Green technology innovation has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, with global patenting in green technologies nearly quadrupling between 2003 and 2023, according to a new WIPO report.
The report, Mapping Green Innovation: An overview of the New WIPO IPC-Green Technology Concordance, shows that green technology patent families increased from approximately 111,400 in 2003 to 412,300 in 2023. Green technologies also accounted for a growing share of global innovation, rising from 13.7% of all patent families in 2003 to 18.2% in 2023.
The report introduces the WIPO Green Technology Inventory for Statistical Use (WIPO-GTIS), a new harmonized methodology developed by WIPO that provides a consistent and internationally comparable way to measure green technology innovation using patent data.
Green technologies are becoming an increasingly important part of global innovation
As countries invest in the transition to more sustainable economies, innovation in green technologies continues to accelerate.
Growth has been particularly strong in technologies related to smart energy, grid and transmission; energy storage and air pollution control. Together, these three technology fields accounted for more than 40% of global green technology patent families during 2021–2023.
The analysis also points to a shift in the nature of green innovation. While renewable energy technologies remain an important area of invention, energy efficiency and conversion technologies now account for the largest share of global green technology patenting, reflecting increasing efforts to improve how energy is generated, managed and used.
China leads global green technology patenting
The analysis shows that China accounted for nearly 72% of global green technology patent families in 2023, reflecting sustained growth over the past two decades. The Republic of Korea (8.3%), Japan (6.9%) and the United States (4.3%) were the next largest origins of green technology patenting.
However, when measured relative to overall patenting activity, Denmark recorded the highest concentration of green technology innovation among the leading patenting economies with 33.9% of its total patent families classified as green technologies. Poland (28.2%), Austria (23.9%), Germany (23.7%), France (23.3%) and the Republic of Korea (22.2%) also demonstrated a strong strategic focus on green innovation relative to their overall patenting activity.
The report also explores patterns of technological specialization across countries and identifies which green technology fields have grown most rapidly over the past two decades. For example, Singapore specializes in solar energy, Sweden in electric vehicles, and Brazil and Israel in biopesticides, illustrating how targeted industrial strategies or structural economic conditions can generate strong specialization in specific green technologies.
A new framework for measuring green technology innovation
The findings are based on the WIPO Green Technology Inventory for Statistical Use (WIPO-GTIS), a new harmonized methodology developed by WIPO to improve the measurement of green technology innovation.
Green technologies span a wide range of industries—from renewable energy and sustainable mobility to pollution control, recycling and climate-smart agriculture—making them difficult to identify consistently in patent data. Existing classification systems often use different definitions and approaches, limiting international comparability.
To address this challenge, WIPO-GTIS provides a harmonized framework built exclusively on International Patent Classification (IPC) codes. The methodology groups green technologies into five sectors and 36 technology fields, allowing researchers, policymakers and intellectual property offices to analyze green innovation using a transparent and reproducible statistical framework.
Supporting evidence-based policymaking
The report demonstrates how the new methodology can support a better understanding of global trends in green innovation and strengthen the evidence base for environmental, innovation and industrial policy.
By providing a common statistical framework, WIPO-GTIS complements existing green technology classification systems and supports more consistent international comparisons of green technology innovation.