The climate emergency has pushed me hard into quite a few areas that have a lot of promise for huge impact, to name a few:
- electromobility: concerting bikes, kick-scooters, cars ... this all is much easier than it seems, also has a vibrant open source culture
- demand response in electricity grids has quite a few startups (one of which I just joined) that help integrating a lot of renewables in a way that does not break grid stability
- passivhaus buildings that can save 90% of heating/cooling for 10% extra cost in construction
- storing carbon into buildings with wood/CLT
- plating trees, reforesting deserts etc
- if you really want to go long there are a few fields of microbiology that could reduce our pollution from agriculture a lot
I studied sustainability related topics for my Bachelor's and Master's degrees, but transitioned to full-time software development. Now I've promised myself I'll try to work exclusively for companies doing something climate positive. I must admit the intersection of sustainability and TypeScript is more narrow than I'd like! Let me know which companies you find.
There are some great, mission driven urban and smart-city related companies-- Swiftly, Sidewalk Labs, Remix. The whole mobility SaaS scene like Ioki (my employer), Via, door2door. Some cool unique projects like Doconomy.
But unfortunately for me the most impactful companies will have a much more specific niche than just "sustainability", and often are more in science and engineering than software. Like the ones you've pointed out, or lab grown meat and meat substitutes, renewable energy, geospatial tech, manufacturing, etc.
So I try take this extra motivation and energy and throw it at side projects: getting https://offsetra.com off the ground, and trying to find people to use my mapping tool for citizen science and civic engagement https://canvis.app
While there isn't a lot to be optimistic about in the grand sense, we can at least feel a bit optimistic in the career sense-- sustainability and climate are more hot than ever these days (no pun intended).
- electromobility: concerting bikes, kick-scooters, cars ... this all is much easier than it seems, also has a vibrant open source culture
- demand response in electricity grids has quite a few startups (one of which I just joined) that help integrating a lot of renewables in a way that does not break grid stability
- passivhaus buildings that can save 90% of heating/cooling for 10% extra cost in construction
- storing carbon into buildings with wood/CLT
- plating trees, reforesting deserts etc
- if you really want to go long there are a few fields of microbiology that could reduce our pollution from agriculture a lot