Environment & Energy | Thursday 6 August, 2015 1:45 am |

 Carbon Clean Solutions (CCS), a London-based energy technology company, was awarded today as one of the World Economic Forum’s “technology pioneers”, a selection of the world’s most innovative companies. CCS was founded by two graduates from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (India) and has received strong support from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change as well as the US Department of Energy. The company’s patented solvents extract CO2 and other unwanted gases from flue gas streams, replacing conventional amines. CCS’s technology dramatically reduces the cost of capturing CO2, making it economic for industrial and power plants to re-use waste CO2 to produce economically viable products.

Carbon Clean Solutions was chosen by a professional jury among hundreds of candidates as one of the 49 selected companies. Thanks to its selection, it will have access to the most influential and sought-after business and political network in the world, and be invited to the World Economic Forum’s “Summer Davos” in Dalian, China, this September, or the Annual Meeting in Davos in January.

“We’re glad to see a company with Indian origins make it to the selection,” says Fulvia Montresor, Head of Technology Pioneers at the World Economic Forum. “Carbon Clean Solutions is part of a group of entrepreneurs who are more aware of the crucial challenges of the world around them, and who are determined to do their part to solve those challenges with their company.”

“We are passionate about helping the world to reduce its carbon emissions sustainably, and we are delighted to be recognized by the World Economic Forum for our breakthrough technologies,” says Aniruddha Sharma, CEO of Carbon Clean Solutions. “We are also grateful for the support from our government and industry partners that has allowed us to rapidly prove our technologies across a broad range of industrial processes, and now bring them to a market in need of the best solutions.”

As in previous years, American-based entrepreneurs continue to dominate the list of technology pioneers: they account for more than two-thirds of the recipients, followed by the United Kingdom (4), Israel and the Netherlands (2), and individual recipients of Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Taiwan, China. France and Spain were among the countries not counting a recipient.

The Technology Pioneers were selected from among hundreds of applicants by a selection committee of 68 academics, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and corporate executives. Notable members of the committee include Arianna Huffington (founder, Huffington Post) and Henry Blodget (editor-in-chief, Business Insider). The committee based its decisions on criteria including innovation, potential impact, working prototype, viability and leadership.

Past recipients include Google (2001), Wikimedia (2007), Mozilla (2007), Kickstarter (2011) and Dropbox (2011). More information on past winners can be found here.