The Clean Industry Initiative is a collaborative project between ISS, the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, and Prosper Portland, aimed at creating opportunities for industrial decarbonization and growing sustainable industry in Portland. The strategy for this project builds on ISS’s experience with building collaborations for transformative change through projects and supportive relationship-building activities.
The Clean Industry Initiative emerged from conversations between the City of Portland, community members, and industrial leaders, who recognized the need to transition to clean energy (“decarbonize”) and identified challenges and opportunities involved in this process. The Initiative also supports an equitable transition away from fossil fuels as it creates opportunities for workers and communities at the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Portland’s industrial sector contributes about 12% of our local carbon emissions and is the largest and most diverse employment sector for middle-wage jobs. Reducing carbon emissions in industry is a challenge across the globe due to the processes and technologies involved with manufacturing essential goods. For example, metals manufacturing involves high temperatures that require the use of fossil fuels with large carbon footprints. In other cases, lower-carbon options may exist, but businesses may not have the knowledge or resources to switch to those options. Through the Clean Industry Initiative, ISS strives to ensure Portland has a healthy, sustainable industrial sector that also builds equity and opportunity locally.
Our current projects include:
- Portland Clean Energy Fund, Collaborating For Climate Action. This $20 million award will support community environmental and climate justice initiatives in neighborhoods adjacent to industry, create workforce development pathways within the clean industrial sector of the future, and ensure community benefits are enshrined in industrial projects. ISS's team members include the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (primary applicant), Energy 350, Neighbors for Clean Air, Portland Metro Chamber Charitable Institute, Prosper Portland, and Worksystems Inc. This program will provide $4 million in feasibility studies for potential energy-saving projects and $15 million to implement projects that substantially reduce industrial GHG emissions and create meaningful community benefits.
- DOE American Made Challenges - Community Energy Innovation Prize. This $310K award will support building a circular manufacturing ecosystem (“industrial symbiosis network”) in the Columbia Corridor in Portland. At the final competition for this Prize, our project tied for second place out of nine other teams, winning an additional $100K on top of the $200K already awarded. ISS's team members include representatives from the Columbia Corridor Association (primary applicant), City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Prosper Portland, Oregon State University, Energy 350, The Center for Sustainable Infrastructure, and Worksystems, Inc.
- Reducing Toxic Pollution in the Columbia Corridor. This $350K award will allow ISS, Neighbors for Clean Air, and the Columbia Corridor Association to identify pollution prevention and toxics reduction priorities for communities and industry. Neighbors for Clean Air will engage local residents in identifying priority projects and community benefits, and the Columbia Corridor Association will facilitate connections to the industrial sector to guide facility selection and implementation efforts for these projects. A new and innovative student capstone experience at Portland State overseen by Elliot Gall, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, will bring together Engineering and Business students to develop solutions to the priority projects identified through the collaborative.
Contact Beth Gilden to learn more about clean industry