw scientists realizing the importance of carbon emissions. But, it could not be until the end of the 19^th century that people actually could turn the wheel of technology towards the green world.

The nations have largely invested in producing and understanding green technology over the years since the beginning of 21 century.

Green technology investments as of 2017 have crossed over the mark of $200 billion² as per the 2018 UN report. China stands first in such investments wherein almost $126 billion has alone been invested by China until 2017 on Green Technology.

The boom of the Green Technology market stats

Just look at the data to realize more.

• Almost 301.7 billion³ is invested in Green technology in 2019 alone.
• Almost 2% of growth is registered⁴ in terms of clean energy investments globally.
• It is estimated that the market size of green technology to grow from 11.2 billion⁵ as per estimates in 2020 and would touch USD 36.6 billion by 2025.

Some examples towards understanding green technology

Some examples of Green Technology involve clean water, use of renewable energy sources like wind, solar, water power, and use of green waste to produce useful objects of daily use.

The technology also gives way to green products, which are far less harmful to the environment. Replacing plastic cups with the ones built of orange peels- 3-D printed bio-plastic cups⁶ are a wonderful example of green technology.  Carlo Ratti Associati⁷ used the concept to design and produce green cups for the world.

Starbucks is a wonderful example of corporate green tech adoption.

It was found that 70% of their emission was added from sources of electricity used. So, they slowly started altering the energy sources and in 2018⁸ and 2019 they shifted to wind and solar energy sources.

Some evolving fields that are slowly embracing green technology include,

• The field of architecture
• The field of medicine
• Electric automobile industry
• Objects of daily use are being manufactured more and more from recycled wastes
• Engineers are even trying artificial photosynthesis.

It is supposed to be the starting of an environmental change. More and more people are taking up the responsibility of finding something useful for the environment. Scientists are contributing hugely and so are students in building these green devices and green products.

Renewable energy sources like wind and solar energy are inexhaustible sources as of now. Water is a renewable source of energy yet water is limited in the world.

It is just a matter of time that we would soon be all green. However, how fast we take the green mission forward is what is going to make all the difference to the world.

Citations

1. https://atomic-temporary-142903702.wpcomstaging.com/2021/08/20/what-is-it-with-the-green-alternatives/
2. https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/banking-sunshine-world-added-far-more-solar-fossil-fuel-power
3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/186807/worldwide-investment-in-sustainable-energy-since-2004/
4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/502210/worldwide-investment-in-sustainable-energy-annual-growth/
5. https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/green-technology-and-sustainability-market-224421448.html
6. https://www.dezeen.com/tag/bioplastic/
7. https://www.dezeen.com/tag/carlo-ratti-associati/
8. https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment/water-and-energy