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The Harvard Innovation Labs has selected 38 ventures to join the fifth annual Harvard Climate Entrepreneurs Circle, a year-long accelerator program for high-potential ventures working to address climate change. These ventures focus on a wide range of initiatives globally in clean energy, commercial fleet optimization, chemical manufacturing decarbonization, climate education, sustainable agriculture, and more.

“Each year, the number of Harvard students and alumni using market forces to tackle climate challenges continues to grow exponentially,” said Rebekah Emanuel, senior advisor for climate and social impact at the Harvard Innovation Labs, and chair of the Harvard Climate Entrepreneurs Circle. “The Climate Circle strives to support as many of these extraordinary climate founders as possible. This year, we’re increasing our cohort size by more than 20%, bringing together a group of ventures that are working on everything from powering hospital oxygen machines using solar across Africa, to building infrastructure for a new global carbon market, to reshaping solar panels so they are no longer flat rigid blocks. I can’t wait to work with them all, and see their work have a positive impact on our communities.”

The Climate Entrepreneurs Circle offers world-class coaching, legal counsel, warm connections to industry leaders, and a peer group of Harvard founders who are all working on innovative solutions to tackle climate change. Additionally, ventures get exclusive access to a “first customer program” with Harvard Operations, which gives them the opportunity to pitch their solutions to University operations. Harvard University has initiated procurement with multiple ventures after hearing founders pitch, aiming to turn the university campus into a living laboratory for novel climate solutions. The Climate Circle is spearheaded by the Harvard Innovation Labs, Harvard Business School’s Business and Environment Initiative, and Harvard Alumni for Climate and the Environment.

Since introducing the Climate Entrepreneurs Circle in 2021, the program has supported more than 130 ventures in developing innovative climate solutions. Participants have gone on to take their companies public, form partnerships with governments around the world, receive prestigious recognition such as being named on the Top 100 Climate Leaders list, and collectively scale their ventures to impact the lives of millions. Approximately three quarters of this year’s Climate Entrepreneurs Circle ventures are led by women or people of color.