Climate innovation: Caught between pilot and scale

Nearly 9 in 10 Indians now report that they have personally experienced the effects of global warming. As climate impacts become harder to ignore, younger generations are increasingly looking to businesses and institutions to take responsibility for environmental challenges.   Innovators are responding. India now has more than 6,400 environment-tech companies, and climate-tech investment reached a record USD 9.41 billion in 2024. From cooling and water management to agriculture, biomaterials, mobility, and energy access, entrepreneurs are building solutions for some of the country's most pressing climate challenges. The gap is what happens next. For climate solutions to reach the people experiencing the crisis, they need to travel from a startup pitch deck to an institutional procurement order, to a state irrigation department, a district administration, a large corporate buyer, a foundation programme, and to the public at large. That journey is where Indian climate solutions are stuck