Joseph Horn wants to bring leaders together to enhance sustainability and environmentalism, and he wants to do it in Fort Worth.

Horn is an attorney, mediator and the president of EcoPlex, a think tank and accelerator for the environmental non-governmental organizations and corporate sustainability. The paperwork to get nonprofit designation for EcoPlex was filed in 2019, Horn said, but the concept was developed three or four years before that. Building the EcoPlex in Fort Worth always was the plan, he said.

“Having it in Fort Worth, which is considered an oil and gas town, is transformative,” Horn said. “There’s a strong sense of culture, community, people who are entrepreneurial, and it has a manufacturing base.” Building EcoPlex in Fort Worth can attract other companies, such as electric car manufacturers, he said. The city is currently a finalist for a new Rivian Industries Inc. site.

Before EcoPlex can start building, it needs more financial support, Horn said.