Canada-based CarbonCure Technologies is a promising cleantech company that develops carbon dioxide removal (CDR) solutions for the concrete industry. It aims to make cement — which happens to be one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the built environment — much greener.
Using its novel technology, CarbonCure aims to remove 500 megatonnes (500 million metric tonnes or 500 Mt) of carbon dioxide annually from the concrete industry by 2030. Said technology enables concrete producers to use waste carbon dioxide (CO₂) to produce stronger, more sustainable concrete and gain a competitive advantage.
“Our solutions help producers deliver low embodied carbon concrete in an efficient, non-disruptive, and profitable way,” explained the company’s CEO and Co-Founder Robert Niven.
CarbonCure is already used by nearly 300 concrete producers to supply low embodied carbon concrete to construction projects. The company says that already hundreds of concrete plants around the world are producing concrete made with CO2 every day, supplying projects ranging from highways to high-rises and aquariums to airports.
CarbonCure investors include tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, among others.
Takeaway
Action point
As a local government employee, it is your job to make your municipality better; and better these days means greener. It could be up to you to select concrete producers that take advantage of CarbonCure's technology and help remove some of CO2 from the air. And if there are no such producers in your area, you can ask them to adopt the new technology to the benefit of all citizens. Needless to say, "going green" is potentially a big win in the eyes of the public and could thus help your career, as well.
If you work at a concrete producer, make sure to push for the adoption of CarbonCure's technology. It will not only give you a competitive advantage but will also help you develop that much greener projects — which, consequently, should be easier to sell to local municipalities. Otherwise, you may find the opportunity of being a middleman that could find its (profitable) niche by serving both the concrete producers and the local municipality. Perhaps it could be a consulting gig on how to build greener roads and buildings? Just an idea...