ClimateWork Maine's Summit - let's ascend together
- Elisabeth Bialosky
- Mar 17
- 4 min read
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E2Tech is co-hosting the networking reception at ClimateWork Maine's Annual Summit on March 19th at Thompson’s Point in Portland, Maine.
The conversation began with a story about a meeting during the strange early months of the pandemic. Businesses were uncertain, supply chains were disrupted, and leaders across the country were asking a question that extended beyond public health: what kind of economy would emerge from the crisis?
Out of that moment came an idea that would eventually become ClimateWork Maine. As its executive director, Jeff Marks, explains in this E2Tech podcast episode, the organization grew from a simple realization: businesses were going to have to learn how to operate in what he called a carbon-constrained economy.
That phrase might sound technical, but it captures a deeper shift in how modern economies think about growth. For most of the industrial age, the formula was straightforward—economic expansion required more energy, more materials, more extraction. But the climate challenge has forced a reconsideration of that model. The question now is not whether economies will grow, but how they will grow.
ClimateWork Maine has tried to approach this problem in a characteristically pragmatic way. Instead of framing climate policy as a battle between environmental idealism and economic realism, the organization has tried to position it as a business strategy.
That approach reflects Marks’s own intellectual journey. Earlier in his career he worked in Washington, D.C., lobbying largely against environmental regulations on behalf of businesses. Over time, especially while working inside a major manufacturing company, he began to see that the old assumption—that climate action and business success were inherently at odds—didn’t quite match reality. Companies were discovering that reducing waste, improving efficiency, and cutting emissions could also improve their bottom line.
This idea—that environmental responsibility might align with economic opportunity—has gradually reshaped corporate thinking across the country.
One of the ways ClimateWork Maine tries to move that conversation forward is through its annual summit on Maine’s climate and economy, now entering its fourth year. The event has evolved alongside the broader public conversation. Early gatherings focused on what businesses could do immediately to reduce emissions. Later discussions emphasized collaboration across industries.
This year the summit carries an ambitious theme: climate dominance.
It is the kind of phrase that signals a subtle change in tone. For years climate discussions were dominated by the language of sacrifice—what societies would have to give up in order to reduce emissions. But the idea of climate dominance suggests something different: that the technologies and policies developed to address climate change could also become engines of economic leadership.
Speakers at the event at Thompson's Point in Portland on March 19 will include figures like Bob Keefe from E2, along with energy and policy leaders such as Dan Burgess of the Maine Department of Energy Resources, Linda Ball of Central Maine Power, Bradley Campbell of the Conservation Law Foundation, and Michael Stoddard of Efficiency Maine Trust. Their discussions will focus on a question that increasingly sits at the center of climate politics: affordability.
The global energy system is in the midst of an enormous transition, and transitions are rarely tidy. Electricity demand is rising, technologies are changing quickly, and geopolitical instability continues to ripple through fuel markets. For ordinary households and businesses, the most immediate concern is often the cost at the pump and the monthly energy bill.
Marks acknowledged that tension directly. Climate solutions, he argued, must also be cost solutions. If they cannot help stabilize or reduce energy costs, they will struggle to earn lasting public support.
But the conversation also touched on a longer-term trend that is quietly reshaping the energy landscape. The rise of artificial intelligence, data centers, and electrified technologies for consumers and industries is driving new demand for power infrastructure. That demand could place strain on the grid, but it could also create incentives to build a more modern energy system.
Seen from that perspective, the climate challenge begins to look less like a constraint and more like a catalyst. This is the positive paradox that increasingly defines climate policy. The technologies required to decarbonize the economy—clean electricity, advanced batteries, efficient buildings—are also technologies that can make economies more productive and resilient. The difficulty lies in the transition itself. Institutions built for a 20th-century energy system must now adapt to a 21st-century one.
Organizations like ClimateWork Maine exist in that in-between space. They are part convener, part translator—bringing together business leaders, policymakers, and environmental advocates who often speak very different institutional languages. And that may ultimately be the quiet work of climate progress: not just inventing new technologies, but building the social and economic coalitions capable of using them.
Gatherings like the ClimateWork Maine Summit create the kinds of conversations that gradually shift assumptions—about what businesses can do, about what governments should do, and about what kind of economy is possible.
History often turns not only on dramatic breakthroughs but on the slow accumulation of shared understanding. In that sense, the work of climate policy looks less like a revolution and more like a long civic conversation about how to build the future.
(E2Tech members can get a discount for the ClimateWork Maine Summit on March 19.)
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