Clean tech, meet the CleanWeb

Get ready for the CleanWeb.

That was the message of veteran clean tech investor Sunil Paul, founder of Spring Ventures, speaking at GigaOM’s Green:Net conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

What is the CleanWeb and why does it matter? As Paul defines it the CleanWeb is “a category of clean technology that leverages the capability of the Internet, social media and mobile technologies to address resource constraints.” Or more simply put, it’s using “the power of Internet applications as clean tech applications.”

Technically, it’s a new name for something that already exists among nascent and established clean tech companies. But according to Paul, it’s where many of the next big jumps in efficiency will come in.

“Information technology is going to be the next big driver of clean tech innovation,” Paul said.

Up until now, much clean tech development and innovation has been in the physical, tangible world – think improvements in materials like increasing the efficiency of solar panels. And that quest to improve the hardware and infrastructure side of cleantech is going pretty well.

“The good news is, we’re winning,” Paul said of bringing down the costs of renewable energy and other technologies and building successful clean tech companies (and the investment of large companies like GE in the space).

But compared to the rocketing growth of companies like Facebook and Zynga, clean tech companies have a lot to learn.

In the renewable energy sector, some costs – materials and labor, for example – are relatively fixed, but there are a host of potential savings and increased efficiencies in other costs.

Spride cited solar installer SolarCity, which has experienced a growth surge in part because it’s able to bundle transaction costs through its SolarLease program. Another is Sungevity, whose imaging software allows customers to shop for solar photovoltaic systems online, dramatically reducing labor costs. 

As an example of a company tapping the power of the CleanWeb, Paul also highlighted his own startup, Spride Share, a peer-to-peer car sharing company that launched last year in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, Airbnb, which allows people to rent out their homes to travelers, is using the CleanWeb to reduce the need for resource-intensive hotels. Other fields with CleanWeb potential include finance, recycling, food and shipping.

For investors and entrepreneurs, the CleanWeb offers a host of opportunities to create capital-efficient companies with the potential for fast scale-up times. But it poses challenges, too – it’s a fast-moving space demanding broad thinking and quick adaptation.

Interested in diving into the CleanWeb? Paul and his collaborators are putting together a CleanWeb hackathon in July, a weekend-long collaboration of programmers and entrepreneurs focused on building new CleanWeb ventures. 

Check out Paul's talk here: