Then Vice President Joe shakes hands with audience members after participating in a roundtable discussion on ways to develop clean technology and job creation in this 2015 file photo. (Liz O. Baylen/ Los Angeles Times) (LIZ O. BAYLEN / Los Angeles Times)
The Biden administration is advancing an aggressive climate change agenda. Historically, national policymakers focused on emissions from energy and transportation. As President Biden signaled in his early executive orders, however, his administration will be prioritizing climate emissions from the building sector, which accounts for roughly 30% of U.S. emissions. As the U.S. Department of Energy has highlighted, new technologies will be required to achieve target emissions reductions from buildings. Maryland is already an emerging leader in the property technology (proptech) and cleantech space. Through public and private collaboration, the state can strengthen its leadership position, fostering an innovation economy and creating jobs.
Maryland is home to great startups that sit at the intersection of climate and real estate, like Datakwip, a building analytics platform that reduces building energy emissions through smarter climate management, and Dynamhex, a platform that uses artificial intelligence models to identify the current carbon footprint of a business or municipality, then model, analyze, and prioritize emission reduction recommendations.
Maryland’s cleantech and proptech industries have benefited from an influx of strong public and private investment. Among those investors is the University System of Maryland’s $10 million Momentum Fund, which provides early-stage seed investments for technology ventures that stem from the university community. Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources — along with the University of Maryland, College Park, and the Environmental Protection Agency — have also set up their own Innovative Technology Fund and the Chesapeake Bay Seed Capital Fund. Meanwhile, a new initiative, Surge Baltimore, is mobilizing the city’s public and private sector to cultivate more high-growth companies and foster a more diverse technology workforce. In addition, there are numerous venture capital firms in the state, including a handful that focus exclusively in the cleantech and proptech sectors.
