carbon footprint

Greentown Labs partners with VC firm on new emissions calculator integration

Greentown Labs has a new tool for evaluating potential members. Photo via Getty Images

If you want to be a member at either Boston-area or Houston location of Greentown Labs, you better have a small carbon footprint.

Leading global venture capital firm Clean Energy Ventures, which funds early-stage climate tech innovations, announced a partnership to offer access to the firm’s Simple Emissions Reduction Calculator (SERC) to Greentown Labs, the largest climate tech incubator in North America that is dually located in Houston and Sommerville, Massachusetts. New members will be required to report their CO2e emissions reduction potential as part of the incubator’s climate impact assessment as part of the Greentown Labs’ application process.

Greentown Labs has nurtured more than 525 companies across its two locations with a 94 percent success rate for startups. Greentown Labs supports and fosters collaboration with corporates, early-stage entrepreneurs, investors, government and other players while providing members access to labs and resources.

“As we continue our work to support the most innovative climate tech startups, we’re doubling down on how we quantify impact — both the impact Greentown Labs is having on the entrepreneurs we’re privileged to support, and the impact the startups themselves are having by reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Kevin Knobloch, CEO and president of Greentown Labs, says in a news release. “Having access to this timely tool that Clean Energy Ventures has created is elevating our recruitment efforts and helping us standardize how we quantify the projected impact of our member community.”

CEV developed SERC in 2021 to assist startups with tools and algorithms to estimate their technology or business model’s emissions reduction potential. SERC is now used as an essential screening tool in over 1,000 companies asn a climate tech accelerators, incubators and investors across the globe, and was awarded an honorable mention by Fast Company World Changing Ideas in 2022.

“As climate tech investors, we are always eager to support the growth of an ecosystem of innovation and impact,” CEV Managing Partner David Miller in says in the release. “With the number of climate tech companies seeking investments today, startups that are able to estimate their innovation’s capacity to mitigate CO2e emissions truly stand out from the crowd and are more likely to secure investment. Through SERC, investors are able to gain critical insight to back the most impactful technologies with the potential to address climate change as quickly as possible over the next two decades.”

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A View From HETI

Greentown Labs has named its Go Make 2026 cohort. Photo courtesy Greentown Labs

Greentown Labs has named five climatech startups to its Go Make 2026 cohort, including one from Houston.

Greentown Go Make 2026 is in partnership with Shell Catalysts & Technologies and Technip Energies. Startups will be able to collaborate with leadership from Shell and Technip and have opportunities to work directly with their process engineering teams and develop potential partnerships, pilots and demonstrations, according to Greentown.

This year's manufacturing cohort focuses specifically on process technology and catalytic innovations, which, according to Greentown, have the potential to be a "critical enabler of the global energy transition." Greentown shares that 90 percent of chemical processes depend on catalysis, but traditional methods rely on fossil fuels and consume significant amounts of energy.

“Catalysis underpins the majority of industrial chemical processes, which together account for a significant share of global emissions, making it a critical lever for reducing carbon intensity while improving performance,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, CEO of Greentown, said in a news release. “Greentown Go Make 2026 is designed to close the gap between breakthrough innovation and industrial deployment. By connecting startups with Shell and Technip Energies’ technical expertise and global scale, we’re helping accelerate solutions that improve efficiency and drive industrial decarbonization.”

The five Greentown Go Make 2026 companies include:

  • Houston-based Biosimo, which makes scalable biochemicals from ethanol
  • Missouri-based Catalyxx, which transforms bioethanol into drop-in, cost-competitive, carbon-negative chemicals
  • Sydney, Australia-based HydGene Renewables, which produces low-carbon hydrogen and industrial chemicals from waste biomass
  • Switzerland-based TreaTech, which turns waste into renewable gas, water and minerals through catalytic hydrothermal gasification
  • California-based Unifuel, which has developed a chemical technology platform to make sustainable aviation fuel, renewable gasoline and other renewable chemicals

The cohort will be celebrated at a kickoff event in Houston at The Ion on June 9.

In addition to Greentown Go Make, Greentown also runs its Go Move (transportation), Go Energize (energy and electricity), Go Build (buildings), and Go Grow (food and agriculture) cohort-based programs. The climatech incubator announced its Go Build 2026 cohort in March. Read more here.

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