The Greentown Labs Climatetech Summit 2021 took a deep dive into empowering the technology of tomorrow, engaging climate champions from across the ecosystem to continue building momentum for the energy transition. 

Happening simultaneously at Greentown HQ, Greentown Houston, and via livestream on Nov. 4, 2021, the second annual Climatetech Summit—and celebration of Greentown’s 10-year anniversary—brought the climatetech ecosystem together for a day of collaboration, celebration, and of course, climatetech!

Thank you for joining our second annual Climatetech Summit!

I’m excited to welcome folks, those live in Somerville today and those with us via livestream here in the Boston area, in Houston, and around the world. And I’m delighted to share that we’ve partnered with the UK Government to make today’s Climatetech Summit a virtual COP26 event! 

Thank you to our event sponsors, and especially to our longtime partner and Climatetech Summit champion, Saint-Gobain. 

For those who may be new to Greentown Labs, we are the largest climatetech incubator in North America, with locations here in Somerville, MA, just outside of Boston, and opened on Earth Day this year, a new location in Houston, TX. We support nearly 200 companies across our two locations and nearly have supported 450 since our founding. 

These startups are developing technological and business solutions to tackle the largest GHG-emitting sectors—electricity, buildings, transportation, manufacturing, and agriculture—as well as helping build more resilient infrastructure and communities. 

To date, our startup companies have raised more than $2.2 billion in capital, created over 8,400 jobs, and spurred 2.4 billion dollars in value for local communities. And those numbers are only going up from here, because today, we stand at an incredible moment in time for climatetech and climate action. 

We have amazing momentum in our industry, and you see signs of this each and every day, whether it’s the world gathering as I speak at COP26, with governments and especially corporations poised to make more commitments to climate action than ever before; or it’s an energy transition that is gaining momentum in a city traditionally known as the oil and gas capital of the world; or it’s a brand new offshore wind industry being built off our coast here in Massachusetts; or it’s the wins we see each and every day at Greentown Labs—our startups being acquired, receiving more and larger investments, pilots, and partnerships at a rate I’ve never seen before.

$32 billion has been invested in climatetech startups already in 2021—that is momentum! It is absolutely an amazing feeling to stand here today, with this community, to celebrate just how far we’ve come. And I invite you all to join our 10th birthday party celebration at the end of our programming today!

We’ve come together today to celebrate the achievements of our startup community and the ecosystem that supports them, but also the grit, determination, and commitment that got us to where we are today.

There was anything but momentum for cleantech when Greentown was started 10 years ago. Greentown Labs was created by a need for community—and shared inexpensive space—for our four founding companies to build cleantech prototypes. It was 2011, and investors had fled the field, proclaiming cleantech was dead. But despite these headwinds, this community of entrepreneurs continued to grow, powered by a common purpose … and beer, of course!

They begin to attract and build a supportive ecosystem around them, through monthly events called “EnergyBars.” You had to find your way down two flights of stairs in a then-slightly-sketchy part of Boston, but when you did, you felt the energy, the passion, the belief of folks doing real things—really hard things. They had the courage of their convictions and shared the belief that entrepreneurship could be used to address the world’s biggest energy and environmental challenges. 

By 2013, that slightly sketchy area of Boston became one of the hottest real estate markets in the city, pricing out this community of entrepreneurs. But they refused to throw in the towel, and through a partnership with a visionary mayor, Joe Curtatone of Somerville, that startup community—now 25 companies strong—partners, and supporters raised $1.5 million dollars in just a few months, and Greentown had a new, custom-built, 30,000-square-foot home in the City of Somerville. 

The community continued to grow, attracting more young companies with a need for prototyping space that shared a mission to have a positive impact on the environment. Fifteen short months later, what had seemed like a vast, empty building that would be hard to ever fill, became a thriving hub of 50 companies, and it was time to grow again.

With a partnership catalyzed through that same visionary mayor, a growing team, a supportive ecosystem, and committed partners, Greentown grew to operate a 100,000-square-foot campus in Somerville, with a new $15 million, custom-designed building including a wet chemistry lab, rooftop testing lab, and expanded offerings for a whole new set of entrepreneurs in 2018. Within another 15 months, this building too was at capacity with nearly 100 companies in residence by mid-2019.

When I look back, what’s most amazing to me is that all of this growth happened in a period of little investment in our sector, not to mention a lack of consistent leadership on climate at the federal level. But these entrepreneurs were determined, and became only more so in the wake of the 2019 IPCC report that gave us a stark picture of the planet’s future: we had 10 years left to address the most catastrophic impacts of climate change.

The report made clear the importance of a focus on climate change as the problem to be solved, and we, our partners, and the entrepreneurs finding their way to Greentown Labs became increasingly focused on decarbonizing all sectors of the economy through innovation.

But given the magnitude of the problem to be solved, it was also clear that entrepreneurs in places like Boston and the Bay Area couldn’t do it alone; we needed the entrepreneurial ecosystems in all parts of our country to be engaged in the fight against climate change. 

After hearing from entrepreneurs there in need of a climatetech community, we chose our first location outside of Boston to be the place that we had to have on board to make a transition to a clean energy economy in the U.S.: Houston, TX. 

Houston, the energy capital of the world, like Boston, is not afraid of hard problems. There is a common grit, determination, and steadfastness that these two great cities share.

And while Boston is known for innovation, Houston brings scale to the equation—which is critical. Climate change is a gigaton-sized problem, and we need those who know how to do energy at this scale to be part of the solution. Scale is what we are going to need to focus on to truly have climate impact through innovation.

And so, over the course of the last two years, through the support of another visionary mayor—Sylvester Turner of Houston—a great founding team, startups, partners, and supporters, Greentown Houston was built and opened its doors on Earth Day this year. 

What’s amazing is that this effort was not slowed by the pandemic. And this, more than anything else, speaks to the momentum of the energy transition that is truly palpable in Houston.

In the past two years, through the realization that the jobs lost in the early days of the pandemic are not coming back, and the opportunities inherent in decarbonizing every sector of the global economy are becoming apparent, this transition has only accelerated in Houston. The question now is not if, but how it will get done.

Standing here in 2021, we have incredible tailwinds at our back, with federal leadership in support of acting on climate, adding to the tireless efforts of many cities and states in the U.S. Corporate commitments with science-based targets have increased dramatically.

Suddenly, capital is pouring into our field. Our startups are raising more funds than ever before, faster than ever before. The momentum in the funding alone seems unstoppable. It is truly incredible!

But, we can’t lose sight of the fact that we have much work to do, and it’s going to take that same level of grit, determination, and entrepreneurial spirit that powered our last decade to power the next one. Because a lot of the low-hanging fruit of decarbonization is gone, and the next set of technological challenges will be even harder to solve.

The 2021 IPCC report tells us that climate change is already upon us. We have no time left. Fires, floods, rain, and extreme weather events fill our headlines daily. So we know we need to act as quickly as possible and we need everyone to be engaged in the future we all want to see. 

And in Greentown’s next decade, we pledge to continue to support the entrepreneurs who are doing the hard things, to help them do them faster, more efficiently, and more effectively than ever before. 

We will continue our work with our partners and increasingly bring them together around decarbonization challenges, identifying opportunities for collaboration across value chains for ever-greater impact. And we see partners for decarbonization, demonstration, and scale being not only large corporations, but cities and regions that also have ambitious climate targets to achieve. 

We need to make sure the impact of climatetech is making its way to all communities, not just those that can afford Teslas. You’ll see us making strong efforts to create a truly inclusive entrepreneurial community in which everyone can feel they belong. 

And that, frankly, is the key to it all: how we get this done for our communities and for the planet. We need all the talent we can possibly deploy engaged in this fight. Whether you are a recent college graduate, a mid-career worker from the traditional energy industry, or a seasoned executive, we invite you to bring your talent, grit, and determination to a career in climatetech. 

There is a career in climatetech for everyone, with an unlimited number of not only technical challenges to solve, but new business models to develop, stories to tell, and capital to smartly deploy.

In fact, our startups have over 100 positions open right now; you can find these opportunities on the careers page of our website.

Because at the end of the day, it all comes down to our startups. They remain the core of everything we do; it is our mission to get them what they need, whether it be talent and expertise, access to laboratories or demonstration resources, or simply a community of peers who are equally passionate about addressing the climate crisis we face. 

It is their grit and determination we celebrate today, and we call on all who are listening to help us support them in this next decade. It’s not going to be easy, but we can get there if we work together to power a climatetech revolution.

Thank you!