Why Cleantech firms lose deals and how to stop it

Without climate resilience and adaptation, businesses face one future, disruption and redundancy.
That’s not an activist opinion. It's fact. The World Economic Forum’s 2024 report Business on the Edge, doesn’t sugar-coat it. If your business model doesn't account for operational, financial and structural climate risk, you're business is living on borrowed time. But here’s the catch, even now, with media headlines shouting about record temperatures, raging wildfires and. floods coupled with global supply chain shocks, sustainability alone doesn’t win boardroom battles, not yet. This is the reality slowing cleantech companies sales growth and holding back the mission they were built to deliver.

Most cleantech firms have been built around a mission one that is focused on being on the right side of history, their mission is impact driven, it the type of thinking, work and innovation the world needs. However, when those firms enter real buying cycles, where the stakes are deals worth tens of thousands of pounds, some cleantech's assume that buyers will weigh impact above everything else. The reality is very different.

While sustainability officers might fully back a green solution, procurement teams often bury it in a cost matrix. CFOs are quick to cut anything that looks "non-essential" under financial scrutiny. Operations teams worry about integration risks and disruption to existing processes and boards, under pressure to hit quarterly shareholder targets, can kill a deal based purely on cost, risk or speed of deployment concerns, even if the sustainable option is the right one long-term.

It’s not fair and not always commercially smart, especially if you look beyond the current fiscal year. However, even in our ever evolving climate sensitive world, this is how corporate buying decisions are still made today. A 2024 Deloitte study reinforces this point while more than 70% of executives claim sustainability is important to them, fewer than 40% actually let it drive their purchasing decisions when the buying committee start to crunch the numbers.

Cleantech’s blind spot

Why good intentions don't win deals

In real buying processes, decisions aren’t solely based on emotion or mission statements. They are structured against formal evaluation criteria, weighted decision-making frameworks and clear commercial priorities. In larger organisations, procurement teams typically lead the process, managing a structured evaluation matrix that scores every solution against key factors such as total cost of ownership, risk exposure, return on investment, operational and technical fit, and how quickly the solution can start delivering measurable business results. Solutions that demonstrate strong commercial value through cost savings, operational efficiencies, risk reduction and rapid time to benefit, naturally score higher. Sustainability and ESG contributions are increasingly part of these frameworks but unless they directly support business outcomes and deliver commercially, they rarely outweigh core financial, and operational factors.

In smaller organisations, the buying process is often less formal but the core decision criteria remain the same. Decisions are still driven by the need to control costs, protect cashflow, manage operational risks and achieve business targets. Whether the process is tightly structured or more agile, buyers are still making hard commercial judgements first. Cleantech solutions, whether targeting large enterprises or fast-growth SME's, must first prove they drive tangible business results, whether that's increasing efficiency, protecting margins, or reducing risk. If they don't, they will be overlooked, no matter how strong their environmental credentials are.

What Cleantech firms need to change, fast

When it comes to lead generation, building a healthy sales funnel and selling on mission, one thing is clear, you can’t rely on values alone. You have to lead with hard commercial value, growth, efficiency risk mitigation, first and foremost. Buyers as we've mentioned earlier in this blog aren’t moved by good intentions alone. Buyers, as we've already discussed, aren’t moved by good intentions alone. They are moved by solutions that protect revenue, reduce risk and support growth targets.

Cleantech companies need to speak the language of the real buying committee. You need to talk like procurement, focusing on cost, value and contractual risk. You need to defend your numbers like a CFO, showing ROI, total cost of ownership and your long-term financial upside. You need to structure operational models like a COO ensuring integration of your solution is simple, scalable and low risk. Winning over ESG officers matters too, but it’s not enough. You also need to convert the hard pragmatists around them who are under pressure to hit immediate business targets.

Leading with business wins such as efficiency savings, de-risking and resilience is essential. Sustainability must be positioned as a strategic business advantage, a way to support future growth, manage risk and protect competitive positioning, not just as a moral imperative. Every claim you make needs to be backed up by hard commercial evidence, not intention or blind hope.

If you keep leading with purpose without demonstrating real, quantifiable business impact, you will be outcompeted. Not because your mission is wrong, but because you failed to prove your value where it mattered most, to the bottom line.

The Cleantech opportunity and the Cleantech threat

There is a massive opportunity for cleantech firms right now. Climate risk is real, governments are finally ramping up regulation and investors are reshaping portfolios around ESG criteria. Meanwhile, consumer expectations around sustainability are on the rise, even if, as Deloitte's research shows, purchasing behaviour doesn’t always fully align. Boards are paying serious attention to ESG risk, however, this isn't always voluntarily. Many are transitioning due to more stringent regulations, shareholder demands and the financial risks now clearly associated with climate exposure. At the same time, greenwashing remains a major issue. Some companies are presenting strong sustainability narratives publicly while making minimal real changes operationally.

Climate risk is no longer just a reputational threat, it's now recognised as a material financial and strategic risk. That being said, even with this growing momentum, the next three to five years will be messy. Businesses will focus on protecting the bottom line first and meeting sustainability goals second, unless cleantech firms can show clearly that their solutions deliver on both.

The opportunity for cleantech firms has never been greater but it will belong to those who adapt. Selling mission alone won’t be enough in a market still ruled by commercial realities. Leading with business outcomes such as profitability, efficiency improvements and growth gives buyers the commercial confidence to act now.

The upside... When cleantech firms refocus on the commercial value they deliver, the mission doesn’t disappear, it accelerates. Every sales deal closed, every client won, every solution deployed pushes sustainability further into the mainstream where it belongs.

Cleantech firms who sell smarter will survive the messy middle times ahead, they will lead the market transformation that's coming.
The reality is we and the world needs them to win and the businesses that learn to sell on both value and purpose will be the ones that do.

#Cleantech #CommercialGrowth #SalesStrategy #LeadGeneration

Winning in the messy middle

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