Houston leaders push tech-driven sustainable growth

Writer: Mirella Franzese

December 2025 — At the recent Invest: Houston Leadership Summit, industry leaders from Houston’s technology, construction, and energy sectors came together to discuss leveraging technology to enhance sustainability and infrastructure while maintaining economic vitality.

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Moderator, Suzanna Bonham, a partner at law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP, noted that economic competitiveness and sustainability can sometimes appear at odds with each other — especially given the challenges of expanding sustainable solutions without increasing the cost for the end product. 

While balancing near-term performance gains with long-term environmental goals used to represent two diverging goals, the emergence of new technologies is changing the narrative across Houston’s core sectors, including energy, technology, and construction.  

Energy

“In the three to four years leading up to 2024, (the push towards sustainability) was all about building new assets, new plants, and creating entirely new value chains of hydrogen from scratch, and have it somehow not cost too much,” said panelist Parker Meeks, CEO of Utility Global. “That doesn’t happen.” 

Yet, investments in infrastructure and technology are helping bridge that gap, bringing the net-zero objective closer to reality.   

“Houston is the epicenter of energy and infrastructure,” explained panelist Ryan Ezell, CEO of the leading chemistry and data tech company Flotek Industries. 

Ezell pointed out that Houston has the largest petroleum infrastructure and wind farm battery in the U.S, the fifth highest solar output, and a rapidly emerging hydrogen sector. 

This massive energy density creates the potential for significant economic and technological transformation in the region, especially given the challenge of reconciling cost-saving business models with more expensive sustainability goals. 

“(Energy) is a change agent,” explained Ezell. “It’s a change agent to bettering human lives. It’s a change agent for driving innovation and technology because these things require sufficient energy.”

Eliminating Waste

According to Meeks, the rise of new technologies such as AI enables plants to pursue decarbonization without increasing the cost of their products by converting waste, such as finery off-gas, chemical off-gas, and steel off-gas, into valuable hydrogen.   

This is also rapidly changing the way energy companies approach sustainable waste management. For instance, Ezell and his team at Flotek can remove waste from their energy-infrastructure operations through AI, reducing emissions through real-time gas monitoring in pipelines and field operations. 

Powering AI Data Center 

With the data center boom in Houston, this process becomes key to sustaining some of the region’s growing electrification demands. 

As Ezell observed, big tech companies and hyperscalers with effectively unlimited capital are now entering the conversation around sustainability because they desperately need energy for data centers.

“We’re going to see more electricity growth in the next five years than we’ve seen in the last 50 years combined,” said Ezell. “A lot of this is driven by the requirements of AI data centers, the mass electrification, and also the reshoring of a lot of industrial processes.

To that end, corporations like Flotek and Utility Global are converting stranded gas into fuel for data centers and grid infrastructure by leveraging near-time data, AI models, and predictive analysis. 

According to Meeks, waste gases aren’t just “water” — they’re valuable feedstocks and fuels that can be used for advancing power capabilities. AI and software are both huge levers through which to achieve that.  

“We think technology can be 50% lower capex and 40% lower opex in just a few years by mainly software, smarter heat-management, balance, and gas flow,” Meeks told his fellow panelists.

For Ezell, these gains in performance showcase the need for further investment in AI and emerging technologies.

“There’s just that constant push. It’s our job to push sustainability forward and look for better ways to take waste out by driving new measurements, new advancements in material sciences, and new chemistries that bring efficiency to the forefront,” added Ezell. 

Real Estate Gains

Within Houston’s real estate and construction sector, technology breakthroughs are also unlocking new gains in the environmental and sustainability space, according to Jeff Challis, SVP of Joeris General Contractors’ Houston office. 

For instance, Joeris created a construction technology team dedicated to finding and testing the latest tools. These include 3D modeling, virtual design, AI, drone technology, and robotics.

The team’s robotic crawler technology — which uses a 360-degree camera to inspect confined spaces and eliminates the need to send workers into risky locations — was even awarded Innovation of the Year. 

These advancements cost money, as Challis noted. Yet, Joeris General Contractors’ customers increasingly see the value in their investment — from reduced waste, improved safety, and long-term cost savings.  

Responsibility 

The path forward is one driven by social responsibility, according to Meeks, Challis, and Ezell. 

As a global energy epicenter, Houston has a responsibility to help close that gap, according to Ezell. “It is our role… to facilitate the learning curve and reduce waste that we may have experienced in the previous years.” 

Now, major operators and private companies are embracing the transition. Investments are pouring into universities, schools, community partnerships, and innovation programs, which are expected to accelerate job creation for the next generation. 

For Ezell, growth in the energy sector will continue to enable technology — driving change in the regional economy. 

“I don’t know that there’s ever been a more exciting time to be in the energy and infrastructure space,” he said.

Want more? Read the Invest: Houston report.