Summer at Greentown Labs: The Silicon Valley of Climatetech in Somerville, Massachusetts

By Courtney Foster

As I walked the streets of Boston’s Financial District in the summer of 2022, soon to depart from my role at an environmental nonprofit to join the Fletcher MALD program, I discovered something I hadn’t yet seen: a plaque affixed to the side of a building marking the location of the first telephone call ever transmitted.

Just shy of a year later, thanks to an opportunity facilitated by CIERP, I arrived for my first day of orientation at the greater Boston locus of modern-day innovation: Greentown Labs, the largest climatetech incubator in North America. If Bell could place the world’s first phone call right here in the city, so too would a ragtag group of scientists from MIT seeking to minimize costs house their experiments in a warehouse which would, one day, evolve into climatetech’s Silicon Valley.

Even during the summer months, Greentown buzzed with activity, and every aspect of the workplace, down to the design of the building and its equipment, leveraged new and emergent technologies. A sparkling water machine where users select their own flavors and enhancements (including electrolytes or even caffeine) in the dining area stemmed the tide of disposable beverage containers, and wooden paneling in the walls muted ambient noise. A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle charger in the back was a frequent stop on group tours, and one morning a drone buzzed overhead, capturing footage for the marketing and communications team.

Divided among three buildings in the Somerville campus—and closed to photographers for the intellectual property protection of the innovators—resided tens of thousands of feet of lab space, including a wet lab, a machine shop, an electronics lab, and prototyping space, where cutting-edge climate technologies take shape. Even the roof deck housed a few outdoor experiments.

As Fletcher students know from experience, technological advancement critical to sustainable development requires an enabling policy environment to finance and scale much-needed solutions as rapidly as possible. This includes both local and country-specific initiatives as well as international collaboration, of which the pinnacle for climate diplomacy is the yearly COP (Conference of Parties). As a Special Projects Associate, my first task was to organize the Greentown contingent of startups in support of a proposal to attend December’s COP28, including a climatetech startup competition. In doing so, we hoped that the U.S. State Department would recognize the potential of the startup universe to raise its profile on the international stage.

Over the course of the summer, I reached out to nearly 40 startups in the Greentown Somerville and Houston locations and met individually with roughly fifteen founders, mainly to ask the same questions: what interests you in attending COP this year? How can Greentown ensure the experience is worthwhile? What potential barriers would prevent your startup from attending, and how could Greentown assist in overcoming them?

Every startup occupied a unique space and stage in the Greentown ecosystem. Greentown companies span the gamut of economic sectors, including renewable energy, water, transportation, electric power, industrial, food and agriculture, and climate resilience, among others. Some of the startups I consulted were in an earlier stage, and while curious about the COP, they were concerned about the time and monetary commitment. Others were all in, had attended in previous years, or even offered to sponsor a handful of other startups at Greentown struggling with the cost.

Photo: A motivational reminder in the stairwell

Organized delegations get more done at COP, and as such, Greentown joined a working group with the Climatetech Association at the helm, coordinating with similar startup incubators from around the United States and across the world. Midway through the summer, I joined these calls on Greentown’s behalf and liaised with the State Department and staff from the COP Presidency as well as the other climatetech startups coalescing into a delegation of their own.

I also picked up a second project: authoring a guide for startups across the pond in the Innovate UK program seeking to expand to the United States market, in partnership with New York University’s Urban Future Lab. For a few weeks, I immersed myself in the world of questions that climatetech newcomers to the United States tend to have. When is the right time to expand a business to the United States, and what are the benefits? How are companies legally incorporated here? What expansion models are most favorable to pursue? And, just as importantly, what is the corporate and day-to-day culture a British founder should expect?

As an international policy student operating in an entrepreneurial setting, I spent the summer months learning to see the role of technological advancements with new eyes when it comes to abating the climate crisis. I came to better fathom both the gap we as a society must bridge with climate innovation and the seed of hope planted in the knowledge that many of these solutions, while not yet scaled, are within our grasp. And to think that this revolution is happening right in Fletcher’s backyard in Somerville, Massachusetts—what an amazing discovery!

Courtney Foster is a MALD student at The Fletcher School, Tufts University.