How to Apply

Com­plete the Project Appli­ca­tion and sub­mit to livinglab@​govisland.​org. Project Appli­ca­tion avail­able for down­load at gov​is​land​.org/​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​-​o​p​p​o​r​t​u​n​ities.

Eli­gi­bil­i­ty

• Appli­cants must be incor­po­rat­ed as a legal enti­ty and must be work­ing on urban cli­mate solu­tions (e.g., hard­ware, soft­ware, mate­ri­als research, pol­i­cy, or inno­v­a­tive busi­ness and financ­ing models).
• Appli­cants should iden­ti­fy a crit­i­cal mile­stone that requires a tem­po­rary pilot site to sup­port prod­uct devel­op­ment and deploy­ment (e.g., solu­tions val­i­da­tion, beta test­ing, data collection.)
• The Trust strong­ly encour­ages appli­ca­tions from under­rep­re­sent­ed founders and non­prof­it lead­ers, includ­ing local­ly based and minor­i­ty- and women-owned enter­pris­es. Pref­er­ence will be giv­en to small busi­ness­es and non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions with 50 employ­ees or fewer.

Awards and Ben­e­fits for Pilot Partners

• Access to a project site (with no fee) on Gov­er­nors Island under a 3- to 12-month license agree­ment. Longer-term tem­po­rary projects may be con­sid­ered on a case-by-case basis.
• Cli­mate Solu­tions Chal­lenge: A $10,000 grant or non-dilu­tive fund­ing award and access to a com­mon pool of $100,000 in addi­tion­al deploy­ment support.
• Tech­ni­cal sup­port on project fea­si­bil­i­ty, sit­ing, and per­mit­ting. (Note: Eli­gi­ble pilot sites on Gov­er­nors Island are man­aged by the Trust for Gov­er­nors Island as the sole own­er and operator.)
• Pro­mo­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties as an inau­gur­al Pilot Part­ner with the Cen­ter for Cli­mate Solutions.
• Oppor­tu­ni­ties to engage with key stake­hold­ers and men­tor future cohorts.

Pro­gram Requirements

• Ensur­ing safe and respon­si­ble deploy­ment, oper­a­tion, and main­te­nance of their cli­mate solu­tion sub­ject to a stan­dard license agree­ment for site access. This includes and is not lim­it­ed to design and per­mit­ting, site prepa­ra­tion and restora­tion, trans­port and instal­la­tion, a cer­tifi­cate of insur­ance, and pro­vid­ing reg­u­lar on-site over­sight and main­te­nance dur­ing the pilot period.
• Coor­di­nat­ing with the Gov­er­nors Island Liv­ing Lab and Trust for Gov­er­nors Island on pro­mo­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, such as inter­pre­tive sig­nage, web and social assets, press, and events.
• Pro­vid­ing a secu­ri­ty deposit. This may be set up as a retainage of the Chal­lenge grant award, plus retainage of 10% of any addi­tion­al deploy­ment funds award­ed from the com­mon pool.
• For the gen­er­al rolling call, Pilot Part­ners are respon­si­ble for all project costs, includ­ing a secu­ri­ty deposit, site prepa­ra­tion, and restora­tion to orig­i­nal condition.

Pro­gram Lim­i­ta­tions and Legal Requirements

Project must meet the fol­low­ing requirements:

• Projects must be temporary.
• Projects must meet all local code, per­mit­ting, and reg­u­la­to­ry requirements.
• Project teams are respon­si­ble for pro­fes­sion­al design, per­mit­ting, expe­dit­ing, or engi­neer­ing ser­vices to sup­port deployment.

Due to the Island’s unique and evolv­ing envi­ron­ment, the Trust cur­rent­ly has lim­it­ed abil­i­ty to sup­port the fol­low­ing project types:

• Trans­porta­tion: AVs, EVs, and grid-con­nect­ed EV charg­ing solutions.
• Build­ings: Grid-con­nect­ed build­ing sys­tems inter­ven­tions, where the major­i­ty of Trust-con­trolled his­toric build­ings are vacant with lim­it­ed crit­i­cal build­ing systems.
• Food Sys­tems: Urban agri­cul­ture demon­stra­tions requir­ing more than 0.5 acres.