We need to move faster
We take an approach of informed optimism that acknowledges the scale of the crisis while showing that solutions can be achieved and are good business.
Clean technologies
are winning.
But not fast enough.
The playbook for competing in the low-carbon economy.
Its practical approach is grounded in what is working today, drawing on original research covering more than 400 companies and 5,000 climate tech startups.
Jonathan Weitz
Praise for the book
“Move Fast shows how better technology, lower costs, and smarter capital is accelerating progress in ways the headlines often miss.”
“Move Fast delivers a data-packed and timely must read for entrepreneurs, investors, and practitioners driving the transition of energy and industry.”
The playbook for competing in the low-carbon economy
Clean technologies are winning because they increase affordability, energy security, and resilience. As a result, investors are allocating capital to them and adoption is growing worldwide.
But not fast enough. Worsening climate hazards expose the risk of delay. AI can accelerate the transition or set it back, depending on how we power it.
Corporate leaders who recognize the value creation opportunity and move quickly to adapt will find profitable growth and lower risk. Those who wait will face disruption.
Move Fast and Fix the Planet is the playbook for competing in the low-carbon economy. Its practical approach is grounded in what is working today, drawing on original research covering more than 400 companies and 5,000 climate tech startups.
This book is for
- Executives and board members looking to allocate capital to growth markets, apply AI to the biggest challenges, and improve cost efficiency
- Sustainability leaders looking to implement transition plans faster, connect decarbonization to strategy, and deliver business outcomes
- Heads of corporate innovation, venturing, and M&A who are searching for startup partnerships, untapped revenue streams, and new business models
- Entrepreneurs working to close funding gaps, secure corporate customers, and reach commercial scale
- Investors seeking growth value pools and ways to reduce portfolio risk
- Policymakers aiming to improve affordability and boost competitiveness through programs that catalyze private capital
- Philanthropy and NGO leaders looking to place grants for systemic impact and build coalitions that mobilize corporate action
- Young professionals who want to drive real change and find career opportunities in clean tech
Inside the book
14 chapters. Five parts.
UrgencyPart 01
The clean economy race is on
The trends we’ve discussed in this chapter have already powered exponential growth in the clean economy, but there is still room for it to get much bigger.
Clean tech creates value and disrupts markets
This chapter provides a framework for understanding the business case drivers, and explores what makes these solutions so disruptive, drawing insights from an analysis of thousands of startups.
StrategyPart 02
Wire sustainability into strategy
This chapter looks at how companies clear that first obstacle by making sustainability core to strategy. Doing so drives innovation, competitiveness, and financial performance.
Plan for the future you can’t predict
What’s needed is a disciplined way to gather external signals and make sense of what they mean for the business.
TransformationPart 03
Align the operating model
In this chapter, we’ll introduce a framework for transforming operating models and how companies can implement it.
Shift the portfolio for sustainable growth
In this chapter, we’ll look at climate-aligned portfolio strategy as a driver of value creation, and then see how companies put it into practice in their portfolio-management processes.
Cut costs and emissions
In this chapter, we’ll introduce a method that cuts costs and shrinks environmental footprints.
GrowthPart 04
Partner with clean tech startups
They match each approach to the opportunity it can capture or the problem it can solve. And they consistently look outside: partnering with startups, holding open innovation challenges, taking strategic venture stakes, and making acquisitions.
Grow new climate-aligned revenue
The chapter proceeds in two parts: the first covers how to leverage corporate assets and build new businesses with a de-risking process that shortens time-to-market, and the second applies a framework to build the organizational muscle behind a repeatable, low-carbon growth engine.
Adapt the business model
Deere’s journey, like that of many organizations, shows how business model innovation helps scale clean tech solutions.
CollaborationPart 05
Build coalitions that move markets
In every sector, companies have formed coalitions that deliver environmental and economic gains. Pre-competitive collaboration tackles systemic barriers to change and presses for greater action from policymakers.
Advocate for bold climate policy
Like Trane, a growing number of corporate leaders recognize that policy engagement is essential to deploying climate solutions faster.
Take Action
The corporate innovators and startup entrepreneurs featured in this book are betting that solving our biggest challenges is one of the twenty-first century’s greatest opportunities.
Clean tech creates value
and disrupts markets
Stories from the book
Rondo Energy
Industrial heat
Rondo Energy offers a “heat as a service” solution for industrial customers. Its heat batteries store renewable energy as heat and supply customers from cement plants in Thailand to bourbon distilleries in Kentucky. Buyers pay for outcomes instead of capital equipment.
Chapter 3 →Redwood Materials
Battery recycling
Ford invested $50 million in Redwood Materials, a battery-recycling company that is building a closed-loop system to supply carmakers with cathode active materials. A pilot with Ford and Volvo proved the value, recovering 95 percent of critical elements.
Chapter 9 →Deere & Company
Precision agriculture
Deere’s business model historically required farmers to invest upfront capital, a barrier to adoption especially in the Global South. In response, the company developed upgrade kits and a Solutions as a Service model that reduced initial costs.
Chapter 11 →Octopus Energy
Clean electricity
It took less than a decade for a newcomer to overtake a 214-year-old British energy company. Octopus Energy surpassed British Gas, one of the world’s oldest utilities, to become the country’s largest household energy provider in 2025.
Chapter 3 →L’Oréal
Corporate innovation
To help climate solutions scale, L’Oréal launched a €100 million Sustainable Innovation Accelerator. The program supports entrepreneurs in low-carbon solutions, alternative ingredients, elimination of fossil plastic use and plastic waste, low-impact processes, water resilience, nature-based solutions, and inclusive business models.
Chapter 5 →Stegra
Green steel
A secure supply of decarbonized inputs is now part of the value proposition for some clean tech firms. Stegra pre-sold contracts for green steel at a premium over conventional steel.
Chapter 3 →Put the strategies to work
Packed with actionable frameworks in each section, along with a companion website that includes templates, metrics, and an executive summary for leadership teams to help you put the strategies to work in your organization.
Templates & frameworks
Explore the book’s frameworks →
Executive slides version
An executive summary for leadership teams.
In preparation
AI implementation tool
In preparation
Sources cited in the book
Explore the research, chapter by chapter.
Browse the sources →
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