Episode Transcript
Stephenie Langston:
Hi everyone, thank you for joining us today on EHS Mindset. Dr. Jane Goodall once said, “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” That statement has never been more important than right now in our collective fight against climate change. On today’s episode of EHS Mindset, we are joined by Carey Ann Comeau, the Director of Wet Lab Operations at Greentown Labs in Boston, Massachusetts. As noted on their website, Greentown Labs is a community of climate action pioneers working to design a more sustainable world. It is the largest climate tech startup incubator in North America, and in addition to their Boston Headquarters, 2021 saw the opening of their new sister site in Houston, Texas. In 2021, we at SafetyStratus had the pleasure of working with Carey Ann and the Greentown safety team to implement a new chemical inventory system for member companies. In October, we visited the Boston location for their Member Resource Fair, which was an excellent way to meet members and learn more about their initiatives. Hi Carey Ann! Thank you for joining me today. I’m really excited to have you on our call to learn more about you and Greentown.
To find out more about Carey Ann Comeau, connect with her on LinkedIn.
To find out more about Greentown Labs, visit their website: https://greentownlabs.com.
Carey Ann Comeau:
Morning, Stephenie. Thank you so much for having me.
Stephenie Langston:
Just to kind of start off our call, could you tell me a little bit about your role at Greentown and about Greentown’s mission as a whole?
Carey Ann Comeau:
Sure. So, I am Carey Ann Comeau and I’m the Director of Wet Lab Operations at Greentown Labs. My role is to make sure that our Wet Lab is a functioning space for all of our entrepreneurs who are solving the world’s largest climate tech problems. So, I want to make sure that they have all the resources they need when they come into the space, so that they can really focus on their research and not think about the operational nonsense—making sure the equipment is functioning, making sure the lab is safe, making sure they even have the piece of equipment that they need. (And because we are an incubator space, our lab is multiple disciplinary). We have opportunities for scientists with very different backgrounds to connect with one another in ways they wouldn’t normally in an isolated lab space. So, a big part of my job is to look at what all of our different companies are doing and find opportunities to introduce these scientists to each other, because, ultimately, we’re all here to solve the climate problem (or—not to put too fine a point on it—to save the planet.) So, Greentown’s mission on the whole…we actually have our mission statement, which is:
“To build an inclusive community that convenes, connects, and inspires entrepreneurs and ecosystems to advance climate solutions.”
Stephenie Langston:
Nice. I definitely noticed that, when we looked at the Wet Lab when we visited in Boston, even learning about the different companies just in that one space. It was really impressive to see them in close quarters where they could talk to one another across benches and they are working towards different initiatives, but one person might have resources or expertise that they could pass along. Which, I’m assuming in small companies is really hard to find, because you can’t always hire people with that expertise. If you can just reach across the bench, why not? It’s a really cool space.
Carey Ann Comeau:
That’s really what Greentown was built on. We had some startups that spun out of MIT, and they realized that by pooling their resources—not just physical but intellectual—and their networks, they could really go a lot farther. Many hands make light work.
Stephenie Langston:
Yeah, it’s really exciting to see. And, like you said, it’s not a small mission—to save the world—but when you have people here doing it and you’re having a good time doing it, which I think is evident anytime you meet anyone from Greentown, then it makes that hard work a little bit easier.
Carey Ann Comeau:
Absolutely.
Stephenie Langston:
I guess my next question is: as a safety professional, how do you promote and support Greentown’s mission? I think you touched on it a little bit.
Carey Ann Comeau:
Yeah. From a safety perspective, I think, first and foremost…We promote safety at Greentown, but ultimately, when members leave Greentown (or, we internally say “graduate”) we want them to take the safety skills that we have taught them with them. Because, ultimately, safety is a part of a company being successful, and we want them to be safe and to be around so that they can continue to bring their solutions to the world. Safety is one of the key pillars at Greentown and our members really take to it as well. They understand. We’re very, very fortunate, in that our members get it. I’m sure there are (unfortunately) companies out there where people hear “safety” and they kind of roll their eyes and sit through the meeting that they have to. We offer a lot of free trainings and members choose to show up to those trainings, which is why we keep them coming year after year. If people are going to come to those trainings, I’m going to make sure I’ve got them on the calendar. In terms of Greentown’s mission and how that connects with safety—the Greentown team itself and our operations, we’re really focused on safety because it would look really terrible if we found out people were dumping chemicals down the sink, or not disposing of them correctly and throwing them out in the trash. Even for us, we are registered with the MWRA in Massachusetts as a low-flow, low-pollutant facility, so we really take care to assess everything that goes down the sink. Even if it’s something that’s technically approved to go down the sink, if we’re producing a lot of it, we tend to just ask our members to treat it as hazardous waste. We really want to practice what we preach and hope to instill that in our members.
Stephenie Langston:
I like that a lot. I agree. I think it’s important especially for these small startup companies because safety accidents cost a lot of money, and they can’t afford to have that kind of financial risk in these small companies, so I think it’s really great how you’re providing those resources. And I think it’s even more amazing that everybody’s just really on board. I think that talks a little bit more about how sustainability and safety are really starting to have more conversations and realizing that while the initial outlook of why we wanted to do things is different, it’s still reaching the same goals. Maintaining hazardous waste—from a safety perspective, you don’t want to have toxic water (and things like that), from a sustainability perspective, you want clean water. You want to help the environment so that our kids and future generations can live here in a healthy way. As companies are being held to higher standards for sustainability, I see safety and sustainability partners continuing to strengthen their relationship, how do you anticipate your role may change and what part that may play in sustainability initiatives in the future?
Carey Ann Comeau:
Sure. So, I think I would want to start by talking about how Greentown Labs works with strategic and corporate partners. We connect our members with these partners, and we know that our partners are really going to want to start seeing quantifiable results—numbers—as to how each member’s technology is helping us reach carbon neutrality. I think that we will be able to use these same platforms—like SafetyStratus for safety, keeping track of our chemical inventories—to help our members produce those values that they can share back with the corporate and strategic partners at Greentown.
Stephenie Langston:
Nice. I’m glad that we can help. You and I have talked about this, as a company, it’s really nice to work with Greentown just because (it feels, even from my perspective) helping your member companies get this in order is just one small part that we’re able to help. I’m really excited about our partnership as well. I think most of our listeners for this particular Mindset episode are going to be safety professionals, but they might not have experience in that incubator-styled space. So, what’s been the most difficult issue that you’ve had in this unique setting and how has the Chemical Safety Module helped you manage that?
Carey Ann Comeau:
Sure! That’s a great question. It’s what I spend, and what our safety team spends, probably 95% of our time thinking about. Just to give you a small example—the little microcosm of the Wet Lab, really quickly, is 1800 square feet, 26 lab benches, and members can take as few as one bench all the way up to (I think we have a member company right now with) nine benches. We really can have quite a few members in there doing very different things all at once. For instance, we’ve got right now a company working on lab-grown meat, another company working on decarbonizing the cement creation process, another company is working on using microbes to digest plastics, and another company working on fuel cells. It’s a lot of variety. We don’t just worry about chemicals; we worry about microbes. It’s just this huge diversity of hazards that we have to think about. And so, when we bring in a member company or when a member company pivots at Greentown, we don’t just have to look at what they’re doing and how safe it is for the folks that are working on their specific experiments (which is often difficult on its own because these folks are doing groundbreaking things that other people have never done before.) You then have to think about what’s the person to the right of them doing on their bench, and to the left? Are they using a shared fume hood? Are their chemicals compatible? We spend a lot of time not just thinking about our companies as singular entities, but as the whole community, and it’s really based on communication. What having a platform like this helps us do is have a space where somebody in our wet lab can see all of the chemicals that exist in our lab. We want to make sure folks know what the hazards are around them, and this is just another tool for them to use. What we’ve particularly appreciated about SafetyStratus is that, while we want everybody to know what the hazards are in the space, we also have to pile on intellectual property and [the member company’s] concerns about how (while we all trust each other in this space) you’ve got to be a little protective, especially when you’re a startup. So, what SafetyStratus really helped us do was make all that information available, but then also deidentify it from company to company on the member side of things. I, of course, can go in and see what belongs to whom and how much they have of it, but we’re satisfying both our needs to have really in-depth information, while also making sure everybody in the lab feels comfortable knowing what’s being worked with around them.
Stephenie Langston:
I think that the intellectual property piece is really important as well. Obviously, for safety we want everybody to know the hazards, but that intellectual property piece also is [important.] Like you mentioned, those startups could be multi-million or multi-billion-dollar businesses one day, and we want to protect that with them, and make them feel comfortable about putting their chemicals into our site. We want them to know that we understand what their mission is as a company, and we can provide that resource without jeopardizing their future. It’s been a lot of fun working with you and getting to know some of these member companies and one thing I can say, just even from visiting the space and meeting some of them, is the amount of knowledge and even creativity within that space is unmatched in any other place I’ve ever been. It’s just really impressive to see everyone working together and doing it in a way that I think is going to make a big difference in the future.
Carey Ann Comeau:
Yeah, it’s pretty mind-blowing. I like to tell people that when I’m having a busy day, a stressful day, I like to just step away from my computer and take a lap around our lab space. You can’t help but feel good about where we’re going and what the future holds, because these folks are doing really incredible work. This is why it’s just so important that we support them from an operational safety standpoint. We want them to be safe and healthy so that they can continue to save the planet for us.
Stephenie Langston:
My last question for today is if people wanted to reach out to you to learn more about Greentown, what would you recommend are their avenues for doing that?
Carey Ann Comeau:
We have a really great website—kudos to our marketing team! There’s a ton of information. Greentownlabs.com. You can learn more about Greentown, the incubator, specifics on our different companies—our members and what they’re doing. And reach out to us on social media. We’re on just about everything. And reach out to our members, too. Nine times out of ten, if I walk through the lab and I stop to ask somebody a question, they’re going to talk my ear off for 10-15 minutes about what they’re doing. So, find their information online and reach out. We’re all really passionate about what’s going on at Greentown. Stephenie, I do just want to say… Earlier, you mentioned that you felt like you had even just a little bit of a part in these companies’ success, and you absolutely do. I feel the same way too. If you see these companies succeed, even tangentially, we have been a part of their success, and that feels really, really good. And our companies are just great. I encourage people to go to the website and check out what folks are doing.
Stephenie Langston:
Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate your time and all the enthusiasm and energy that you put into your work at Greentown. So, thank you. It was great talking to you.
Carey Ann Comeau:
We appreciate you. Thank you as well, Stephenie.
