Oct 7 2025
Be Human, Speak To Humans: Effective Social Media Management Is Human-Centered

This edited excerpt is from “The 10 Principles of Effective Social Media Marketing” by Jon-Stephen Stansel ©2025 and is reproduced and adapted with permission from Kogan Page Ltd.

People log into social networks to hear from people, not from brands. They want to connect with their friends, families, and communities. They want to see content that relates to their interests and passions, and speaks to them in some way.

If your post sounds like it was written by a committee of businesspeople and then edited by a team of lawyers, before being approved by your board, no one is going to pay attention – much less purchase your product.

If you want to connect with humans, you need to speak like a human.

Creating Human-Centered Content

This is all well and good, but what does it mean to “be human” on social media? We are all human. How can we be anything else?

While most marketers will have their own definitions of what these two terms mean to them, for the purposes of this book, here are mine:

Human content: Social media content that speaks with a real human voice and not one that sounds like corporate speak or legalese. It speaks to its audience and not at them in a voice that is clear, easy to understand, and unafraid to show emotion or opinion.

Authentic content: Social media content that is true to the voice of the brand speaking. It doesn’t pander, change drastically, or try to be something it’s not, but rather fully embraces its identity and doesn’t shy away from it.

Why are these things important? Because people connect with people they trust. If your brand sounds like every post was written by committee, then run through multiple departments for approval, and then rewritten by legal, the connection is lost. And if your brand tries to be something it’s not, your audience will smell it out from miles away and not be shy about telling you what they think of it.

But if you are human and authentic, something almost magical happens. Your audience stops thinking of you as a brand trying to sell them something and starts thinking of you as a trusted connection.

Create Content For Audiences, Not Algorithms

If there is one evergreen rule of social media algorithms, it’s this: Social media algorithms favor content that keeps users on the platform longer. This only makes sense. Social media platforms are not in the business of helping your business for free. They are in the business of providing eyeballs for paid advertising.

In this respect, social media platforms aren’t that different from old-school broadcast television networks. If audiences find your content interesting and it keeps users on the platform longer, the algorithm will move it to prime time by placing it in the feeds of more users. But if your content fails to keep users on the platform, as demonstrated by view time and engagement, the algorithm will stop showing it.

Trying to tailor all your content to fit the whims of the social media algorithms is at best a Sisyphean task, because even if you somehow master it, the algorithms will change again, and you’ll be back to square one.

So, what’s a frustrated social media manager to do?

I propose that we all stop worrying about and focusing so much time and attention on social media algorithms and instead, put that energy into creating content that appeals to our target audience. Too many social media managers are creating content for the algorithms and not the audiences they serve. This leads to content that is homogenous, bland, and boring.

You can’t paint-by-numbers your way to social media success. The algorithm is out of your control, and focusing too much on pleasing the algorithm often means you are not focusing enough on pleasing your audience.

After all, we are making content for humans, not algorithms.

Avoid The Hard Sell

No one opens Facebook or any other social network on their phone hoping to be sold to. They are there to see updates from family and friends, catch up on the news, or learn more about the things that interest them – and your posts just happen to be alongside those things. So, if you try to sell them your product with every post, demanding that they “Buy now!” like some old-school infomercial pitchman, your content is going to get ignored.

We must never fail to remember that, as brands, we are at best only guests in our audience’s social media feeds and at worst we are intruders. We can’t lose sight of the fact that by following our brands, users are granting us the privilege of showing up in their social media feeds each day. We abuse this privilege at our peril. When we only share self-promotional, hard-sell content, we are being poor guests.

But when we show up with content that is entertaining, educational, human, and personable, we become the type of guests that our followers are eager to invite into their social media feeds and tell their friends about as well. We must always be respectful and mindful of the fact that, by following us, our audience has granted us a privilege that we must continue to earn with each post – lest they decide to kick us out by pressing the unfollow button.

Know Your Audience

You can’t speak to your audience if you don’t listen to them first. What are their likes and dislikes, challenges, frustrations, interests, etc.? Do they skew older or younger? Male or female? Liberal or conservative? Urban or rural? Do a deep dive into your audience. If you can, hang out in the places they are online. Join the Facebook groups they are in. Scroll the subreddits they post on. Read the comments on the YouTube videos they watch. You might even consider going undercover and creating burner accounts to join their Facebook groups and Discord servers to see what they are talking about.

This is a lot easier if you run social media for a sports team or film franchise where fan groups and subreddits abound, but every industry has a community, and just because a community might be small, it doesn’t mean it can’t be loud about voicing its thoughts and opinions. Seriously – there are online communities for people who like scented candles. They are called “fandles,” and if they have groups dedicated to their interest, your brand has people out there dedicated to your industry. Find them and listen to them. These communities may not be as large as those for film franchises or sports teams, but they are no less passionate.

Take the time to learn about your audience: their likes and dislikes, their inside jokes, the language they use or avoid. Get to know their community and the leaders in it. You’ll quickly find that’s worth the effort.

Interact With Your Followers

Unlike television, print, or radio, users can talk back. And by creating and maintaining social media accounts for your brand, you are telling your customers that you want them to do so. If you don’t reply and interact with them, it’s like if you posted your phone number on billboards all around town but never picked up the phone when it rang. Eventually, people are just going to stop calling.

While you don’t need to reply to every single comment you receive, you should make an effort to engage with as many comments as possible and do so in language that is clear, friendly, and conversational, not stilted, reserved, and corporate. Remember that you are a human talking to other humans. It’s social media, not a board meeting.

Remember The Real Reason People Share Content

Here’s a secret most people forget about social media marketing. People don’t share content to help your brand. They share content to say something about themselves. They want to tell their friends and followers that they are the kind of person who has a certain type of humor, cares about certain issues, is interested in certain things. They share content that helps them tell the world who they are. If you help them tell their own story, they will help you tell yours.

If your content tugs at the heartstrings, makes someone chuckle, or teaches your audience something new, they are more likely to share it because it resonates with them and helps them better represent themselves online – not because they want to help your brand get the word out about a new product. No one shares the ad for a used car lot that demands you buy today before the deal ends. But the ad that makes them laugh or cry? That’s the one they share with their friends.

Be Willing To Poke Fun At Yourself

Authenticity requires a certain amount of vulnerability, and for brands, that’s terrifying. No one wants to draw attention to their own flaws and weaknesses, but for brands, often some self-deprecating humor can have the opposite effect. Acknowledging your flaws can often deflect criticism and help your brand to come across as self-aware – which is a very human trait.

When onboarding new clients, one of the first questions I often ask is, “What about your brand – are you okay with making fun of it?” And while this might be seen as a risky question to ask new clients, it’s a profoundly important one. The answer tells you a lot about a brand and how it perceives itself versus how its audience perceives it.

Once you know where a brand’s limits are, you can use self-deprecating humor to help humanize your brand. Start small, maybe by referencing a flaw you are comfortable with making fun of in a reply to a comment or question, then try it out on a post on your main feed. Measure the response from your followers carefully and use your best judgment.

Share User-Generated Content (Ethically)

Sharing user-generated content provides several advantages for brands. Not only does it save them time creating content themselves, often your audience will come up with ideas for content that you may have never thought of. Not only that, sharing content from your followers adds both humanity and authenticity to your social media efforts.

These posts come from real people who actually use your product and are giving their honest view of it. While you might vet what content you choose to share, the posts you are sharing are coming from real people and not filtered through corporate bureaucracy. The content feels real and trustworthy because it’s coming from a real place.

Additionally, by sharing user-generated content, you are encouraging followers to create more of their own content. As your followers see the user-generated content you share, they will be encouraged to create their own in hopes that you will share their content as well. Content begets more content.

You can even encourage user-generated content on print materials, packaging, and at your physical locations. Just a simple message with “Share your experience on social media! Tag [insert your social handle here]” can go a long way to get followers to post themselves using your product or in your store.

However, there are a few important things to keep in mind when sharing user-generated content.

First, be sure to vet those you share content from. Before reaching out to them, do a brief check of their social accounts to make sure they are someone you want to associate your brand with. If they post a lot of inflammatory content, conspiracy theories, or racy photos, you may want to think twice before sharing their content.

And while you might want to repost that tweet about how much someone loves your product, also be sure to check their username before hitting that repost button. The last thing you want to do is share a post from someone calling themselves @puppyhater42069.

You might also consider sending some free product or promotional merchandise to those you share content from. Not only is this a good way to thank them, but it could also lead to more content from them as well. That $25 you spent sending them a t-shirt is well worth the post they eventually make of them wearing it, right?

Chances are, your customers are already creating content about your brand, so why not put it to use?

To read the full book, SEJ readers have an exclusive 25% discount code and free shipping to the US and UK. Use promo code “SEJ25” at koganpage.com here.

More Resources:

Featured Image: MR.DEEN/Shutterstock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 7 2025
Search Atlas Announces New Features For Agencies via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Search Atlas held an event last week to showcase new capabilities and improvements to their SEO platform which make it easier for digital marketer to scale SEO and take on more clients.

The new features enable marketers to more easily handle on-page and off-page SEO, paid search, impact and track LLM visibility, and scale Google Business Profile management, and that’s just a sample of all the new functionalities coming to the platform.

Auto PPC Retargeting

Search Atlas introduced a new new retargeting feature in Otto PPC. This new feature is designed for agencies and advertisers that are managing paid media. It simplifies campaign setup with a quick-start wizard that enables retargeting site visitors, which they claim can be launched in under 60 seconds.

Manick Bhan, founder of Search Atlas explained:

“The hardest thing about taking paid media business from a client is doing it justice, doing a good job, right? Because every time they get a click, they’re paying for it. The best way that you can show a client ROI on paid media is through retargeting. Run a retargeting campaign, retargeting the traffic that they already have on their website.

We wanted to be able to make this easy for you, so all you have to do is enable it inside Otto PPC, and you’re able to run retargeting campaigns now. So we have a wizard set up for you — just a couple clicks and you can launch a retargeting campaign in less than 60 seconds. It’s that easy.”

GBP Galactic

Search Atlas announced a feature for digital marketers who handle Google Business Profiles for clients. The GBP Galactic feature now has Service Area Business (SAB) support. GBP Galactic offers integration with social media auto-posting to Facebook and Instagram, with plans to add more social networks soon.

Bhan explained the social network autoposting:

“We’ve learned the LLMs they want to see your information not just on your website and GBP profile, they want to see your data in the social media platforms.. So what we can do now is, one time, build our GBP posts, and publish to all social networks, which will increase your visibility in the LLMs. And instead of having to use third-party tools to do this, it will be completely integrated.”

Bhan also shared about their citation network:

“We also added support for service area businesses in our citations product, so now you can even build aggregator network citations and put yourself into the aggregator networks for your service businesses… Because normally these aggregator networks, they want an address. We figured out how to do it so we can get you in without one. Pretty cool.

…ChatGPT, Claude, all the LLMs pay for the data from all the aggregator networks. So if you want to put your local business into the aggregators, as well as into all the websites, the aggregator networks are a shortcut to being able to do that and upload directly to ChatGPT.”

LLM Visibility

Another useful feature is LLM Visibility tracking and sentiment analysis. LLM visibility is now measurable directly in Search Atlas. It also tracks brand presence across ChatGPT, Claude, and other LLMs and is able to identify visibility trends beyond Google Search.

Expanded Press Release Network

Bhan announced that Signal Genesys, a press release company they acquired last year, has expanded their distribution to financial news and with a local news media network.

Bhan commented:

“The financial news network costs a whopping $10. And then the news media network costs about $20. So these are really cost-effective, especially for agencies. If you are working with clients and you need to keep prices low for yourselves, there’s a lot of margin in there for you.

And these networks in particular we found were indexed very well in ChatGPT.”

On-Page SEO

Interesting feature launched in their Otto product is a module called Domain Knowledge Network which assists users in building topical relevance with a semantic interface, just speak instructions to it and it will analyze the brand and suggest a content topic structure.

Revamped WordPress Plugin

Their WordPress plugin has been overhauled to make it more user-friendly. It now includes one-click installation to connect WordPress directly to Search Atlas, two-way synchronization that keeps Otto data and WordPress in sync in real time, and auto-publishing that enables SEO fixes generated in Otto to be deployed directly into WordPress.

Universal CMS Integration

Search Atlas is aiming to become CMS-agnostic, able to integrate with any website regardless of the CMS for publishing blog posts and landing pages in one click through their Content Genius feature. Right now Search Atlas can work with Drupal, HubSpot, Magento, Wix, and WordPress. They are also testing to integrate with Joomla, Shopify, and Webflow. Soon they’ll be able to integrate with ClickFunnels, Contentful, Duda, Ghost, and Salesforce.

Near Future: Otto Agent

Otto Agent represents the future of Search Atlas’s agentic revolution, replacing traditional UI-driven workflows with natural-language commands. It’s currently available as a beta program. Users can speak to the platform (via text or voice) to perform SEO actions directly. Otto Agent can execute end-to-end actions: site audits, fixes, title/meta/image optimization, GBP posts, and content generation.

Spending the day listening to their presentations, it became evident that Otto Agent typified Search Atlas’s approach toward developing an SEO platform that is useful. Having come from an SEO agency background, they understand what agencies need and aren’t waiting for competitors to do things first, they’re just moving forward with features that they feel agencies will find useful.

Otto Agent is an example of that forward-looking approach because it’s built on the idea that managing SEO will become agentic, conversational, and autonomous.

I didn’t know that much about Search Atlas before attending the event but now I have a better understanding of why so many agencies embrace Search Atlas.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Digitala World

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 7 2025
Bill Gates: Our best weapon against climate change is ingenuity

It’s a foregone conclusion that the world will not meet the goals for limiting emissions and global warming laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Many people want to blame politicians and corporations for this failure, but there’s an even more fundamental reason: We don’t have all the technological tools we need to do it, and many of the ones we do have are too expensive.

For all the progress the world has made on renewable energy sources, electric vehicles, and electricity storage, we need a lot more innovation on every front—from discovery to deployment—before we can hope to reach our ultimate goal of net-zero emissions. 

But I don’t think this is a reason to be pessimistic. I see it as cause for optimism, because humans are very good at inventing things. In fact, we’ve already created many tools that are reducing emissions. In just the past 10 years, energy breakthroughs have lowered the global forecast for emissions in 2040 by 40%. In other words, because of the human capacity to innovate, we are on course to reduce emissions substantially by 2040 even if nothing else changes.

And I am confident that more positive changes are coming. I’ve been learning about global warming and investing in ideas to stop it for the past 20 years. I’ve connected with unbiased scientists and innovators who are committed to preventing a climate disaster. Ten years ago, some of them joined me in creating Breakthrough Energy, an investment group whose sole purpose is to accelerate clean energy innovation. We’ve supported more than 150 companies so far, many of which have blossomed into major businesses such as Fervo Energy and Redwood Materials, two of this year’s Companies to Watch. [Editor’s note: Mr. Gates did not participate in the selection process of this year’s companies and was not aware that two Breakthrough investments had been selected when he agreed to write this essay.]

Yet climate technologies offer more than just a public good. They will remake virtually every aspect of the world’s economy in the coming years, transforming energy markets, manufacturing, transportation, and many types of industry and food production. Some of these efforts will require long-term commitments, but it’s important that we act now. And what’s more, it’s already clear where the opportunities lie. 

In the past decade, an ecosystem of thousands of innovators, investors, and industry leaders has emerged to work on every aspect of the problem. This year’s list of 10 Climate Tech Companies to Watch shows just a few of the many examples.

Although much of this innovation ecosystem has matured on American shores, it has become a global movement that won’t be stopped by new obstacles in the US. It’s unfortunate that governments in the US and other countries have decided to cut funding for climate innovations and reverse some of the policies that help breakthrough ideas get to scale. In this environment, we need to be more rigorous than ever about spending our time, money, and ingenuity on efforts that will have the biggest impact.

How do we figure out which ones those are? First, by understanding which activities are responsible for the most emissions. I group them into five categories: electricity generation, manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and heating and cooling for buildings.

Of course, the zero-carbon tools we have today aren’t distributed evenly across these sectors. In some sectors, like electricity, we’ve made a great deal of progress. In others, like agriculture and manufacturing, we’ve made much less. To compare progress across the board, I use what I call the Green Premium, which is the difference in cost between the clean way of doing something and the conventional way that produces emissions. 

For example, sustainable aviation fuel now costs more than twice as much as conventional jet fuel, so it has a Green Premium of over 100%. Solar and wind power have grown quickly because in many cases they’re cheaper than conventional sources of electricity—that is, they have a negative Green Premium. 

The Green Premium isn’t purely financial. To be competitive, clean alternatives also need to be as practical as what they’re replacing. Far more people will buy EVs once you can charge one up as quickly as you can fill your tank with gasoline.

I think the Green Premium is the best way to identify areas of great impact. Where it’s high, as in the case of jet fuel, we need innovators and investors to jump on the problem. Where it’s low or even negative, we need to overcome the barriers that are keeping the technologies from reaching a global scale.

A new technology has to overcome a lot of challenges to beat the incumbents, but being able to compete on cost is absolutely essential. So if I could offer one piece of advice to every company working on zero-carbon technologies, it would be to focus on lowering and eliminating the Green Premium in whatever sector you’ve chosen. Think big. If your technology can be competitive enough to eventually eliminate at least 1% of global emissions per year—that’s 0.5 gigatons—you’re on the right track.

I’d encourage policymakers to bring this sector-by-sector focus on the Green Premium to their work, too. They should also protect funding for clean technologies and the policies that promote them. This is not just a public good: The countries that win the race to develop these breakthroughs will create jobs, hold enormous economic power for decades to come, and become more energy independent.

In addition, young scientists and entrepreneurs should think about how they can put their skills toward these challenges. It’s an exciting time—the people who begin a career in clean technology today will have an enormous impact on human welfare. If you need pointers, the Climate Tech Atlas published last month by Breakthrough Energy and other partners is an excellent guide to the technologies that are essential for decarbonizing the economy and helping people adapt to a warmer climate.

Finally, I’d encourage investors to put serious money into companies with technologies that can meaningfully reduce the Green Premium. Consider it an investment in what will be the biggest growth industry of the 21st century. Companies have made dramatic progress on better and cleaner solutions in every sector; what many of them need now is private-sector capital and partnerships to help them reach the scale at which they’ll have a real impact on emissions.

So if I could offer one piece of advice to every company working on zero-carbon technologies, it would be to focus on lowering and eliminating the Green Premium in whatever sector you’ve chosen.

Transforming the entire physical economy is an unprecedented task, and it can only be accomplished through markets—by supporting companies with breakthrough ideas that beat fossil fuels on cost and practicality. It’s going to take investors who are both patient and willing to accept the risk that some companies will fail. Of course, governments and nonprofits have a role in the energy transition too, but ultimately, our success will hinge on climate innovators’ ability to build profitable companies. 

If we get this right—and I believe we will—then in the next decade, we’ll see fewer news stories about missed emissions targets and more stories about how emissions are dropping fast because the world invented and deployed breakthrough ideas: clean liquid fuels that power passenger jets and cargo ships; neighborhoods built with zero-emissions steel and cement; fusion plants that generate an inexhaustible supply of clean electricity. 

Not only will emissions fall faster than most people expect, but hundreds of millions of people will be able to get affordable, reliable clean energy—with especially dramatic improvements for low-income countries. More people will have access to air-conditioning for extremely hot days. More children will have lights so they can do their homework at night. More health clinics will be able to keep their vaccines cold so they don’t spoil. We’ll have built an economy where everyone can prosper.

Of course, climate change will still present many challenges. But the advances we make in the coming years can ensure that everyone gets a chance to live a healthy and productive life no matter where they’re born, and no matter what kind of climate they’re born into.

Bill Gates is a technologist, business leader, and philanthropist. In 1975, he cofounded Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen, and today he is chair of the Gates Foundation, a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Bill is the founder of Breakthrough Energy, an organization focused on advancing clean energy innovation, and TerraPower, a company developing groundbreaking nuclear energy and science technologies. He has three children.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 7 2025
2025 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: HiNa Battery Technology and its effort to commercialize salt cells

HiNa Battery Technology is a trailblazer in developing and mass-producing batteries using sodium, a widely available element that can be extracted from sea salt. The startup’s products—already powering small vehicles and energy storage plants in China—provide a valuable alternative to lithium-based batteries, made with materials mined and processed in just a few countries.

Over the next few decades the world will need a lot more batteries to power electric cars and keep grids stable. Today most battery cells are made with lithium, so the mineral is expected to be in hyper demand, leading to supply chain risks: 85% of the global lithium supply will be refined in just three countries in 2030—China, Chile, and Argentina, according to the International Energy Agency.

But a new technology has come on the scene, potentially disrupting the global battery industry. Sodium-ion cells are made with an element 400 times more abundant than lithium. It can be found and extracted pretty much anywhere there is seawater or salt deposits in the ground, and harvesting it is a centuries-old practice. For decades, research of the technology was abandoned due to the huge commercial success of lithium-ion cells. Now, HiNa Battery Technology is working to bring sodium back to the limelight—and to the mass market. 

Led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, HiNa’s goal is to commercialize sodium-ion technology in an industry dominated by lithium. To deliver that, it has built labs to develop its own chemistries and factories to make cells at scale. 

HiNa began mass manufacturing last year, bringing two sodium-ion products to market. One is a cube-shaped battery for storing electricity; it’s already powering commercial-scale energy storage stations in China, including one in Hubei Province that began operation in July 2024. The other product is a cylindrical battery already being used in electric mopeds (which are ubiquitous in China) and other small vehicles. 

Compared to their lithium counterparts, sodium-ion batteries perform better in cold environments and can charge faster, but they have lower energy density. This means a sodium-ion battery carries less energy than a lithium-ion battery of the same size—a problem for cars, since that means shorter range. 

HiNa says it will continue to increase its products’ energy density through technological innovations, such as by using more-efficient materials for the cathode and anode and improving batteries’ structure. Currently, the energy density of its cube-shaped battery is 165 watt-hours per kilogram—around 80% of that of a lithium iron phosphate battery, the mainstream lithium battery in China.

Key indicators

  • Industry: Energy storage
  • Founded: 2017
  • Headquarters: Beijing, China
  • Notable fact: HiNa was founded by Chen Liquan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and three of his students, with support from the academy. Chen is dubbed “the father of Chinese lithium batteries” for leading a team that developed the country’s first such cell three decades ago. At 85, Chen still oversees HiNa’s research and development with one of the students—the company’s chairman, Hu Yongsheng. 

Potential for impact

The global sodium-ion market is still in its infancy, and its future is uncertain, but HiNa’s endeavor has provided a potential solution for the world to achieve net-zero carbon emissions without overly relying on a handful of critical minerals, whose production has drawn environmental, humanitarian, and geopolitical concerns. 

In the energy storage sector—sodium-ion batteries’ main area of usage—they are expected to grab up to 30% of the global market by 2030. The 50-megawatt energy storage plant in Hubei Province alone is projected to avoid an estimated 13,000 tons of carbon dioxide every year, which is roughly equivalent to removing about 3,000 gas-powered cars from the road. 

Caveats

HiNa faces a big question: Can sodium-ion batteries thrive commercially? Lithium-ion cells are projected to remain cheaper and more powerful in the foreseeable future. The unit price of sodium-ion batteries is currently about 60% higher than that of lithium ones, but their theoretical production cost should eventually be around a third lower than that of lithium-ion cells. Industry analysts say HiNa and other sodium-ion battery makers must ensure that customers can get more bang for their bucks in order to create a market.

Chinese lithium-battery behemoths are also making moves into sodium, upping pressure on specialist companies like HiNa. CATL, the world’s largest battery maker, has said it will mass-produce sodium-ion batteries for electric cars by the end of this year. Meanwhile, EV giant BYD is building a massive factory in eastern China dedicated to making sodium-ion cells. 

Next steps

HiNa’s plan is to focus on a few submarkets. It says that sectors such as heavy trucks and energy storage represent huge potential because of China’s big domestic market.  

The company aims to launch a fast-charging sodium-ion battery that powers heavy trucks this month. The battery can fully charge in just 20 minutes, according to HiNa. The feature is expected to be a draw for truck drivers, who cannot afford long pit stops.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 7 2025
How we picked promising climate tech companies in an especially unsettling year

MIT Technology Review’s reporters and editors faced a dilemma as we began to mull nominees for this year’s list of Climate Tech Companies to Watch.

How do you pick companies poised to succeed in a moment of such deep uncertainty, at a time when the new Trump administration is downplaying the dangers of climate change, unraveling supportive policies for clean technologies, and enacting tariffs that will boost costs and disrupt supply chains for numerous industries? 

We as a publication are focused more on identifying companies developing technologies that can address the escalating threats of climate change, than on businesses positioned purely for market success. We don’t fancy ourselves as stock pickers or financial analysts.

But we still don’t want to lead our readers astray by highlighting a startup that winds up filing for bankruptcy six months later, even if its demise is due to a policy whiplash outside of its control.

So we had to shift our thinking some.

As a basic principle, we look for companies with the potential to substantially drive down greenhouse gas emissions or deliver products that could help communities meaningfully reduce the dangers of heatwaves, droughts, or other extreme weather.

We prefer to feature businesses that have established a track record, by raising capital, building plants, or delivering products. We generally exclude companies where the core business involves extracting and combusting fossil fuels, even if they have a side business in renewables, as well as those tied to forced labor or other problematic practices.

Our reporters and contributors add their initial ideas to a spreadsheet. We ask academics, investors, and other sources we trust for more nominees. We research and debate the various contenders, add or subtract from our list, then research and debate them all some more. 

Starting with our first climate tech list in 2023, we have strived to produce a final mix of companies that’s geographically diverse. But given the particular challenges for the climate tech space in the US these days, one decision we made early on was to look harder and more widely for companies making strides elsewhere.  

Thankfully, numerous other nations continue to believe in the need to confront rising threats and the economic opportunities in doing so.

China, in particular, has seized on the energy transition as a pathway for expanding its economy and global influence, giving rise to some of the world’s largest and most innovative clean tech companies. That includes two on this year’s list: the sodium-ion battery company HiNa and the wind-turbine giant Envision.

Similarly, the European Union’s increasingly strict emissions mandates and cap-and-trade system are accelerating efforts to clean up the energy, heavy-industry, and transportation sectors across that continent. We highlighted two promising companies there, including the German electric truck company Traton and the Swedish clean-cement maker Cemvision.

We also determined that certain businesses could emerge relatively unscathed from the shifting conditions in the US, or perhaps even benefit from them. Notably, the fact that heightened tariffs will boost the cost of importing critical minerals could create an advantage for a company like Redwood Materials, one of the US’s biggest recyclers of battery materials.

Finally, the boom in AI data center development is opening some promising opportunities, as it spawns vast demands for new electricity generation. Several of our picks are well positioned to help meet those needs through carbon-free energy sources, including geothermal company Fervo Energy and next-generation nuclear startup Kairos Power. Plus, Redwood Materials has launched a new microgrid business line to help address those demands as well.

Still, it was especially challenging this year to produce a list we felt confident enough to put out into the world, which is a key reason why we decided to narrow it down from 15 companies to 10. 

But we believe we’ve identified a solid slate of firms around the world that are making real strides in cleaning up the way we do business and go about our lives, and which are poised to help us meet the rising climate challenges ahead.

We hope you think so too.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 7 2025
2025 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Pairwise and its climate-adapted crops

Climate change will make it increasingly difficult to grow crops across many parts of the world. Pairwise is leveraging CRISPR gene editing to develop plants that can better withstand adverse conditions.

Pairwise uses cutting-edge gene editing to produce crops that can withstand increasingly harsh climate conditions, helping to feed a growing population even as the world warms.

The seven-year-old startup was cofounded by several gene editing pioneers, including MIT’s Feng Zhang and Harvard’s David Liu, who helped invent and improve the breakthrough CRISPR tool.

Last year, the company delivered the first food to the US market, that was developed with the precise genetic scissors, a less-bitter–tasting mustard green. It’s now working to produce crops with climate-resilient traits, through partnerships with two of the world’s largest plant biotech companies, Bayer and Corteva.

Pairwise says its technology enables the company and its customers to efficiently introduce and fine-tune new plant traits. The toolkit includes a proprietary CRISPR enzyme (the part of the technology that snips off bits of DNA), as well as a base editor, a second-generation CRISPR technology that can alter a single DNA letter. Co-founder Liu first developed it with his research team.  

Among its early efforts, the company is developing and field testing shorter, sturdier types of corn, blackberries and other crops that could survive high winds and other extreme weather events amplified by climate change. 

The company believes that these dwarf plants can be grown closer together, potentially enabling farmers to produce higher yields with less fertilizer and fewer insecticides. Growing more plants on a given area of land, or shrinking fruit trees closer to bush size, also means it could be more economical to grow their crops in agricultural hoop houses. These temporary, movable greenhouses can be covered with plastic or shade cloth to control growing conditions. That, in turn, could enable more farmers, particularly in poorer parts of the world, to protect their crops from heatwaves and other severe weather. 

In addition, Pairwise is working with the Gates Foundation to create new varieties of high-yield yams in Nigeria. It has also licensed its suite of genetic tools to Mars to help the confectionary giant develop cacao plants that would be more resilient to plant diseases and shifting climate conditions. The cacao trees, which farmers predominantly grow in West Africa, are coming under increasing stress from rising temperatures and erratic rainfall patterns. 

Key indicators

  • Industry: Food and agriculture 
  • Founded: 2018 
  • Headquarters: Durham, North Carolina, US
  • Notable fact: The company was cofounded by several scientists who were instrumental in inventing and improving CRISPR, including MIT professor Feng Zhang and Harvard professor David Liu, both of whom also have appointments at the Broad Institute.

Potential for impact

As climate change fuels more extreme weather and creates otherwise harsher conditions such as drought, the ability to grow crops with the same or higher yields than are seen today could help sustain farmers and feed communities. Particularly in some of the hottest and poorest parts of the world, climate-adapted crops promise to prevent hunger and starvation.

Caveats

To date, Pairwise hasn’t delivered any climate-adapted foods to the market. So it remains to be seen how big of a difference such plants will make in the fields and on store shelves.

There’s a general, if untested, hope that consumers and regulators will be more accepting of CRISPR-edited crops, which involve editing the plant’s own DNA, than many have been of transgenic crops, which are created by swapping in genes from another species. 

Next steps

Pairwise representatives say the company, which has raised $155 million to date, is evaluating short-stature blackberries in field trials now. If those tests go well, it intends to work on squatter fruit trees as well, such as cherry or peach. 

On its website, the company says it has successfully demonstrated edits in 14 crops, and completed field trials for at least two more: unspecified varieties of corn and soy.

Pairwise hasn’t announced any specific timelines, but the company says it expects to deliver a variety of “climate-adapted, delicious and consumer-loved crops” in the coming years.

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 7 2025
2025 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Cemvision and its low-emissions cement

Cement is one of the most used materials on the planet, and the industry emits billions of tons of greenhouse gasses annually. Cemvision wants to use waste materials and alternative fuels to help reduce climate pollution from cement production.

Today, making cement requires crushing limestone and heating it to super high temperatures, usually by burning fossil fuels. The chemical reactions also release carbon dioxide pollution. 

Swedish startup Cemvision made a few key production changes to reduce both emissions and the need to mine new materials. First, the company is moving away from Portland cement, the most common form of the material used currently. 

Making Portland cement requires reaching ultra-high temperatures, over 1,450 °C (2,650 °F). Instead, Cemvision makes a material that requires lower temperatures (roughly 1,200 °C, or 2,200 °F), which reduces the amount of energy required. 

The company also uses alternative sources for heating. Rather than fossil fuels, Cemvision can use a combination of plasma, hydrogen, and electricity. The startup tested its process in a demonstration-scale kiln, which can make up to 12 tons per day. The material has a high strength under compression and doesn’t heat up much when it’s mixed with water, both desirable qualities for builders. 

Cemvision also has a strong focus on building a circular economy. The company’s cement incorporates waste materials like mine tailings and slag, a by-product of iron and steel manufacturing. And it recently published results showing that it can use steel slag from electric arc furnaces and basic oxygen furnaces. These materials reduce the need for newly-mined limestone and other virgin materials, cutting down on the carbon dioxide emitted from that material in chemical reactions taking place in the kiln. 

Key indicators

  • Industry: Cement
  • Founded: 2019
  • Headquarters: Stockholm, Sweden
  • Notable fact: Cemvision was a member of the Breakthrough Energy Fellows program and the Norrsken accelerator program, started by Klarna cofounder Niklas Adalberth.

Potential for impact

The cement industry today accounts for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Cemvision’s process can reduce emissions by between 80% and 95% compared to traditional cement-making by using waste materials and alternative fuels. 

The company has partnerships with builders and industrial customers, including in construction and mining. 

Caveats

Cemvision’s material will be more expensive than conventional cement, so it’ll require either policy support or customers who are willing to pay more. The European Union has a policy system that charges for pollution, and that should help make Cemvision’s cement competitive. The company says its product will be less expensive than one of the leading methods of cleaning up cement, carbon capture and sequestration. 

The cement industry is quite conservative, and there’s often resistance to new technologies, including adopting materials other than Portland cement. Cemvision’s cement will need to gain wide acceptance to make progress on emissions. 

Next steps

Cemvision has a site selected and is currently raising money to finance a full-scale plant in Northern Europe. That facility will have a capacity of 500,000 metric tons annually, and the company says it should open by 2028. 

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 7 2025
2025 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Traton and its electric trucks

As Europe gradually phases out heavy-duty diesel trucks, Traton is gearing up production of its electric models. The company is also helping to install hundreds of public chargers to aid the growth of electric freight transport across Europe. 

Every day, trucks carry many millions of tons of cargo down roads and highways around the world. Nearly all run on diesel and make up one of the largest commercial sources of carbon emissions. Traton is producing a wide variety of zero-emission trucks that could help clean up this sector while also investing in a Europe-wide advanced charging network so other manufacturers can more easily follow suit. 

In Europe especially, the next decade could see tremendous growth in electric truck adoption. New CO2 emission standards require new diesel trucks to essentially be phased out of production by 2040. And given that trucks typically operate for around 15 years, more owners will be considering electric models for their next purchase. 

Today, Traton is a company in transition. A subsidiary of Volkswagen, it is made up of a collection of commercial vehicle brands, including Scania, MAN, and International. While it still manufactures conventional trucks that run on fossil fuels, it’s making rapid progress in the EV space. Some of Scania’s long-haul electric semis can travel about 350 miles before needing to recharge, for example. 

Its EV models are also starting to pick up in terms of sales. In the first half of 2025, Traton sold 1,250 electric models globally, which was twice as many as during the same period last year. That puts it not far behind Volvo, another market leader. Traton is now ramping up production—MAN recently opened a new factory line that can assemble electric and diesel trucks interchangeably. That should also help bring costs down, key to success for the sector—today, the price of an electric truck can be several times higher than for diesel ones. 

What’s more, Traton is working to install hundreds of publicly available chargers across Europe through an industry partnership called Milence. That group has also invested in high-powered chargers that can deliver more than 1 megawatt of power to heavy-duty trucks, allowing trucks to recharge in 45 minutes or less (for comparison, rapid chargers available for cars today deliver between 50 and 350 kilowatts).

Key indicators

  • Industry: Electric vehicles 
  • Founded: 2015 
  • Headquarters: Munich, Germany
  • Notable fact: One of Traton’s subsidiaries is a leading school bus manufacturer in the US and Canada, where it debuted its first electric school bus in 2021.

Potential for impact 

Moving freight produces about 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Most of that pollution (65%) comes from trucks and vans—more than cargo ships, trains, and planes combined. And the World Economic Forum expects demand for road freight will triple by 2050. 

Electric trucks do have a climate impact from the mining and manufacturing processes required to build them. The source of electricity that powers them—whether renewable or fossil fuels—also matters. Even so, battery-electric trucks operating in Europe today reduce emissions on average by 63% compared with diesel trucks, according to an analysis by the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation. 

To mitigate climate change, the ICCT has said that all of the world’s major markets need to fully transition to selling only zero-emission trucks by 2040. Last year, about 90,000 electric trucks were sold globally; electric models accounted for less than 2.5 percent of total truck sales in the year prior. But market forces seem poised to accelerate this transition, and Traton is a small but growing player. 

Today, China leads the world in electric truck production and sales. In Europe, though, sales are expected to tick up as the EU requires manufacturers of heavy-duty rigs to slash CO2 emissions from their fleets by 90% by 2040, with progressive targets leading up to that level—the first of which kicked in as of July. 

Caveats

It’s early days for electric trucking, as supply chains and charging infrastructure are built out. A large electric truck requires four to six times as many battery packs as an electric car, and securing enough batteries has proven particularly difficult for many EV firms based outside of China, where most batteries are produced. 

To mitigate this risk, Traton is building its own battery production, starting with facilities in Södertälje, Sweden and Nuremberg, Germany—with plans to make 50,000 battery packs a year, which could power about 10,000 heavy-duty trucks. (The company declined to say what proportion of the batteries currently used in its trucks comes from China.) 

The company’s International brand, which operates in the US, could be hit by tariffs and see demand drop as the Trump administration moves to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles. 

No matter what, the competition will be fierce—every major European truck manufacturer offers electric models now, and Chinese firms have already expanded internationally and built a strong customer base in markets like South America through sales of electric buses. 

Next steps

For now, MAN is working toward its goal of delivering 1,000 electric trucks from its new manufacturing line by the year’s end. Looking ahead, Scania aims to begin selling its first heavy-duty truck compatible with megawatt chargers in February, with deliveries to follow later in the year. Through Milence, megawatt chargers are now available at three sites, in Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and will soon be installed at five more. 

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Oct 7 2025
2025 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Ather Energy and its premium e-scooters

More than 70% of the 200 million registered vehicles in India are two-wheelers. Ather Energy builds e-scooters for the rising middle class that could help commuters ditch highly-polluting, gas-guzzling models.

While sales of Tesla or BYD cars drove electric vehicle adoption elsewhere in the world, two-wheelers have led the green energy transition in India. As one of the earliest “pure play” e-scooter makers, Ather Energy has helped drive micromobility EV penetration throughout India and boosted the shift away from carbon-emitting vehicles.

In 2018, the company introduced an expensive sports scooter, with features like a touchscreen dashboard, built-in navigation, and over-the-air software updates, previously unseen in two-wheelers. Today the company has two product lines: the Ather 450 (a sporty performance scooter) and the Ather Rizta (a family-friendly scooter for daily use). 

Central to the company’s success has been its focus on product quality and the rider experience. Ather installs its own software, manufactures the vast majority of its hardware, and wants to invest much of the proceeds from its initial public offering into R&D. 

Key indicators

  • Industry: Electric vehicles
  • Founded: 2013
  • Headquarters: Bengaluru, India
  • Notable fact: Unlike competitors who either rebranded an acquired scooter or sold imported EVs from China, Ather does almost everything in-house, from its software stack to hardware design.

Potential for impact

While emissions of individual two-wheelers is much less compared to that of a car or a larger vehicle, the sheer number of these scooters on Indian roads adds up. Two-wheelers contribute about one-third of transport emissions in India, and successful electrification could reduce their share to just 3% by 2050. Ather’s success in moving people from gas-guzzling scooters to electric could not only propel India closer to its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2070 but also reduce health impacts in a country where around 1.5 million deaths a year are from breathing polluted air.

As the country’s leading EV-only scooter maker, Ather’s successful expansion could supercharge India’s shift away from fossil fuels, and help achieve the government’s goal of reducing air pollution, while also building a market presence internationally.

In mid-2024 Ather introduced the Ather Rizta, a spacious family scooter with a large seat, more storage, and fast charging, which sold over 100,000 units within a year of its launch. To catch up to well-capitalized competitors, such as Ola Electric, Ather is spending $105 million to build a third factory that aims to produce 500,000 two-wheelers a year by March 2027. It has also expanded its charging network to some 4,000 charging points and has pushed into newer markets, including Nepal and Sri Lanka. 

Caveats

In the past five years, driven by state and federal incentives, electric vehicle competition turned fierce in India. Car and scooter makers raced to capture the market, including legacy automakers TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto. Both have since zoomed past Ather, selling cheaper e-scooters and scaling faster, by leveraging their sprawling retail presence. Together, they have cornered a combined share of 40% of India’s e-scooter market. 

Meanwhile, EV adoption has grown more slowly in India than expected. Indian EV sales were 7.6% in 2024, far off pace of hitting the government’s target of 30% by 2030.

For Ather to have a real impact on India’s transport emissions, it must scale significantly. The company is working to double its retail footprint to 700 stores and continue its expansion into smaller cities. But geopolitics could interfere: China’s retaliatory export ban on critical rare earth minerals in response to US tariffs announced in April caused a ripple effect; Ather said in August that it has found it hard to secure the magnets it needs for its motors. 

Next steps

As the Indian government rolls back subsidies that slashed the cost of purchasing an electric scooter, Ather plans to launch cheaper options. In mid-2024, it began transitioning to a newer battery chemistry called lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) that has lower environmental impacts, requires fewer expensive minerals, and should be about 20% cheaper than other battery packs. 

The company isn’t profitable, but its gross profit per vehicle has been improving. Momentum seems to be building—in May, Ather reported its annual sales to March 2025 were up 42 percent compared to the year prior. Now, the company is betting that investing further into product innovation will help it take the lead in India’s two-wheeler revolution. 

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments