Category: LACI News

LOS ANGELES, CA – C40 and Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) are partnering to help cities around the world embrace innovation and accelerate climate solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This new partnership will first embark on research to inform how start-ups, entrepreneurs and corporate innovation can scale up and deliver solutions for cities to limit global warming to 1.5°C, the target identified in the Paris Climate Agreement.

C40 research has shown that a lack of sufficient collaboration between city governments and the private sector is a key barrier to taking climate action. This partnership aims to overcome this barrier by bridging the gap between the private sector, both start-up and corporate, and city governments. C40’s Business & Innovation team have already commenced a range of programs to openly support cities to unlock this barrier, and this new partnership marks an important next step. LACI is uniquely positioned to partner with C40, given its proven track record of incubating numerous cleantech start-ups that have helped cities reduce greenhouse gasses, improve air quality, and create green jobs.

“As CEO of a leading cleantech incubator and former Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Los Angeles, I truly understand the opportunities and challenges for cities and start-ups to scale innovation,” said Matt Petersen, LACI President and CEO. “We’re eager to transfer some of the best practices we’ve developed in L.A. to help other cities embrace entrepreneur-led innovation to achieve the goals set forth in the Paris Climate Agreement.”

C40 and LACI recognize that cities globally are focusing on identifying collaborative climate solutions, ones that engage citizens, academics and the private sector in the design process of key city projects. The goal of this partnership is to equip cities with best practices to increase engagement with the start-up, entrepreneur, incubator, accelerator and corporate innovation community to scale proven and comprehensive climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions.

“Understanding the current barriers for start-ups to scale, and ways to enable this acceleration for climate action is key to unlocking more climate solutions for our cities. We’re really pleased to partner with experts from LACI, a world-leading cleantech incubator,” said Jonathan Walter, Director of C40 Business & Innovation. “In the face of a looming deadline to scale climate action at a time of federal inaction, C40 sees partnering with LACI as the natural progression to drive innovation to the scale and speed that is necessary to support the ambitions of cities to meet the Paris Agreement.”

About C40

C40 Cities connects 96 of the world’s greatest cities to take bold climate action, leading the way towards a healthier and more sustainable future. Representing 700+ million citizens and one quarter of the global economy, mayors of C40 cities are committed to delivering on the most ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement at the local level, as well as to cleaning the air we breathe. The current chair of C40 is Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo; and three-term Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg serves as President of the Board. C40’s work is made possible by our three strategic funders: Bloomberg Philanthropies, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), and Realdania.

About LACI

The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) is a private non-profit organization creating an inclusive green economy by unlocking innovation (through working with start-ups to accelerate the commercialization of clean technologies), transforming markets (through partnerships in transportation, energy and sustainable cities) and enhancing communities (through workforce development, pilots and other programs). Founded as an economic development initiative by the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Water & Power (LADWP), LACI is recognized as one of the most innovative business incubators in the world by UBI. In the past six years, LACI has helped 73 portfolio companies raise $184M in funding, $220M in revenue, create 1,700 jobs, and deliver more than $379M in long term economic value. Learn more at laci.org.

Notes

For media enquiries, please contact media@c40.org or Clare Le (Sr Director, Marketing & Events, LACI), 213-358-6500, media@laci.org.

Archaeology of the Present presents selected findings by artists Rebecca Bruno, Nova Jiang and Debra Scacco created during AIR, a six-month residency at Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI). AIR provided access to a state-of-the-art prototyping facility and leading minds working in climate-related issues. Through varying approaches, each artist engaged with a deep study of humans in relation to their surrounding environments, highlighting agricultural regeneration, urban erasure, and city infrastructure.

By introducing artists to an entrepreneurial clean tech hub, LACI’s AIR program brings new insights, research models and personal entry points to our most urgent ecological issues: the air we breathe, the water we drink, the systems by which we live. AIR resident artists are encouraged to remain a part of the LACI community, benefiting artists and incubator alike. This inaugural exhibition offers a snapshot of the way we work, together.

Rebecca Bruno explored the link between agricultural systems and the choreographic process used in dance and performance art. Her piece, Life Keeping Recipe for a Relic, combines data collected through a series of public movement workshops with studies on permaculture and the impact that land cultivation has on the regenerative properties of soil. The resulting actions contain both hopeful, and dismal, aspects of climate change.

Nova Jiang focused on the relational cycles of urban blight and redevelopment, specifically as they affect neighborhood accessibility and diversity. Her installation, Bunker, commemorates the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bunker Hill—an enclave of opulent Victorian mansions that fell into disrepair, and was eventually razed to make way for the promise of commercial high rises and cultural institutions. Housed in a wheel-shaped sandbox, Jiang’s 3D-printed sand molds modeled after original Bunker Hill mansions allow viewers to rebuild the lost neighborhood. Each time the wheel is spun, the neighborhood is wiped clean.

Debra Scacco initiated the first phase of her longterm project, titled Future Tense. This installation uses Los Angeles as a case study to investigate the relationship between city geographies, historic river courses, existing highway configurations, and a midcentury transit proposal never realized. The work questions our certainty of the history on which we build, the way we currently move, and the potential of an interconnected future.

ABOUT AIR
AIR, the Artist-in-Residence Program at Los Angeles Cl

eantech Incubator (LACI), empowers innovation by uniting the creative and cleantech communities in the shared aim of addressing global environmental problems.

Situated in the heart of Los Angeles’ Arts District, AIR enhances LACI’s innovation community by introducing research-led artists to a thriving environment: where entrepreneurs, engineers, organizations and policy makers collaborate, promote and support the development of clean technologies.

The benefits of the six-month residency include:
— $13,000 stipend
— Access to leading minds
— Training and access to prototyping equipment
— Community engagement at the interplay of technology, sustainability, and the arts

ABOUT LACI
The Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) is a private non-profit organization creating an inclusive green economy by unlocking innovation (working with startups to accelerate the commercialization of clean technologies), transforming markets (through partnerships in transportation, energy and sustainable cities) and enhancing communities (through workforce development, pilots and other programs). Founded as an economic development initiative by the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Water & Power (LADWP), LACI is recognized as one of the most innovative business incubators in the world by UBI. In the past six years, LACI has helped 73 portfolio companies raise $184M in funding, $220M in revenue, create 1,700 jobs, and deliver more than $379M in long term economic value. Learn more at laci.org