Policy
Our policy team exists to reduce the distance between climate entrepreneurs and government.
Our Policy Work
We provide customized policy coaching to entrepreneurs in order to help critical technologies scale, translate insights from our 160+ companies into actionable solutions, and advance policy programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and maximize community benefit.
Policy and Technology in Action
U.S. Department of Energy $7.2M tax credit awarded to Nth Cycle to open the nation’s first large-scale MHP production facility
In addition to investing in Nth in 2021, Elemental provided $500k of funding and capacity-building support to help Nth Cycle apply for federal funding and meet the program’s community benefits goals. With coaching from Elemental, Nth Cycle crafted a community benefit plan that centered job creation and economic opportunity for their partners which are primarily scrap recyclers. The company’s first refining facility is located in Fairfield, OH and will help to unlock a critical bottleneck in Inflation Reduction Act requirements for domestically produced minerals, like nickel and cobalt, needed for battery manufacturing.
Policy and Technology in Action
Molg Secures $5M U.S. DOE Grant to Advance E-Waste Recycling with Autonomous Microfactories
Molg’s Improving Consumer Electronics Battery Recycling (ICEBR) project, backed by a $5 million DOE grant, aims to halve battery disassembly time and create a design-for-disassembly toolchain. The company is developing robotic-powered microfactories to revolutionize e-waste recycling and is collaborating with major OEMs like HP to implement circular design principles driving innovation and sustainable practices in the electronics industry. Elemental helped Molg craft a robust DOE grant strategy, and build a community benefits plan and partnerships with workforce development organizations and academic institutions.
Policy and Technology in Action
CarbonCure Advances Low-Carbon Concrete Policy
CarbonCure is driving significant policy advancements in the adoption of low-carbon concrete, as governments worldwide introduce regulations to reduce embodied carbon in construction. Their innovative technology mineralizes CO2 within concrete during production, making it both stronger and more sustainable. CarbonCure’s portfolio of technologies has the potential to reduce up to 500 megatons of annual global CO2 emissions and create up to $26 billion in new production efficiencies. Elemental supported CarbonCure in designing model city policies, with Honolulu as the first adopter, that then scaled. In addition, Elemental worked with Carboncure on building relationships with local and state policymakers that support the use of concrete with lower carbon footprint, enabling them to create a strong policy change case community by community.
Our approach
Integrating policy and innovation
Coaching
We provide coaching to portfolio companies to work with government partners and access public funding to scale climate solutions.
Policy fellows
We identify and support expert public policy strategists who articulate a clear policy-related challenge and vision for solving it.
Innovation advocacy
We bring innovators to the Hill, and to Mayors’ and Governors’ offices, to build relationships with policymakers and share what’s happening on the ground.
Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund
The Inflation Reduction Act will direct more than $370B toward clean technology over the next 10 years. Specifically, the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) is a market-based financing program that will mobilize $27B to projects that reduce GHG emissions and support community benefits with a focus on low-income and other historically underserved communities. Elemental is a playing an anchor role in the deploy of the GGRF. As a subawardee to the Coalition for Green Capital, a transaction parter to Climate United and a deployment partner to Power Forward, Elemental Elemental will invest $100M of capital in year 1 of the program into critical climate technologies with deep community impact.
EPA’s Jahi Wise and Elemental’s Mark Chambers talk about what companies and investors should know about this first-of-its-kind financing program.
Policy Innovation Resources
A mayor’s toolkit for local climate action
Co-authored by former Mayor of Greenville Heather McTeer Toney, this toolkit helps cities identify policy actions, federal funding, and technology to bring to their communities.
A founder’s guide to government grants
Published in Climate Tech VC, this guide is designed to help founders outline the essential steps towards prepping their startup for the competitive government grant process.
Explore more resources
Policy Fellows
Our fellows see an opening for policy change, and are audacious enough to do something about it.
We provide these policy entrepreneurs with a platform and resources to tackle a discrete challenge, and to translate technology and community insights into actionable solutions for policymakers to scale.
Elemental Policy Fellows
Adrian Deveny
Catherine Coleman Flowers
Evan Weber
Frances Sawyer
Heather McTeer Toney
Jameka Hodnett
Louise Bedsworth
Na’im Merchant
Randall Winston
Policy Fellow resources and insights
Advancing a Blueprint for Equitable Carbon Removal Policy
Advocating for Rural Americans’ Right to Basic Sanitation
Helping Rural Electric Co-Ops Lead on Clean Energy
Local Climate Action Toolkit
Q&A with Policy Fellow Adrian Deveny
Lessons learned from his 13 years in the U.S. Senate leading negotiations on key climate bills
Adrian says, “One of my frustrations working on Capitol Hill is that there was often a blind spot in policy development for innovation....When we miss those technology breakthroughs, we can inadvertently create barriers for new technologies to compete and succeed.”
Clean Energy Business Week 2024 in Washington D.C.
In March 2024, Elemental, CERES and Climate Power convened technology companies in Washington D.C. for a week of workshops, Hill visits, and conversations around emerging financial models that pair transformative federal funding programs with private capital for community benefit.
Watch Elemental’s CEO Dawn Lippert and LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue discuss clean energy’s investment boom, accompanied by U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Representative Mike Levin, and John Podesta on how incentives and funding set forth in the Inflation Reduction Act are spurring private sector investment in clean energy manufacturing and production.
