Cleantech

Overview

Driven by technological advances, sustainable development goals, and favorable public policies, clean technologies are transforming traditional industries and creating new ones.

Virtually every major industry sector – from energy and power, transportation and logistics, natural resources and chemicals, to agriculture and food – is affected by these transformative changes. As a result, both traditional industry players and new market entrants are seeking to take advantage of burgeoning commercial opportunities in the rapidly evolving cleantech industry.

For decades and in different regions around the world, Gibson Dunn has acted as a trusted advisor to a wide range of clients, from early-stage start-ups, cutting-edge emerging businesses, and Fortune Global 500 companies developing clean technologies, to venture capital, growth equity, and private equity funds and financial institutions supporting their growth. As these various economic sectors have begun to merge and overlap, our Cleantech Industry Group concentrates its efforts on developing relationships with existing and new cleantech clients and exploiting our experience and firmwide resources to provide multidisciplinary legal teams, adapted to meet the changing needs of the industry and our clients.

Within cleantech, we have experience with and service the following sectors and types of clients:

• Energy and Power – technologies, services, and business models that facilitate the energy transition (including wind, solar, hydro- and marine, green hydrogen, biomass, waste-to-energy, and geothermal generation, nuclear, battery storage and fuel cells, and smart buildings and energy efficiency solutions);
• Materials, Fuels and Chemicals – technologies that enable the efficient production of basic and advanced materials used in other cleantech sectors (including advanced energy and building materials, advanced manufacturing and consumer products, fuels and specialty chemicals);
• Water, Resources and Waste Management – technologies and services that help protect and restore natural environments, sustainably source materials, prevent waste, improve the circularity of materials, adapt to climate change, and access corporate environmental impact and carbon markets (including carbon capture, utilization, storage, and management, natural resources and climate adaptation solutions, water and waste management technologies);
• Agriculture and Food – technologies and services that make the production of food more efficient and effective (including technologies transforming food and beverage and alternative proteins production, consumer food sourcing and food supply chains, crop inputs and indoor farming, agricultural and food waste); and
• Transportation and Logistics – vehicles, technologies, and services that transport people and goods in a more resource-efficient way (including electric vehicles, aircrafts and maritime vessels, vehicle components and vehicle fueling, traffic management, and smart infrastructure).

The Cleantech industry group works closely with lawyers in the Mergers & Acquisitions, Capital Markets, Securities Regulation and Corporate Governance, Technology Transactions, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), Energy, Regulation and Litigation, Tax, Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits, and other practice groups to offer tailored solutions to various legal and business needs of our cleantech clients.