On 8 April, the ‘2025 Cleantech Conference: Advancing Europe’s clean industrial transformation’ explored Europe’s path towards a competitive, resilient, and decarbonised future. Attended by nearly 400 participants onsite and followed by 1360 online, the event brought together high-level policymakers, industry leaders, investors, and representatives from projects supported by the Innovation Fund.
Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen opened the event with a powerful video message. Setting the tone for the day, she emphasised the crucial role of the Clean Industrial Deal. To maintain Europe’s competitiveness and its position as a global cleantech leader, Europe is mobilising more funding for innovation, simplifying business rules, and ensuring access to critical raw materials.
‘All of you are proof that the clean industrial renaissance has begun. Cleantech is a European success story – but to stay ahead, we must act now’, said the President.
The main theme throughout the day was that sustainability, prosperity and profitability go hand in hand. Participants gained insights into the core principle of Europe’s climate action, which is that decarbonisation is not only about cutting emissions but modernising Europe’s economy and enhancing its global competitiveness.
The event featured four engaging panel and roundtable discussions. The first explored how the Clean Industrial Deal can boost innovation and competitiveness, the second showcased breakthrough technologies funded by the Innovation Fund, the third discussed scaling cleantech by navigating regulation and funding, and the fourth concluded with an exchange on reducing Europe’s external dependencies and strengthening Europe’s supply chains.
The three keynote speeches underlined these themes by:
- Unpacking the Clean Industrial Deal was the Director General of the Directorate-General of Climate Action (DG CLIMA), Kurt Vandenberghe. He outlined how the Deal can propel Europe’s economic model, innovation and leadership in the global landscape.
- Director of the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), Paloma Aba Garrote, highlighted how CINEA turns EU policy into tangible impacts by funding and supporting clean industrial innovation across energy, transport, and energy-intensive industries.
- Lara Obst of ClimateChoice, a leading voice of cleantech, shared her expertise on accelerating supply chain decarbonisation focusing on three pillars: collaboration, artificial intelligence and data infrastructure, and smart climate choices.
Finally, a fireside chat featured Kurt Vandenberghe and Jigar Shah, the former Loans Project Officer from the US Department of Energy. Jigar shared his insights on the role of public and private investment in accelerating decarbonisation technologies, suggesting that there needs to be a stronger public-private courtship, and more strategic financial derisking tools to support innovation in the EU.
‘Europe’s strength lies in its country-level responsiveness to industry. The challenge now is turning local success into an EU-wide scale’, said Jigar.
This year’s conference demonstrated that climate action is the frontier of economic opportunity on a European and global scale. As Kurt put it in his closing remarks, “The EU is not alone, and the world is watching closely to see what we do next.”
The 2025 edition also featured an exhibition with eight Innovation Fund projects, showcasing cutting-edge solutions from AggregaCO2, CarBatteryReFactory, GIGA-SCALES, Helexio® line, InnoSolveGreen, SHEEFT, TopSOEC and W4W.
Additionally, the onsite participants had the opportunity to take part in B2B meetings. Over 100 meetings were organised during the networking time for participants to meet and discuss business opportunities, collaborations and more.
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Details
- Publication date
- 10 April 2025
- Author
- European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency