The value of UK net zero technology business has nearly doubled in a year, jumping from $24.4 billion to $47.6 billion, according to research from Tech Nation.

The technology network has today published its Net Zero 2021 report to coincide with the launch of COP26.

The organisation said that while 10 new UK tech zero companies have entered the market over the past 12 months, the surge in value was largely driven by more climate change tech companies reaching unicorn status.

These include Arrival, which saw the company’s valuation increase to $16.2 billion after its IPO in March 2021, Octopus Energy, which experienced a growth in value to $4.9 billion following an equity VC round in September 2021, and ITM Power, which was valued at $2.9 billion in June 2021.

According to Tech Nation, British net zero technology scaleups make up 12 per cent of the global market, with eight of the 103 global net zero tech unicorns headquartered in the UK.

While London accounts for 72 per cent of all venture capital investment made into Net Zero firms in 2021 so far, Bristol comes in second after seeing a spike in activity in 2019 with investment in climate tech ‘unicorn’ OVO energy, which raised $200 million of growth equity, one of the largest rounds of investment in a UK net zero company.

But Tech Nation warned that the UK is still not seeing investment in net zero technology accelerate at the necessary pace. While the UK is fourth in the world for investment for net zero tech, the rate of investment in UK climate tech is slowing; between 2020 and 2021, investment grew from $1.54 billion to $1.57 billion, while between 2019 and 2020, UK climate tech investment saw a much larger increase of $470 million.

“Scaling climate tech must become a global priority. If we are to achieve net zero, it is vital that all state and non-state actors invest and support the growth of climate tech,” said Sammy Fry, net zero lead at Tech Nation. “With the value of climate tech companies almost doubling, the growth of the sector is promising, but we need to do more.

“We urge global leaders to put their support behind the sector to accelerate the net zero transition and ensure the world realigns itself with a 1.5C trajectory, in order to safe-guard the future of the planet.”

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