CREW Carbon is a Yale-spinout water and climate technology company based in Hamden, Connecticut. It retrofits municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants with a closed-system enhanced-weathering process: dosing alkaline minerals into wastewater to convert dissolved CO2 into stable bicarbonate. The approach lowers operating costs and improves treatment performance for utilities while permanently and measurably removing atmospheric carbon, which it sells to corporate buyers as durable carbon removal credits.
Heirloom Carbon Technologies is a San Francisco-based direct air capture company that uses limestone's natural CO2-absorbing properties to pull carbon dioxide permanently out of the atmosphere. Their process accelerates a geological phenomenon that normally takes thousands of years into a 3-day cycle: calcium oxide powder absorbs CO2 from ambient air, becomes limestone, gets heated in a renewable-energy-powered electric kiln to release the captured CO2, and repeats. The captured CO2 is then stored permanently underground or embedded in concrete. Founded in 2020, Heirloom opened America's first commercial DAC facility in Tracy, California in November 2023 and has raised over $354 million to expand capacity toward their goal of removing 1 billion tons of CO2 by 2035.
Woodard & Curran is a 100% employee-owned environmental engineering and consulting firm founded in 1979 and headquartered in Portland, Maine. With roughly 1,300 employees across 30+ offices in 14 states, the firm integrates engineering, science, design-build, and operations to solve complex water and environmental challenges for municipal, industrial, and government clients. From treating 11.7 billion gallons of drinking water annually to cleaning up Superfund contamination sites, Woodard & Curran positions itself as the firm that takes on the hard problems in water infrastructure and environmental health — not as a contractor but as a long-term partner.
Jason Aramburu is the cofounder and CEO of Applied Carbon, a Houston-based climate tech company building the world's first mobile, in-field biochar production machines that convert agricultural crop waste into permanent carbon storage - and improved soil - in a single pass. A Princeton-trained ecologist who first encountered biochar during field research in Panama, Aramburu has spent two decades building at the intersection of soil science, robotics, and carbon markets. Before Applied Carbon, he founded re:char (smallholder biochar in Kenya, backed by Gates Foundation) and Edyn (smart irrigation, Y Combinator W14), then invested in AI and energy startups at Baidu Ventures and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures before returning to his original mission. Applied Carbon raised a $21.5M Series A in July 2024, backed by Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Congruent Ventures, and the Grantham Foundation, and won the $500,000 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize in September 2024.
Shane Dyer is the CEO and co-founder of Irrigreen, an Edina, Minnesota-based company reinventing residential lawn irrigation with AI-powered digital sprinkler systems that use up to 50% less water than conventional setups. A Stanford-trained computer systems engineer and serial entrepreneur with three company foundings under his belt - including Arrayent, an IoT platform acquired for $37M - Dyer applied inkjet printing precision to lawn sprinklers, creating a 'water printing' system now deployed across 300+ installation partners in nearly every U.S. state. Irrigreen raised a $19M Series A in April 2025, bringing total funding to $35.89M, and has saved 400 million gallons of water for customers to date.
Alex Balkanski is the President and CEO of Picarro, a Santa Clara-based company pioneering precision methane and greenhouse gas measurement technology for natural gas utilities worldwide. A Harvard-trained physicist turned serial entrepreneur, he co-founded C-Cube Microsystems in 1988, helped establish the MPEG video compression standard that underpins modern digital television, took C-Cube public in 1994, and orchestrated its acquisition of DiviCom in 1998. After a stint as General Partner at Benchmark Capital, he pivoted to climate tech, joining Picarro in 2013 to apply the same precision-instrument mindset to the urgent challenge of detecting and quantifying fugitive methane emissions across global gas distribution networks.
Alyson Watson is the CEO and Chair of the Board of Woodard & Curran, a Portland, Maine-based integrated science, engineering, design-build, and operations firm specializing in water and environmental challenges. A Stanford-trained chemical engineer and licensed PE, she became the firm's third CEO in 2021 — and its first woman to hold that title — after more than 20 years leading water resources projects and building environmental consulting teams across the western United States. A self-described 'water brat' with roots in the industry, Watson is a passionate advocate for clean water access, outcome-based contracting, and employee ownership, guiding a firm of 1,300 people across 27 offices nationwide.
Lily Shen is the Founder and CEO of Dimension, a San Francisco-based technology platform transforming waste management with data-driven, full-service solutions. A Princeton and Harvard Kennedy School graduate, she previously held roles at Niantic (Pokemon Go), Opendoor, Deloitte, and the Federal Reserve. Dimension, formerly Trash Warrior, has raised $19.5M in funding and operates in ~300 US cities with a mission to raise the national recycling rate from 35% to 75%.