How Chicago is organizing for federal funding, giving advantages to climate-related businesses

We are in a historical moment of transformation where innovation in climate is seeing major support from federal funding. Chicago companies are ready to make substantial investments in cross-sector climate solutions.? The Chicagoland Climate Investment Alliance exists to break silos, ensure the right connections are made, and bring together all pieces across the climate sector to ensure Chicagoland remains the global leader in climate innovation and solutions.?

The big question is, how can companies take advantage of the emergence of this federally supported cross-sector?? Four Chicagoland experts from the climate ecosystem give their take on how they're approaching their respective goals during this time of high climate investment.

Josephine Tucker , Managing Director for Clean Energy & Infrastructure Advisory, 仲量联行 ?

?

The Inflation Reduction Act tax credit (IRA) has been widely recognized as the most transformational incentive package in US climate history, maybe in just political history overall. It is a massive funding opportunity. I think we're still figuring out how to get those dollars out the door and into projects but essentially the amount of flexibility and the support technologies that package represents is an opportunity you wouldn't want to miss.

I think being able to participate in an Alliance like this and making sure that Chicago and the greater region gets its fair share of federal funding is certainly something that I'm passionate about. With JLL being headquartered here in Chicago we certainly feel greatly aligned to that purpose in terms of what we're doing with our clients.?

仲量联行 is a global real estate company that invests, occupies, leases and buys real estate on behalf of their clients. JLL has a vested interest in climate action because 40 % of emissions come from the building sector. What people may not realize is that a huge majority of JLL’s emissions are actually scope three. It's imperative that JLL actually helps their clients achieve their goals. JLL has more than a 1000 person sustainability business that's focused on delivering end to end solutions.? Everything from energy efficiency programs, to decarbonization pathways, installing onsite solar EV Chargers, micro-grids you name it.?

?

Erik G. Birkerts , CEO Emeritus, Evergreen Climate Innovations

The region was punching below its weight. The very first kind of tranche of funding that we received was a Department of Energy (DOE) grant around ecosystem development. We've always had either a grant in house from the Department of energy or from EDA or from SBA, but these grants were like $100K maybe $250K and we were able to go after them as a discreet kind of entity. Today, when you look at the grant programs out there, they are multiples of those kind of previous grants. They're millions of dollars and the expectation is rather than going after them as a discreet entity, you form sort of consortia and coalitions to go after these big dollars. Unless you have some sort of organizing mechanism like this Alliance , forming those coalitions can be really difficult under these tight time frames that these grants often require. Having this in place is just going to be like a total accelerant to Chicago being able to get some of this federal money.

There is no reason Chicago can’t be the world epicenter for a lot of the great innovation around climate technology. The Alliance gets at the need to bring everybody and all these assets together to work in concert.?

?Past opportunities where a collective effort was needed:

1.? ? Build Back Better Regional Challenge

2.? ? ARPA-H

Evergreen Climate Innovations provides catalytic capital, supports climate entrepreneurs, and ecosystem development. ECI spent substantial amount of time convening and bringing the different stakeholders in Chicago and the broader Midwest region together to build that connective tissue between all these great actors.

Evergreen Climate Innovations recognizes the power of the Midwest and Chicago, with world-class universities, two National Labs within easy driving distance, a density of Fortune companies and a deep stem educated workforce.?

Meena Beyers , Vice President of Business & Community Development, Nicor Gas

This is a time of energy transformation. When we think about what makes our region so strong, think about all of the energy sources that we really have to meet the demand of our growing economy. Everything from nuclear, gas, electricity, wind, solar, soon-to-be hydrogen we hope. I think the need for collaborative operation and the opportunity to lean into the ecosystem, this is the right time. Because the technology is here, the organizations are here and now we just have to connect to figure out how do we take action.

Nicor Gas serves 2.3 million customers across Northern Illinois and is a critical part of the Region's clean energy economy. Nicor invests in clean-tech and has a path to net zero internally. They help customers and support sustainability goals. Nicor is always?looking for those new technologies that are going to these efforts.? Nicor plays a role in economic development. They love investing in the startups of today that are going to be our booming job creators for tomorrow.?

?

Said Al-Hallaj , Founder & CEO, NETenergy

?

It actually takes a long time for startups to grow, be successful and lead the transition.? You have to build a relationship with investors. Evergreen Climate Innovations was the first to stand up and help us many years ago with the first seed investment. And then they nominated us for a national competition where we won a significant sum of money to demonstrate technology with National Renewable Energy Laboratory and 富国银行 . It took us a while to demonstrate it. But recently, with this push, we were not new starters. We won an award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) , with 艾默生 , with United States Department of Defense . We're doing field demonstrations in 2024 with military bases, with supermarkets in the east coast- so we were not waiting to start. When the opportunities came along we actually hit the ground running. That took a lot of work and patience because you have to be ready- not outrun the market or behind the market.?

NETenergy is an emerging startup with the goal of taking technology from the lab to the marketplace. NETenergy also brings attention to the workforce in Chicago, the incredible facilities which are a huge plus to founders and entrepreneurs.

?

_________?

The excerpts in this article were taken from the live panel at the Chicago Venture Summit Future-of-Climate-Tech by World Business Chicago , held October 2023 at 167 Green . The moderator of the panel, Kyle T. Schulz spearheads the Chicagoland Climate Investment Alliance for World Business Chicago. Watch the full panel here .

Any interest by corporate partners to join CCIA committees or by startups to be engaged with programming should reach out to Kyle T. Schulz .