Spotted: The global food market is worth more than $9 trillion (about €8.5 trillion) and is going to continue growing. This volume of food has an equivalently large carbon footprint, something growers are aware of and working to change. Helping to capture those improvements is French software-as-a-service (SaaS) company Carbon Maps. Carbon Maps’ platform automates emissions calculations for food products.
Such complex calculations rely heavily on algorithms, and Carbon Maps uses internationally recognised data standards and scientific models for its computations. Product life cycle assessments (LCAs) examine data from basic growing techniques to water usage, processing systems, recycling and more. By utilising the power of artificial intelligence (AI), Carbon Maps enables large industrial food distributors to assess the sustainability of a range of their products, even those that use a multitude of ingredients.
As well as providing eco-scores for each foodstuff, the Carbon Maps system allows for easy updates of LCAs as information changes. A grower may alter their farming practices meaning less water is needed, so the automated emissions calculation system makes it easy for that improvement to be included in the scores for the many products that use those crops.
Carbon Maps includes details such as biodiversity, animal welfare, and soil health in its calculations, allowing for a much more holistic view of the sustainability of an item. The company is currently working with two businesses on pilot programmes, and recently closed a €4 million seed funding round that will be used to expand its operational capacity.
Reducing carbon emissions is such a global priority that – as Springwise has spotted– innovations in two of the worst polluting industries, food and fashion, are pushing the technology and tracking capabilities ahead as quickly as possible.
Operational carbon is usually what we think of when energy costs are discussed. That is, carbon emissions that come from the energy used to power our homes, cars, etc. over their lifetime. Your home’s energy efficiency comes into play here. Generally, operational carbon emissions can be modeled and predicted, so you can compare one appliance or building product against another. Often, a label will show how much energy a certain appliance is likely to draw over a lifetime of operation, or how much a well insulated house will reduce your energy needs annually. But embodied carbon takes this modeling to a whole ’nother level.
Embodied carbon is the carbon footprint of a product, process, or service starting with the extraction of raw materials through the manufacturing process to market (cradle to gate) and then beyond to delivery and installation (cradle to site). Operational carbon is often considered separately, but adding the carbon embodied in a product’s end-of-life disposal (cradle to grave) or reuse or recycling (cradle-to-cradle) gives a complete lifecycle analysis. In other words, embodied carbon represents the total amount of greenhouse gases (including CO2) emitted during extraction, transportation, manufacture, delivery and deployment, and then end-of-life. Looking at both the embodied carbon and the operational carbon give you the true “carbon cost” of your product or project.
Let’s picture a new countertop for your kitchen. The embodied carbon of that countertop that you will enjoy in your home comprises the energy that goes into mining the stone, transporting the raw material from the mine to a facility for processing, its processing and preparation (cutting, strengthening, and polishing), transporting to a wholesaler, and then to your home where we include the energy emissions of cutting to size and setting it up in your kitchen. And finally its end-of-life, which hopefully includes reuse or recycling wherever possible.
Embodied carbon hides in your home
For homes, the biggest sources of embodied carbon are typically in materials. Many common materials used in construction, such as concrete, stone, steel, and lumber, tend to be high in embodied carbon either due to energy-intensive extraction or manufacturing processes. Even products made from rapidly renewable materials, or by a manufacturer that uses renewable energy, may waste a lot of water, or raw or finished materials. Or the product must travel overseas, or lasts only a short time before it heads for the landfill and must be replaced.
An exception to looking for the lowest carbon equation would be if the building materials are used for carbon sequestration. For instance, natural renewable materials such as wood from sustainable forests, or wool, or bamboo will hold carbon safely within the walls and furnishings of your home, while the natural source is replenished and continues to grow and pull more carbon from the atmosphere.
To reduce the embodied carbon in your home, as the saying goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. The most accurate analysis of the embodied carbon in extraction, transportation, and manufacturing is going to come from the product manufacturer. Eco-conscious companies often use environmental product declarations (EPDs) and post the data on their websites. These look beyond carbon and account for multiple environmental impacts. Further, they provide a lifecycle assessment (LCA), and include both embodied carbon through end-of-life and operational carbon.
Experts can help
Many software tools exist to help conduct LCAs. One of the best free tools out there is the Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3). This tool can technically be used by anyone, but it is most efficient if used between your architectural, engineering, and construction professionals along with a trained sustainability professional or firm. Increasingly, the emphasis shifts to embodied carbon as building codes call for increased energy efficiency, and more homes and utility grids are powered by renewable energy—thus significantly lowering the carbon footprint of operational carbon emissions.
By looking at these issues, weighing pros and cons, we can help reduce the embodied carbon and thereby the total lifecycle carbon in our homes. Particularly in new construction and all-electric homes, just a few adjustments in key areas—insulation, cladding, and concrete—can make strides toward meeting our collective climate change commitments and averting the worst of the climate change catastrophes to come.
The Author: Sustainability Consultant Arnaldo Perez-Negron is an environmentalist and social entrepreneur based in the Tampa Bay area.
After Seratech’s carbon-neutral cement won the 2022 Obel Award, Dezeen has rounded up six ways in which researchers are working to decarbonise concrete – the single most polluting building material in the world.
Currently, concrete’s key ingredient cement is responsible for around eight per cent of global emissions, surpassing all other materials except oil, gas and coal.
But as the world – and the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) – race to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change, a growing number of material innovations are emerging to tackle concrete’s carbon footprint.
Mostly, these focus on finding low-carbon substitutes for cement, making use of everything from algae-grown limestone to olivine – an abundant mineral that can absorb its own mass in carbon dioxide.
But none of these alternatives is currently available at the necessary scale to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century, according to Cambridge University engineering professor Julian Allwood.
“Despite the enormous range of innovations in cement that are being publicised, there are no substitutes with all the same performance characteristics and scale as Portland cement,” Allwood said in a speech at the Built Environment Summit.
To help buy the construction industry time to scale up viable alternatives, other researchers are looking at slashing the embodied carbon footprint of buildings by developing clever construction techniques to reduce the amount of concrete needed in their construction.
Below, we’ve rounded up six of the most innovative projects across both approaches:
Photo is by Helene Sandberg
Seratech by Sam Draper and Barney Shanks
London start-up Seratech has developed a way of creating carbon-neutral concrete, which involves replacing up to 40 per cent of its cement content with a type of silica made from captured industrial emissions and the carbon-absorbing mineral olivine.
All of the emissions associated with the remaining cement are offset by the CO2 that is sequestered by the silica, the company claims, which would make the material overall carbon neutral.
The cement substitute is both low-cost and easy to scale, Seratech says, because it can be integrated seamlessly into existing production processes and because olivine is an abundant material – unlike other cement substitutes like ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS).
Find out more about Seratech ›
Photo courtesy of Glenn Asakawa and the University of Colorado
Biogenic Limestone by Minus Materials
Taking a more experimental approach, researchers from the University of Colorado in Boulder have found a way to make cement using limestone that was grown by algae through photosynthesis, rather than limestone that was mined from the earth.
When this “biogenic limestone” is burned to make cement, it will only emit as much carbon as the microalgae drew down from the atmosphere during its growth, which researchers say makes the process carbon neutral.
If the ground limestone, which is typically added to the cement mixture as a filler, is also replaced with the algae-grown alternative the material could even be carbon negative, as the carbon stored in the aggregate would be sequestered instead of burned.
Supported by a $3.2 million (£2.7 million) grant from the US Department of Energy, the researchers are now working to scale up their manufacturing capabilities, while lowing the price of the material by also using the coccolithophores microalgae to make more expensive items like cosmetics, biofuels and food.
Find out more about Biogenic Limestone ›
Photo courtesy of ACORN
Concrete vaulted flooring by ACORN
As part of the ACORN project, researchers from the universities of Bath, Cambridge and Dundee have developed a thin-shell vaulted flooring system, which can be used to replace traditional solid floor slabs while using 75 per cent less concrete to carry the same load.
This resulted in an estimated 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions for the team’s first full-scale demo project, built inside Cambridge University’s Civil Engineering Department.
“Since concrete is the world’s most widely consumed material after water […] the easiest way for construction to begin its journey to net-zero is to use less concrete,” said ACORN principal investigator Paul Shepherd from Bath’s Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering.
Made using an automated manufacturing system and a six-axis robot, the flooring also functions completely without reinforcements, eliminating the need for emissions-intensive steel rebar.
Find out more about concrete vaulted floors ›
Photo courtesy of Carbicrete
Carbicrete by McGill University
Montreal-based Carbicrete is among a number of companies making use of waste slag from the steel industry to completely eliminate the need for cement in the concrete production process.
Instead of the water used in traditional concrete production, this cement substitute is then cured with captured CO2 from factory flues, which is sequestered in the material to make it carbon neutral.
However, this process can so far only be used to make precast panels and concrete masonry units. And due to the limited amount of steel slag produced every year – around 250 million tonnes compared to four billion tons of cement – Carbicrete could only be used to meet a fraction of the demand.
Find out more about Carbicrete ›
Photo courtesy of Newtab-22
Sea Stone by Newtab-22
On a smaller scale, London design studio Newtab-22 has developed a concrete-like material made using waste seashells from the food industry, which are ground up and combined with a patent-pending mix of natural binders such as agar.
Called Sea Stone, the resulting material looks strikingly similar to real concrete since the oyster and mussel shells it contains are made from calcium carbonate, otherwise known as limestone – a key ingredient in cement.
But as the material is not fired, it lacks the strength and durability of real concrete and is restricted to non-structural applications, including surfaces such as tabletop and tiles as well as plinths and vases.
Find out more about Sea Stone ›
Photo is by Patrick Bedarf
FoamWork by ETH Zurich
Another technique for using less concrete comes from researchers at ETH Zurich, who have developed a system of 3D-printed formwork elements. Made from recyclable mineral foam, these can be placed inside the moulds used to make pre-cast concrete panels, creating a pattern of hollow cells throughout the slab.
The formwork creates an internal geometry, which was optimised to reinforce the panel along its principal stress lines and provides the necessary strength to create everything from walls to entire roofs, while drastically reducing the amount of concrete needed in the process.
This creates panels that are lighter and use 70 per cent less material. And after curing, the mineral foam can either be left in place to provide insulation or endlessly recycled to create new formwork elements, which ETH Zurich says makes the process potentially zero waste.
