As he campaigned in 2018 to be the next governor of Illinois, Democrat J.B. Pritzker was on a mission to convince voters of his commitment to fighting climate change. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, the wealthy businessman and heir to the Hyatt hotel chain fortune touted his backing of the Paris Climate Accord and vowed to increase state investments in battery technology. Pritzker, moreover, remarked on his support for a little-known climate initiative in Chicago.
“I was one of the earliest supporters of the Clean Energy Trust, which promotes job creation and entrepreneurship in the clean energy industry,” Pritzker told the newspaper, referring to a nonprofit group formed in 2010 that counts one of its founding board members as his cousin, ex-Hyatt Development Corporation CEO Nicholas Pritzker. His cousin was co-chairman until 2020 of the organization, which listed Nicholas Pritzker as a “director emeritus” on its tax forms filed in 2022.
The charity, which has since changed its name to Evergreen Climate Innovations, invests in “startups working on solutions for clean energy, decarbonization, and environmental sustainability,” it said in fund structure documents. In turn, Evergreen Climate Innovations has seen a financial boost in Illinois under the leadership of J.B. Pritzker, who is now in his second term as governor and, according to reports, rumored as under consideration by Vice President Kamala Harris to be the running mate of the presumptive 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.
Pritzker’s administration has awarded at least $3.6 million combined to two companies — NuMat Technologies, Inc., and Iris Light Technologies, Inc. — that Evergreen Climate Innovations invests in, according to state funding records. Evergreen Climate Innovations manages the Illinois Clean Energy Innovation Fund, which has invested millions of dollars in over a dozen Illinois-based companies and received seed funding from an agency within the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
The ties between Illinois and the entity connected to Nicholas Pritzker could open J.B. Pritzker up to conflict of interest scrutiny as Harris mulls her running mate pick. Three weeks away from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Harris is still deciding on her vice presidential pick. Others under consideration reportedly include Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, as well as Govs. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), Andy Beshear (D-KY), and Tim Walz (D-MN). Trump leads Harris by roughly 2 percentage points, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average.
“I think it’s an insult to Illinois taxpayers,” Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who was chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said of the Pritzker funding situation.
“It really does undermine the public trust,” Painter told the Washington Examiner.
In 2021, J.B. Pritzker announced a $3.5 million grant to NuMat Technologies for a research program. At the time, Evergreen Climate Innovations touted in a Facebook post, “One of the Rebuild Illinois capital program recipients is none other than Clean Energy Trust portfolio company NuMat Technologies. We applaud Governor J.B. Pritzker’s commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship in the Midwest and congratulate the other recipients.”
According to Illinois state records, the grant to NuMat Technologies, as well as a separate $50,000 grant to NuMat Technologies and $100,000 in combined funding to Iris Light Technologies, began disbursing in 2023. Last year, J.B. Pritzker also announced funding for a separate climate investment group in Chicago partnered with Evergreen Climate Innovations. A press release for that program included quotes from J.B. Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and Michael Polsky, a founding Evergreen Climate Innovations board member whom J.B. Pritzker appointed to a state climate commission.
In a July post on X, J.B. Pritzker said companies such as Polsky’s, which is called Invenergy, “are helping us grow our green economy and building a brighter future for our state.” Polsky, like Nicholas Pritzker, was also listed by Evergreen Climate Innovations as a “director emeritus” on its tax forms filed in 2022.
Meanwhile, J.B. Pritzker has appeared at events in recent years with Amy Francetic, whom Crain’s Chicago Business said in 2013 was “hired by” Nicholas Pritzker, Polsky, and other business leaders to lead Evergreen Climate Innovations, then Clean Energy Trust.
Francetic is board chairwoman of Evergreen Climate Innovations, according to the group’s tax forms filed in November 2023.
Evergreen Climate Innovations, then Clean Energy Trust, notably was awarded a $250,000 federal grant in 2014 from the Commerce Department, funding documents show. During that time, the agency’s top official was Penny Pritzker, the sister of J.B. Pritzker.
Evergreen Climate Innovations is also funded by the Department of Energy and Small Business Administration, with 13% of the charity’s revenue in 2023 coming from government grants, according to its annual report last year. The Pritzker-linked charity has accepted grants in recent years from the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation, which operates in Beijing and employs staff with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
The governor’s office, Evergreen Climate Innovations, NuMat Technologies, and Iris Light Technologies did not reply to requests for comment.
Last week, J.B. Pritzker’s office sought to distance itself from Nicholas Pritzker’s business dealings, with a spokesperson for the governor telling Politico, when asked about his cousin’s e-cigarette industry investment in Juul, “I don’t even know who my first cousin once removed is, never mind why I would be responsible for what they do.”
To Open the Books, an Illinois-based watchdog group tracking state and federal spending, the Democratic governor has a clear conflict of interest in appearing to boost Evergreen Climate Innovations.
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“This is the way Illinois politics is practiced, and the multibillionaire Pritzkers are flexing their political and marketplace powers,” Adam Andrzejewski, the CEO of Open the Books, said. “When you follow the money, it becomes apparent that the Pritzker family became adept at setting up legalized money recycling schemes — using taxpayer money to enrich their entities and build their personal, political, and private-sector power.”
The Harris campaign did not return a request for comment.
