Agenda

Welcome Coffee and Networking

Pick up your badge and a coffee while saying hello to other participants before we get the day started.

Welcome to Cleantech Forum Asia: Cleantech in a Changed World

The compounding chaos of the 2020s has left the world in a state of suspended anxiety around conflict, commodities access, trade, and all elements of geopolitics. The shifting balance has put pressure on many spaces in the cleantech theme, but is breaking open opportunities in some quarters as well. The moment is unique in APAC, too, where the current breakdown of the old global order opens more doors for regional technology flows, and the strengthening deep tech environment in APAC is showing promise for the next generation of global technologies born in APAC.

Cleantech Group will provide its perspectives on key trends and topics to be watching out for, globally, in the US and Europe, but with a particular focus on Asia.

Meet the 2026 APAC Cleantech 25

Meet some of the trailblazers from the 2026 APAC Cleantech 25—the annual definitive list of private sustainable innovation companies that are capturing the market’s attention across the Asia-Pacific. These aren’t just names on a page; join us to celebrate these high-impact innovators poised to fundamentally reshape the region over the next decade.

Download your copy of the newly launched APAC Cleantech 25.

Executive Perspective: The Founder-to-Funder Lens on Scaling

What does it really take to scale a company across Asia’s fragmented, infrastructure-constrained markets? And how do those lessons translate to climate solutions today?

Steve Melhuish, Co-Founder of Wavemaker Impact and PropertyGuru, shares a candid perspective from two decades of building in Southeast Asia — first as a startup founder scaling across borders, then as a venture capitalist, and now as a climate venture builder focused on industrial decarbonization and energy transition.

Networking Break

We set aside plenty of time for networking and business development meetings. This is your opportunity to build the strategic connections necessary to move your business forward and find motivated and engaged partners.

Gridlock to Growth: Exploring Grid Stress Points

As renewables scale rapidly across APAC, grids are reaching critical stress points—facing rising congestion, curtailment, and reliability risks. Speakers will discuss which combination of Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES), short-duration storage, and grid controls delivers genuine system value and bankable projects today. We will dive into the specific use-cases—from peak shifting to firming—that are currently investable and examine the contract structures and revenue-stacking models required to accelerate deployment across the region. Join us to determine the fastest path to scale, whether through utility procurement or innovative aggregation models, in an increasingly strained energy landscape.

Extreme Heat: A Core Infrastructure Risk

Rising temperatures are emerging as one of the most pervasive and underestimated infrastructure risks across Asia Pacific, with cascading impacts on labor productivity, grid demand, health systems, and real estate value. This session reframes extreme heat as a systemic challenge that affects both formal infrastructure and informal housing, particularly in dense urban environments where humidity and indoor exposure amplify risk. We will explore cooling as a form of critical infrastructure and a growing market opportunity and will address why avoided loss and avoided hazard arguments around heat remain poorly understood, even as extreme heat becomes the first widespread adaptation challenge facing the region.

Innovation Showcase: Scalable Circularity and Sustainable Fuel Solutions

Meet a cohort of high-growth companies from the TTV portfolio. These innovators are driving the next industrial era by deploying scalable circularity and sustainable fuel solutions designed to decarbonize the most carbon-intensive global supply chains..

Co-Hosted by: Twin Towers Ventures (TTV)

Turning Climate Risk into Real-World Resilience

As climate shocks intensify, the question is no longer whether we can predict risk — but whether prediction actually changes outcomes. Governments, agencies and infrastructure operators are investing in climate intelligence and early warning systems, yet many industrial assets across APAC and the Global South remain exposed. Why?

Speakers will explore the reasons, from the gaps in data to decision-making, incentives, and accountability.

Cleantech Group, in partnership with UNIDO’s climate innovation unit, will discuss how governments, multilaterals, corporates and finance providers can embed resilience in industrial planning, operations and investment decisions. Allowing you to walk away with tactics to turn risk into opportunity – for real world resilience at scale.

Co-Hosted by: UNIDO

Networking Lunch

As part of our sustainability efforts, we serve a plant-based menu at all forum meals to help reduce our environmental footprint while highlighting local produce and in-season products.

Innovation Incubator: Peer-Driven Table Topics

Check your mobile app for each topic and sign up for one that catches your eye. Or just stop by at lunch and see if there is still room. Limited capacity at each table.

Table 1 Solar vs. Sustenance: Solving the Land-Scarcity Squeeze

As solar deployment accelerates across high-density regions, the competition for arable land threatens to pit renewable energy goals directly against regional food security. This discussion will unpack the challenges to scale solar infrastructure without compromising vital agricultural supply chains and hear your opinions on safe ways to scale. Moderated by: Balaji Lakshmikanth Bangolae, Renkube Pvt Ltd

Table 2 Navigating Startup Governance and Picking the Right NED

Startups frequently stumble over governance hurdles as they scale, making the choice of a Non-Executive Director (NED) a critical lever for risk mitigation and strategic growth. Drawing on firsthand experiences across distinct regulatory landscapes in India, China, Australia, and the UK, this table topic will unpack how to identify and select high-impact NEDs who can effectively steady a portfolio company’s ship without stifling its agility. Moderated by: Sophia Nadur

Table 4 The $10 Billion Kabadiwala Economy: Could Asia’s Informal Waste Value Chain Be Microfinance’s Next Frontier

Share your perspective on how EPR mandates, brand commitments, and microfinance credit layers are rapidly transforming Asia’s $10B+ informal scrap trade into a bankable, institutional supply chain. We want your input on the exact capital structures and supply-chain valuation moats needed to move past high-level sustainability talk and underwrite the region’s next billion-dollar, listed recycling giants. Come ready to debate where the real investment alpha sits over the next five years as this messy middle between collection and listing formalizes. Moderated by: Mani Vajipey, Banyan Nation

Table 5 Green Hydrogen: Bridging the Gap from Potential to Realized Production

Share your perspective on what is genuinely missing to move hydrogen past its current bottleneck of high costs, project delays, and emerging demand signals. We want your input on the exact regulatory frameworks, infrastructure investments, and offtake agreements needed to turn hydrogen’s critical role in energy security and industrial decarbonization into a bankable reality. Come ready to discuss whether the immediate path forward lies in localized industrial hubs or if a massive global supply-chain overhaul is required to finally make it happen. Moderated by: Rotem Arad, H2Pro

Innovation Showcase: Restoration at Scale

This Innovation Showcase spotlights innovators focused on the industrial restoration of our planet’s most critical resources: infrastructure, oceans, and materials. These pioneers are deploying specialized chemical and biomimetic technologies to close the loop on plastic waste, double the lifespan of the built environment, and restore the ocean’s natural capacity for permanent carbon removal. An investor reviewer will join the showcase to ask questions as well.

Flood Risk in the Age of Real-Time Intelligence

Flooding remains one of the most immediate and financially material climate risks across Asia, particularly in low-lying and rapidly urbanizing regions. This session explores how earth observation, nowcasting, and digital twins are maturing into operational tools for infrastructure planning, emergency response, and real-time decision-making. We will examine how these technologies are increasingly linked to risk disclosure, parametric insurance, and new financial mechanisms that translate hazard data into faster payouts and clearer accountability.

Nuclear in the Future Energy Mix

Nuclear solutions will have to become a growing part of the world’s future energy mix as demands for energy and electricity increase. Both fission and fusion technologies are seeing an increase in investments however players developing the components required to support the supply chains are closely watching progress in these industries as they scale their technologies to meet future needs. This session will discuss what needs to happen to further grow the nuclear supply chain and what are the remaining bottlenecks towards scaling both fission and fusion technologies.

Resilience by Design: Retrofitting Infrastructure for a Changing Climate

As climate risk intensifies, the resilience of existing infrastructure is becoming as critical as the design of new assets. This session explores how risk is being measured across buildings and infrastructure portfolios, and how owners and operators are prioritizing retrofits in the face of physical, financial, and regulatory constraints. We will examine the practical barriers to upgrading existing assets, from capital allocation and engineering complexity to operational disruption.

Networking Break

Take a meeting, find a new contact, enjoy the break.

Water Resilience at Scale

Water resilience is increasingly shaping economic growth, industrial expansion, and urban stability across the region, spanning potable water supply, desalination, and real-time monitoring. We will highlight the growing pipeline of water innovation across Asia, alongside the persistent challenges of scaling and cost competitiveness. Speakers will explore how rising industrial water risk, driven by semiconductors, data centers, and manufacturing, is accelerating demand for resilient and reliable water systems.

Bits Meeting Atoms: The Physical AI Era in Cleantech Has Arrived

The era of platforms is ending; in 2026, the real breakthroughs are happening where AI controls physical processes, and determines physical outcomes. Physical AI will supplant many of the software-only AI approaches in cleantech. While cases of closed-loop science & manufacturing are just beginning to emerge in APAC, the industrial base in APAC is likely to be a prime venue for experimenting with and de-risking these technologies.

From Risk to Advantage: The APAC Critical Minerals Transition

APAC’s industrial competitiveness depends on secure access to critical minerals that underpin semiconductors, batteries, electronics, and advanced manufacturing. Today, supply chains remain highly concentrated and increasingly exposed to geopolitical risk, particularly as critical minerals have become instruments of strategic leverage. This session examines how APAC economies can move beyond risk mitigation toward strategic advantage, through diversification, partnerships, innovation, and new value-chain models, to secure long-term supply resilience and reduce reliance on China-controlled ecosystems.

Reception

Network with the founders, investors, and champions redefining the region’s industrial landscape over drinks and focused conversation.