Across South and Southeast Asia, a quiet industrial transformation is taking place. From India to Singapore, Malaysia to Vietnam, governments are reorienting their industrial strategies to position themselves as the next global hubs for climate technology.

These national drives are woven into climate policy and economic masterplans. In India, the National Green Hydrogen Mission, ambitious renewable energy targets, and electric mobility incentives are designed to capture global leadership in clean energy solutions.

In Malaysia, the National Energy Transition Roadmap is laying the foundation for a diversified, low-carbon economy. Vietnam’s rapidly expanding solar and wind infrastructure signals its intent to become a regional powerhouse. In Singapore, the Green Plan 2030 is driving a whole-of-nation sustainability agenda, tightening carbon pricing, mandating sustainability reporting for listed companies, and investing in next-generation solutions such as low-carbon hydrogen, carbon capture, and energy storage to cement its position as Asia’s green finance and innovation hub.

Beneath this momentum lies a structural risk. A significant number of climate-tech and clean-tech start-ups – collectively known as green technology ventures – are scaling without the legal, governance, and intellectual property (IP) foundations necessary for sustainable growth.

On paper, they may appear promising. In practice, many are being built on shaky operational and legal foundations. This article argues that such an approach is grossly short-sighted and potentially dangerous, even if it appears expedient in the early stages. The widespread expectation that new technologies will be critical to meeting climate goals adds urgency to this debate.

In a world where climate deadlines are unforgiving – 2030 for major emissions cuts, mid-century for net-zero – South and Southeast Asia cannot afford to lose time to preventable governance crises. Every venture that fails due to poor ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) integration, regulatory non-compliance, or IP loss is a delay in meeting national targets, a blow to investor confidence, and a signal to competitors that the region’s green ambitions can be undercut.

Why green technology ventures are different

Green technology ventures are structurally and operationally different from typical e-commerce, food delivery, or digital marketplace businesses. They are not just another category of start-ups. This is primarily due to the following reasons:

1. They operate in regulatory-dense environments

Climate-tech intersects with environmental law, trade regulations, energy policy, and increasingly, AI governance for smart, sensor-driven systems. A misstep in compliance can stall projects for years. For example, a solar installation start-up may clear environmental approvals but be held back by import restrictions on photovoltaic modules.

2. They are highly capital-intensive

Unlike software-as-a-service (SaaS) start-ups that can iterate cheaply, hardware manufacturing, infrastructure deployment, and industrial partnerships require significant upfront capital. Weak contracts or ambiguous IP ownership can deter institutional investors and public-private partnerships.

3. They rely on international collaboration

A green lithium-ion battery developed in Malaysia may be manufactured in Vietnam, assembled in Thailand, and shipped to Europe. Without robust cross-border IP protections, proprietary innovations can leak at any stage.

4. They carry a public trust factor

Climate-tech is often tied to national sustainability goals. A governance failure poses a big risk to a nation’s reputation, can lead to public disillusionment, and political backlash. It is not merely a business failure. 

India’s climate-tech ecosystem already shows how these challenges manifest. Ride-sharing company BluSmart entered insolvency amid mounting corporate governance issues. Agriculture service Takachar must carefully navigate environmental approvals, and Battery Smart, an EV battery-swapping network, relies on clear IP and contractual frameworks to build trust with partners. These cases illustrate that regulatory clarity and IP discipline are critical enablers of scale.

Take the example of a clean-tech platform operating in the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) sector. Such a venture would need to comply with refrigerant phase-out regulations under the Montreal Protocol, local building energy codes, and potentially carbon credit verification schemes if its technology claims emissions savings. These layers of compliance are non-negotiable because they link directly to national commitments under multilateral climate treaties. Nonetheless, many start-ups treat them as optional until they encounter a regulatory roadblock, at which point costly delays are inevitable. 

Founders in South and Southeast Asia are shaping the industrial and environmental reputation of the region. They are not merely building companies; they are helping deliver government climate promises. Compliance, IP filings, and participation in regulatory sandboxes should be built in from day one and not retrofitted under investor or political pressure.

The trust deficit problem

Unlike consumer tech ventures, which can pivot or rebrand after failures, green ventures have long lifespans (ranging from 10–20 years). A governance failure in this space cannot be quietly buried. It can derail national decarbonisation goals, sour diplomatic trade relations, and discredit an entire emerging sector. Many founders underestimate this. They believe speed of scaling is the ultimate competitive advantage.

However, in climate-tech, speed without governance discipline is the hype-to-hyper-scale trap. This means that moving too fast without operational safeguards is likely to lead to catastrophic regulatory or reputational setbacks later. In climate policy terms, every such collapse is a missed emissions reduction opportunity and missed opportunities are now irreversible within global carbon budgets.

The ESG blind spot

In the last decade, ESG has moved from a niche investment concept to a boardroom staple. Nevertheless, many green technology ventures treat ESG as a marketing checklist rather than a strategic economic moat. This is partly because corporate governance models were developed in a pre-platform, pre-digital-industrial era. They are still optimised for large, static corporations and not for agile, cross-border platforms dealing with dynamic environmental markets. The result is a governance disconnect.

The business models of modern climate-tech platforms often outpace the regulatory and oversight models meant to guide them. Jurisdictions that can bridge this gap by crafting governance frameworks that integrate ESG from the board level down will be the primary beneficiaries of the climate-tech boom. For South and South-East Asia, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set global norms on governance of green ventures, norms that can be directly embedded in national climate implementation frameworks.

In the race for green tech leadership, control over intellectual property is as critical as emissions targets. India and some South-East Asian countries are actively competing to attract manufacturing and R&D investment. In the absence of clear IP roadmaps, start-ups risk losing their most valuable asset i.e. the technology itself and in turn jeopardising national innovation pipelines.

The common misconception is that patents, trade secrets and licensing agreements can be addressed “later,” once revenue streams are stable. In reality, this delay often results in:

(i) Technology leakage during cross-border manufacturing;

(ii) Investor hesitation due to unclear asset ownership;

(iii) Market access barriers in jurisdictions with strict IP compliance requirements.

The debate over IP’s role in sustainable development has been alive since the 1970s, during early attempts to create a new international economic order. Today, the stakes are even higher. IP rights are critical levers for accelerating innovation, attracting private capital, and enabling technology transfer in ways that directly support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Without strong IP protections, green ventures developed in South Asia and South-East Asia could be freely replicated abroad, eroding both commercial returns and national competitiveness. This in turn could deter future R&D investment into regional green ventures, slowing delivery of national climate commitments.

Global regulators are already acting and moving the needle. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) proposed climate disclosure rules are raising transparency standards by requiring companies to disclose climate-related risks, greenhouse gas emissions across their value chains, and the financial impacts of sustainability issues on their operations.

Meanwhile, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is pushing for stronger global IP frameworks for green technologies, including fast-tracking patent applications for climate-friendly innovations through initiatives like WIPO GREEN. These efforts are not abstract, they are setting the compliance terms for access to the world’s largest markets. Through these initiatives, IP becomes a strategic instrument to scale solutions, safeguard competitive advantage, and ensure that the benefits of clean innovation are distributed fairly and effectively.

For Asian climate-tech founders, the message is clear. It is best to align with corporate governance norms early on to secure market access and investor trust. Treating IP and ESG as secondary concerns risks exclusion from the very markets they aim to serve.

Call for better governance

The proliferation of green ventures in South and Southeast Asia is inspiring. However, the region’s ability to leapfrog into a sustainable industrial future depends on balancing speed with governance discipline. The true competitive advantage for the region will be the credibility, resilience and trust earned through robust governance and not the fastest scaling curve.

This means:

(i) Integrating ESG at the board level from inception;

(ii) Building an IP moat to protect innovation in cross-border markets;

(iii) Scaling at a pace governance structures can sustain and avoiding the hype-to-hyper-scale trap;

(iv) Maintaining transparency with investors and regulators at all stages.

They are operational necessities and the very foundation on which Asia’s green industrial future, and its credibility in global climate leadership will be built.

Dr. Seemantani Sharma is an intellectual property lawyer and co-founder of clean-tech startup Mabill Technologies.

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