Lara Croushore is head of climate at SecondMuse and Stacey Weismiller is president and CEO of The American Manufacturing Futures Institute.
The clean energy transition is often described as targets and frameworks, but its outcomes will be forged on factory floors, in industrial corridors and in communities that still know how to make things. Manufacturing is civic infrastructure — as foundational as streets, schools and sewers. It underpins tax bases, funds public services and creates durable, skills-based careers that keep families and neighborhoods stable.
While U.S. manufacturing jobs have fallen from about 20 million to about 13 million, the sector's importance to innovation and exports remains significant. Its role is shifting toward electrification, advanced materials, batteries and grid components. At the center are climate manufacturing ecosystems: local networks where industry, innovators, workers and community partners move in step. Places like New York, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and the Great Lakes are primed to lead because industrial know-how runs deep, supply chains can be retooled and public institutions can coordinate investment.
Without strong regional manufacturing capacity, the climate transition risks becoming a supply-chain mirage rather than a jobs-and-growth engine. Regions that treat manufacturing like civic infrastructure, and align it with the clean energy transition, will drive America’s next era of industrial growth.
New York as a model
In New York, climate action and a strong industrial history are intertwined. Over the past decade, New York City and the state have built a foundation for climate manufacturing, showing that the same tools that once built industrial centers can now rebuild a sustainable future.
New York's manufacturing ecosystem is grounded in strong industrial policy, targeted infrastructure investment, world-class academic institutions and cross-sectoral collaboration. New York City's Industrial Action Plans, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s innovation and commercialization programs and Empire State Development’s incentives for advanced industries have demonstrated that industry and climate goals are key to New York’s economy.
New York City's industrial campuses are once again shaping the nation's economic story. The Brooklyn Navy Yard and Brooklyn Army Terminal, with millions of square feet of reactivated space, now host a new generation of manufacturers building climate tech hardware and resilient urban infrastructure. Beyond these flagship sites, the city's 21 Industrial Business Zones ensure that industrial areas remain places where ideas are built, not displaced.
Programs like Futureworks NYC, M-Corps, Manufacturing Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Grow + Together and Scale For ClimateTech have transformed New York's industrial infrastructure into a living lab for innovation. The Scale For ClimateTech program alone has supported more than 100 companies, which have created over 650 jobs and collectively raised over $1 billion.
New York's progress proves what's possible when industrial infrastructure, policy and program dollars are aligned.
Going forward, the incoming NYC administration should deliver its commitments to build more homes while losing zero industrial square footage, replace what's displaced, and finance the mid-scale production space that hardware startups desperately need. And New York state should continue investing in hardware-focused entrepreneur programs; double down on project financing (especially flexible debt products) and faster disbursements so firms can scale on real timelines; and expand grant programs to broaden eligibility, allow equipment and working-capital uses, and streamline reporting.
The city and state should work together, with state dollars and programming powering the effort, and the city's unique industrial assets and climate innovation ecosystem putting those resources to work.
Pittsburgh: legacy infrastructure as a launchpad
In southwestern Pennsylvania, clean energy jobs are growing at 1.5 times the state average. Pittsburgh has turned its industrial heritage into a launchpad for clean energy innovation and advanced manufacturing, anchored by Carnegie Mellon's robotics programs and employers like Westinghouse, Alcoa and Siemens.
Recent projects like Eos Energy's $500 million expansion and Pennsylvania's $90 billion in data center and energy investments show momentum. The state’s Ten-Year Strategic Plan for Economic Development identifies manufacturing and energy as two of the state’s five key sectors.
But Pittsburgh still lacks the ecosystem coordination and investment needed to scale its momentum into the kind of broad growth seen in peer cities. The region has talent, but needs a more ambitious push, one that cultivates and retains top entrepreneurs and connects them to the right support systems, capital and networks.
Entrepreneurial programs and inclusive networks offer a proven way to close the gap and connect the ecosystem. With deeper alignment, the region can translate its promise in both industry and the climate economy into national leadership.
Los Angeles: innovation meets scale
Once the nation's largest manufacturing hub, Los Angeles remains a leading U.S. exporter of aircraft parts, integrated circuits and advanced materials.
With universities like UCLA graduating thousands of engineers each year, the region is channeling these assets toward the climate transition, and the stakes are high: heat waves, wildfires, air quality and coastal erosion make decarbonization both a moral and economic imperative. Add to that an increasingly speculative real estate market, where industrial land is scarce and expensive. In this environment, programs that pilot clean energy technologies, electrify ports and address workforce gaps have become essential to ensure the clean energy economy takes root across the city.
To become a durable climate manufacturing hub, L.A. must do two things. First, build on existing prototyping spaces and innovation assets and ensure they engage the full spectrum of L.A.’s economy. That means creating a coordinated program for startups specifically focused on manufacturing, one that connects facilities with manufacturing curriculum, supply-chain matchmaking and patient capital. Second, convene local leaders to develop a "Climate Manufacturing Compact" that aligns city, county, utilities, universities, labor and investors around protecting industrial corridors, streamlining adaptive reuse and setting measurable targets for production space, quality jobs and emissions reductions. With a $1 trillion regional economy and nearly four million residents, Los Angeles can prove that climate action and industrial growth are not competing priorities but a common project.
The Great Lakes: from battery belt to unified strategy
Stretching from Chicago to Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, the Great Lakes corridor has long been the industrial backbone of America. Its geography, anchored by fresh water, shipping routes and access to global commerce, once powered America’s industrial heartbeat. That same positioning allows the region to lead in electric vehicles, semiconductors and advanced materials. Today, the region is redefining itself as the nation's "Battery Belt." Michigan's $1 billion site readiness fund, Ohio's $600 million in semiconductor infrastructure and Indiana's Ivy Tech Community College system demonstrate regional commitment.
Yet the region lacks cohesion to compete as one unified manufacturing economy. Years of brain drain and state-versus-state competition have created a fragmented landscape. The fix is a cohesive regional strategy with one playbook and shared metrics for jobs, emissions and domestic content. The region can turn bidding wars into durable, clean energy industrial growth
Toward a climate manufacturing commons
When industry leaves, cities lose not only jobs but their tax base, weakening their ability to invest in schools and public services. New York, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and the Great Lakes corridor are building climate manufacturing ecosystems that draw on legacy, infrastructure, and innovation.
If regions align around shared goals, fragmented progress can become a connected national movement, a "Climate Manufacturing Commons" where ideas, talent, and production flow across borders. To make this real, government, industry and investors should: (1) co-develop cohesive regional strategies with common metrics and interoperable incentives; (2) invest in climate manufacturing entrepreneur programs with aligned public, philanthropic and private capital; and (3) modernize utilities, ports, rail and multi-tenant production space while protecting critical industrial districts. This is how we prove that rebuilding industry and addressing climate change are one and the same project of national renewal.
