New group, ClimateWork Maine, offers energy transition advice for businesses
BY ANNIE ROPEIK MAINE
PUBLISHED 5:46 PM ET JAN. 24, 2022
A new coalition aims to help Maine businesses transition to renewable energy sources and take other steps to help address climate change.
The formation of Freeport-based nonprofit, ClimateWork Maine, was announced last week. Its founding board includes business leaders from Maine’s solar industry, green investing firms and more.
“We’re looking at that subset of businesses that gets it, that understands what is happening, wants to know more and wants to be part of the solution,” founder Alan Caron said in an interview. “There’s an opportunity here, not just a challenge.”
Caron, a longtime Maine entrepreneur, said ClimateWork will be “of, by and for businesses.” It grew out of his last venture, Envision Maine, a similar group focused on innovation.
He said the new group will offer climate change-related resources to member businesses, such as connections to the right incentives to help them install heat pumps or solar panels, or advice from similarly sized businesses with useful experience to share. They hope to hold training sessions in the future and are planning a major summit in Augusta this fall.
“We definitely are not at all interested in people making pronouncements about what they’re going to do at some point in the future,” Caron said. “We’re interested in measurable, particular action.”
The solutions they’ll encourage aren’t “one size fits all,” Caron said, but he sees electrification of energy, heat and vehicles as the top priority for Maine businesses to contribute to the state’s ambitious efforts to lower its greenhouse gas emissions.
They might recommend that a contractor buy an electric truck with outlets to power their tools, for example, or help a small business pencil out financing for converting to solar power.
He said the group also plans to participate in policy advocacy on issues that “make it easier for businesses to act,” and that it supports the state’s climate plan. But the top reason for a business to join the new group, he said, is to save money.
“If we want climate action to accelerate, we’ve got to make it easier for people to find what they need,” he said. “So that’s really what we’re there to do.”
The new organization is actively recruiting new members at www.climateworkmaine.org. Caron hopes it will be a model for similar groups to form in other states.
