CarbonCure Technologies Inc. of Halifax is attracting major customers with its innovative technique for reducing carbon emissions while strengthening concrete.
Amazon.com, Inc. is one of the latest high-profile customers to embrace CarbonCure as it constructs its massive new headquarters in Virginia.
CarbonCure has developed a process of injecting carbon dioxide into concrete, which strengthens the building material while reducing the amount needed by about five per cent and reduces the environmental impact of using concrete – every tonne of carbon dioxide injected saves about 40 tonnes of emissions.
“Lower carbon building materials reduce a building’s embodied carbon emissions, an integral strategy in the shift towards net-zero carbon buildings,” Matt Peterson, director of Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, recently told the Globe and Mail.
Since 2016, CarbonCure says its clients have diverted more than 105,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere thanks to its technology. At the same time, the company has strengthened its brand and budget with investments from some of the world’s best known companies.
Bill Gates’s cleantech fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures first bought into CarbonCure in 2018, and the company has since secured both an investment and the building partnership from Amazon. The company also recently announced additional financing from both Mitsubishi Corp. and the carbon-reduction advisory firm Carbon Direct.
CarbonCure says the investments represent growing recognition of its technologies to tackle the immense carbon footprint of concrete, the most abundant human-made material in the world after drinking water.
Cement – the key ingredient that gives concrete its strength – is the largest industrial emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for eight per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
CarbonCure’s technology enables concrete producers to continue manufacturing the same reliable concrete while permanently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.