By SHRUTI SHARMA //
Whether ghosts are real may be an ongoing debate, but climate change is real and scarier than any ghost story this Halloween.
There is ample evidence, including evidence from the United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, confirming that the impact and manifestation of climate change are disproportionate, more severe and scarier for frontline and disadvantaged communities and the global south.
As worldwide governments come up with ambitious but essential goals to solve this climate crisis, they have recognized two essential facets – technological innovation and a just transition.
According to the Climate Justice Alliance, the principles, processes and practices of just transition aim to redress past injustices and create new alliances through reparations, shifting from an extractive to a regenerative economy. Innovation and new discoveries will be essential to creating the viable technologies necessary to achieve the aggressive climate goals set by global governments and organizations.
While entrepreneur-support organizations and innovation ecosystems have done wonders increasing startups’ productivity and survival chances, they have also been complicit in propagating injustices, perhaps without even knowing it. Many of these ecosystems struggle to reach diverse founders, for example, or to have meaningful impact in disadvantaged communities.
Shruti Sharma: And Justice40 for all.
However, recent federal and regional directives such as President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative and New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act present new opportunities. As startups develop novel solutions, innovation ecosystem players such as incubators and accelerators are now uniquely positioned to help them keep energy and climate justice at the forefront and contribute to a just transition.
Any innovation-ecosystem program in the climate technology realm will be doing a disservice to its portfolio if it doesn’t embrace the Justice40 approach. Its key areas of focus – climate change, clean energy, energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, workforce training and development, legacy pollution reduction and remediation, critical wastewater and clean-water infrastructure development – are all climate-tech relevant.
So, how does an innovation ecosystem support its portfolio? There are several actionable steps, based on my five years of experience supporting entrepreneurs, startups and stakeholders in a climate-tech focused incubator.
Curating targeted programming for portfolio and partners is a must. Innovation ecosystems can draw on their combined expertise to create new offerings – in this case, enabling portfolio startups to better understand just transition. Beyond their portfolio startups, innovation clusters also have the potential to develop training for their network partners, developing safe, inclusive, collaborative ecosystems that amplify their own impact.
Ecosystems can also develop resident justice expertise and shared services. Even the scrappiest startups are always stretched for time and resources. By developing resident expertise with Justice40 principles and tools, entrepreneur-serving organizations can provide specific mentorship on how to leverage funding available through various federal and state programs, thus alleviating the startups’ time and resource crunch and allowing them to implement their solutions in disadvantaged communities faster and more efficiently.
Talent search: The Clean Energy Leadership Institute’s EDICT Internship Program can help unaffiliated innovation ecosystems create internship pipelines.
Building partnerships and pipelines is also important. Innovation ecosystems bring significant value to their portfolio through the network of partners they bring to the table. Enhancing these networks by developing and nurturing long-term, trusting relationships with grassroots environmental-justice organizations and disadvantaged communities can accelerate deployment of relevant solutions by creating meaningful engagements between innovators and end users.
Additionally, many incubation-ecosystem programs have close connections with universities and colleges, adding another development dimension with a focus on justice and diversity – training the next generation of climate-tech entrepreneurs through grassroots entrepreneurial training or experiential programs. For programs that do not have a direct access to students, collaboration with programs like the Clean Energy Leadership Institute’s EDICT Internship Program can bring diverse and qualified talent pipeline to startups.
By developing, building and iterating the above capabilities, innovation ecosystems have the ability to develop best practices and generate proof-of-concept programs for scalable implementation and impact. An innovation ecosystem’s extensive and comprehensive networks present a unique opportunity to contribute at all levels – from portfolio education and specialized support to replicable program development and the ability to influence stakeholders.
These ideas barely scratch the surface, a jumpstart to get the gears turning in creative minds. The race against time to limit or reverse the impacts of climate change is real and the solutions to the clean-energy transition puzzle must be focused through a just lens – and keeping justice front and center is critical to ensuring we don’t repeat past mistakes.
Shruti Sharma is portfolio manager for Stony Brook University’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program and a 2022 fellow in the New York cohort of the Clean Energy Leadership Institute.
