Massachusetts could soon become the new leader in climate and environmental technology, as the race to find solutions for sustainability and emissions mitigation intensifies around the world.
A billion-dollar proposal for Massachusetts to become a global leader in climate technology unveiled by Gov. Maura Healey and the rise of startups and environmental think tanks are among the reasons the Bay State may emerge as the nation’s climate solutions center in the near future.
But the foundations for taking environmental initiatives from inception to the public market have long existed in Massachusetts, home to some of the world’s most prestigious scientific research and discovery institutions, as well as the existing infrastructure that enables efficient production. much faster, according to state experts.
Climate technology is any technology and any type of company that is working to fight climate change, from solar energy, offshore wind energy, hydropower, as well as fusion and decarbonization of existing processes such as construction, he said Massachusetts Development Secretary Yvonne Hao told KeynoteUSA. News.
California and New York tend to receive the most praise when it comes to climate solutions. There is currently competition between Boston, New York, Texas, California, Europe and Asia in the climate technology domain, Jim Matheson, a professor at Harvard Business School and an expert on climate technology innovation, told KeynoteUSA.
Massachusetts currently ranks third in the country for the number of climate technology solutions: 340, compared to 1,607 in California and 661 in New York, according to Powerhouse, an environmental solutions company.
Sparkcharge, a Boston-based startup, created the world’s first mobile electric vehicle charging network.Sparkcharge
What makes Massachusetts unique is that it has a proven track record of taking what it learns in the lab and applying it to real life, Lindi von Mutius, director of the Climate Action Accelerator at Harvard University, a think tank, told KeynoteUSA. environmental solutions. This is especially true when it comes to innovation in life sciences, which already has extensive infrastructure that can also be applied to climate technology, von Mutius said. Advances in sickle cell studies, cell gene therapy research and the Moderna Covid vaccine emerged from Massachusetts, Hao said.
“I think we have a really great place where we have already demonstrated leadership in an area of cutting-edge technology, innovation and financing for that innovation,” von Mutius said.
A successful technology company requires what’s known as “the capital triangle,” Matheson said: Intellectual capital: Massachusetts is home to places like Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst; human capital: the people who run the company; and financial capital: the funds needed to get new businesses off the ground.
Entrepreneurial ideas and talent emerging from universities and laboratories in the Boston, Cambridge and New England area are combined with financial capital that supports companies from their early stages to their implementation in public markets, Matheson said.
“The modern venture capital industry started in Boston,” he said, adding that proximity to New York and Washington, D.C. allows for even more investment and business opportunities.
In this Aug. 26, 2023, file photo, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus is shown in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bloomberg via /Keynote USA/Getty Images, FILE
The biggest difference between Silicon Valley and Boston is the latter’s ability to produce “real physical things,” as opposed to software, Matheson said. Instead of big tech booms and busts, climate solutions require longer cycles.
Gov. Healey is “wickedly competitive,” which is contributing to her ambitious climate agenda, Hao said. Healey’s $1 billion proposal aims to catalyze economic growth around climate technology by using successes in the life sciences as a model and applying them to climate technology innovation, Hao told KeynoteUSA.
The proposal includes return on investments that pay off “multiple”, tax incentives, job creation at a “competitive scale” and an operating budget for the Clean Energy Center, which will guarantee the installation of electric vehicle charging stations and the deployment of green electricity. in the future, Hao said.
“We want to be great and we want to solve big, difficult problems that are important to the world,” Hao said.
City of Boston. FILE PHOTO//Keynote USA/Getty Images
A startup called Boston Metal is creating decarbonized steel, the traditional production of which is extremely harmful to the environment and one of the largest contributions to the construction sector’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Sparkcharge, also based in Boston, is a startup that created the world’s first mobile electric vehicle charging network, an idea that emerged from the lack of charging stations across the United States, Joshua Aviv, founder of Sparkcharge.
Since its inception in 2018, Sparkcharge has developed a fast charger that could charge an electric vehicle without any connection to the grid, Aviv said.
Sparkcharge is the brainchild of Greentown Labs, the nation’s largest climate technology incubator, located in Somerville, Massachusetts, Julia Travaglini, senior vice president of marketing and communications at Greentown Labs, told KeynoteUSA.
Greentown Labs was founded in 2011 among four startups in the MIT ecosystem, making Massachusetts a natural home for the company, Travaglini said.
“Massachusetts is home to more than 80 different academic institutions across the state,” he said. “We really are kind of the nexus and melting pot of all the pieces that are needed to catalyze your climate community.”
In this Oct. 19, 2018, file photo, the Beauport Hotel is shown with panoramic ocean views facing the ocean and wind turbines behind in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Tim Graham//Keynote USA/Getty Images, FILE
Highlighting the economic potential of climate technology will be the main focus of the inaugural Boston climate conference, titled ClimaTech, taking place Monday through Wednesday.
“We really wanted to have a gathering of people who were focused on the economic growth aspect around innovation, technology and startups,” Hao said. “How do we solve these big, difficult climate tech problems, but at the same time grow startups and jobs and actually help create this acceleration of economic growth out of it?”
Global warming is the most existential crisis of our time, experts say. Competition among global innovation leaders will likely lead to more impactful results, Matheson said.
“It’s great that there is competition between states if it means there are more people working on climate change,” von Mutius said.
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