Scientists developing bio-based carbon fibres being "showered with requests" for sustainable version of the wonder material

Scientists are working on carbon fibres made from biomaterials instead of fossil fuels in an attempt to create a version that does not generate carbon emissions.

Bio-based carbon fibres could be used to build lightweight electric cars with greater battery range, according to senior scientist Dr Erik Frank.

In architecture, concrete could be reinforced with carbon fibres instead of steel, allowing ultra-thin structures to be built.

Erik Frank (above) is developing carbon fibres (top) from biomaterials

"It's a wonder material because it is very strong and yet light compared to metal," said Frank, who is head of carbon fibre development and new materials at the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research in Denkendorf, southern Germany.

However, "the carbon footprint of carbon fibres is usually very bad," he added.

"The raw materials [for regular carbon fibre] come from petroleum but we're trying to move away from this," he explained. "Bio-based carbon fibres are in much higher demand than they used to be. We're being showered with requests."

Carbon fibres originally made from plant-based materials

Carbon fibres are incredibly thin threads of almost pure carbon crystals. Measuring just 5 to 10 micrometres, they are five times stronger than steel and twice as stiff.

The material was originally made from plant-based materials including cellulose and rayon, Frank said, until the lower price and higher performance of fossil-derived versions made bio-based carbon fibre unviable.

The fibres are being developed at the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research in Denkendorf, Germany

But the production process requires vast amounts of energy and generates large amounts of emissions and toxins. "If we want carbon fibres to be carbon neutral, all of this needs to be redesigned," Frank said.

To make the fibres, petroleum is first processed into highly toxic polyacrylonitrile (PAN). This is pulled into thin threads and then heated in an oven without oxygen.

Growing demand for bio-based carbon fibres

The process requires large amounts of energy and generates pollution as everything except the carbon atoms are burned away. "A couple of years ago this wasn't even a topic," said Frank. "People only cared about costs."

"Nowadays, sustainability is much more important and petroleum isn't so cheap anymore so it's a different story. Carbon fibre is a major component in that because it's so energy-intensive."

Frank is exploring ways of turning lignin, a substance found in most plants and which is a byproduct of the paper industry, into carbon fibres.

"We're working with lignin as a raw material," he explained. "It's a waste byproduct which accumulates in huge quantities in the paper industry. Normally, this is added to concrete or asphalt or incinerated. We're using it to make carbon fibre."

"To do that, we use chemical methods to purify it and get it into a good shape," he continued. "Then we can spin this into fibres, which we're trying to do directly in water rather than having to use toxic solvents. And the fibres that you get can be directly turned into carbon fibres."

Carbon fibre currently expensive and unsustainable

The performance of bio-based carbon fibre is "on the medium to lower-end" compared to PAN-based fibres, he added. "I should say the bio-based carbon fibres won't replace the PAN-based ones. It will just be a second market running alongside."

Carbon fibre is widely used to create aircraft and cars as well as high-performance products including bicycles, tennis rackets and wind turbines. It is extremely lightweight, meaning that it can significantly improve performance and reduce energy requirements.

However, it is expensive to produce as well as having an increasingly bad reputation due to its unsustainability.

"In aircraft construction, it is already used as standard," said Frank. "It can make a difference in electric cars by helping to save on weight."

"The automotive industry would like to move to carbon fibre but it is as of yet too expensive and not sustainable enough. The car industry is extremely driven by price and increasingly looking to do things more sustainably."

Last year, work started on the first building featuring concrete reinforced with carbon fibre. CUBE, a two-story building designed by Henn Architekten at the Technical University Dresden in Germany, is due to be completed later this year.

"It's already happening on a small scale that concrete is reinforced with carbon fibre but it's not yet at mass adoption stage," Frank said. "The benefit is that you can make the concrete much thinner while being able to carry heavy loads so you can design completely different shapes. The aim is to get away from the huge amounts of concrete that are being used today."

Bio-based carbon fibres could be more affordable than petroleum-based options

The high cost of carbon fibre is partly due to the complex and energy-intensive production process. Frank said that the global output is just 150,000 tonnes per year.

Another drawback of the material is that it is difficult to recycle and dispose of, although ways of reusing it are now being developed. "Many people are innovating in this field," Frank said.

"There are already quite a few recycled carbon fibres and they're even being used in products. Of course, they become worse with every cycle and at some point, they will have to be disposed of. Burning isn't an option because it's really hard to burn. A lot of the time it is stored in old mines."

Airbus "looking for sustainable carbon fibres"

But the demand for sustainable, high-performance materials means that bio-based carbon fibres could soon be more affordable as research and development ramps up around the world.

"All industries are being forced to cut down on CO2," Frank said. "It's not voluntary any more because it's going to get very expensive if they don't. Even aviation companies such as Airbus are looking for sustainable carbon fibres."

"We’re working on using the raw materials of the plants and turning them straight into carbon fibre," he concluded. "This means we’ve taken the carbon from the air via the plants, rather than adding carbon from fossil sources like petroleum or coal into the atmosphere."

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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Sweden faces "very serious" economic impacts as environmental ruling closes cement plant

The closure of Sweden's biggest cement factory on environmental grounds could cause up to 400,000 job losses and wipe out the country's GDP growth, according to an alliance of construction bodies.

Work could grind to a halt on three-quarters of all house-building projects and the construction sector could lose more than 20 billion Swedish Kronor (SEK) per month.

Work on infrastructure projects including Foster + Partners' Slussen masterplan in Stockholm could also be impacted.

The warning came from Byggföretagen, a body that represents construction firms in Sweden.

"Sweden is facing an extensive construction halt," it said. "By November, three out of four new homes will not be able to start construction. Several major infrastructure projects are stopped or delayed. Between 200,000 and 400,000 jobs are threatened."

Cement plant license rejected on environmental grounds

Byggföretagen based its figures on an impact assessment prepared in the wake of a decision by Sweden's Supreme Land and Environmental Court last week to reject a new licence for the Cementa cement plant at Slite in Gotland.

"The construction industry's share of GDP is about 11 per cent," Byggföretagen said. "The industry contributes almost SEK 40 billion in tax revenue to health care, schools and care. The construction halt thus risks displacing the entire GDP growth in 2022."

Top image: the limestone quarry on Gotland. Above: the Cementa plant is set to close

The plant, which is the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country and responsible for three per cent of all Sweden's CO2 emissions, will no longer be able to mine limestone as a result of the ruling.

The licence was refused due to concerns over the plant's environmental impact assessment, particularly in relation to the impact on groundwater. Greenpeace has also accused the plant of using its kilns to incinerate toxic waste without a permit.

The court was concerned about high levels of chloride pollution in groundwater samples taken near the site, according to Swedish news organisation Dagens PS.

"The fact that environmental problems at one cement factory can send the whole construction industry of a country into a panic puts a light on both the climate crisis and critical supply chain and infrastructure problems in Sweden," Dagens PS journalist Daniel Jacobs told Dezeen.

Slite plant to be converted into carbon-neutral factory

The ruling means that the plant, which produces three-quarters of all the cement used in Sweden, will have to cease production on 31 October. Byggföretagen has demanded an urgent meeting with the government to discuss the ruling.

"The situation is very serious," said Byggföretagen's CEO Catharina Elmsäter-Svärd. "Sweden is facing an extensive construction halt. The cement shortage will have extensive consequences for the Swedish economy and employment."

Cement production is responsible for an estimated eight per cent of global carbon emissions. The Slite plant has been earmarked for conversion into an experimental carbon-neutral factory by 2030 but parent company HeidelbergCement told Dezeen the court ruling could impact the timetable of the project.

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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Buckminsterfullerine, diamond and graphite illustrate "the very rich chemistry of carbon"

A "curiosity molecule" named after American architect Buckminster Fuller is one of the weird and wonderful allotropes of carbon, explains nanomaterials professor Andrei Khlobystov.

Following an in-depth interview with Dezeen about the "unprecedented" properties of carbon, Khlobystov talked us through the various allotropes of the element.

"The existence of allotropes is just a manifestation of the very rich chemistry of carbon as an element," said Khlobystov, who heads the University of Nottingham's Nanocarbon group and Nanoscale and Microscale Research Centre.

Allotropes are different forms of the same chemical element. They have the same atoms but in different arrangements.

Buckminsterfullerene named after architect famous for geodesic domes

One of these is buckminsterfullerene, nano-scale spheres of atoms that resemble the geodesic domes popularised by the architect Richard Buckminster Fuller.

A geodesic dome, which Buckminster Fuller patented in 1954, is a lattice-shell structure based on a geodesic polyhedron, a three-dimensional shape made up of a series of triangles.

These triangular elements distribute stress throughout the structure, a phenomenon that Buckminster Fuller termed tensegrity, which makes the domes very strong for their size and weight.

The buckminsterfullerene molecule is not technically a geodesic polyhedron. Rather than triangles, the molecular structure is made up of a series of hexagons and pentagons, like a football.

But a photograph of a Buckminster Fuller dome reportedly inspired the team of scientists that discovered buckminsterfullerene in 1985 to first consider that the molecule could have a spherical structure.

"It's not super useful at the moment, it is still sort of like a curiosity molecule but I think it has [future] applications," said Khlobystov.

Carbon can form "very strong bonds" with other atoms

Carbon is not the only element that can form allotropes but it has the most due to the unique way its atoms are able to bond with each other in various different configurations.

"[It can] form very effective and very strong bonds with other carbon atoms and with other elements," Khlobystov told Dezeen in the interview, conducted as part of our carbon revolution series about the element.

"This is actually quite unprecedented as far as the elements are concerned."

Above: carbon can form allotropes with varied molecular structures. Top: buckminsterfullerene resembles architect Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes

Khlobystov pointed out that carbon's ability to form multiple allotropes is just one of the characteristics that makes the element uniquely important.

"Carbon is very special," he said. "We are carbon-based life forms. All life on Earth is based on carbon. And this is not a coincidence."

Diamond and graphite are the two best-known allotropes of carbon but their radically different properties demonstrate how much of a difference the arrangement of atoms makes and how unusually versatile carbon is.

While graphite is soft, grey and electrically conductive, diamond is translucent, a poor conductor and the hardest substance on earth.

"They're almost complete opposites," Khlobystov told Dezeen. "It's the same element, but the way the atoms are knitted together is different and therefore the properties are very different."

Many carbon allotropes are made in labs

Carbon changes form under high temperature and high pressure such as the conditions that occurred in the early years of planet Earth. Nowadays, those conditions can be emulated in a lab, but some allotropes are harder to create than others.

While graphite and diamond occur relatively widely in nature, other allotropes are almost exclusively made in labs.

These include the much-talked-about "wonder material" graphene, carbon nanotubes and buckminsterfullerene, an allotrope named after the twentieth-century architect Buckminster Fuller.

Below, Khlobystov explains the key characteristics of the main carbon allotropes and what makes each of them exciting.

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Graphite

In graphite, each carbon atom has three neighbours, with two shorter bonds and one longer bond. This makes the structure look like sheets of hexagons, stacked into layers.

"Graphite is the most stable form of carbon," Khlobystov said.

"So we can take anything that contains carbon — for example, bits of wood or paper or anything organic — and then at very high temperature and pressure, it can turn to graphite."

Graphite is probably best known as the drawing material in pencils. A good conductor of heat and electricity, it is often used in electronics such as batteries and solar panels.

But the real interest in graphite at the moment is due to its close connection to two other allotropes, graphene and carbon nanotubes.

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Graphene

Graphene is a single-atom-thick layer of graphite. It is the top layer of graphite hexagons, shorn from their bonds to the next layer. This is possible because the longer bonds connecting the hexagons into layers are weaker and easily separated.

It is the "newest" allotrope because it was not successfully isolated and characterised in labs until 2004, albeit using a separation technique so simple it is known as the "Scotch tape method". This involves a piece of duct tape being used to peel a layer of graphene from a chunk of graphite.

In the years since, graphene has been labelled a "wonder material" due to the fact that it is a better conductor than copper and 200 times stronger than steel despite being six times lighter.

"Graphene is the most hotly discussed allotrope at the moment," said Khlobystov. "There's actually many conferences about graphene as a result of investment, because graphene is a good conductor of electricity, it's very thin, very light, very strong."

Graphene has been used to make lighter wheelchairs, stronger concrete, warmer clothes — even thinner condoms. There are also plentiful tech applications.

"There is a lot of interest in making touchscreen displays out of graphene because it's so electrically conducting and very transparent optically," said Khlobystov. "You can imagine using graphene instead of other expensive metal-containing materials in our mobile phones or anywhere we have a touchscreen."

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Carbon nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes are similar to graphene. They are essentially a sheet of this single-atom-thick structure but wrapped into a tube. This nanotube is extra-strong while being around 80,000 times thinner than the diameter of human hair.

"It's quite difficult to deform a nanotube, so they're used to make reinforced materials such as polymers," said Khlobystov. "There are man-made fibres where polymer is blended with the nanotubes and extruded and spun into thread, and that can make really, really strong materials."

"It's also highly electrically conducting, so one can use nanotubes as part of electronic devices," he continued.

"Potentially, we can replace metal wires in our devices with carbon nanotubes. Because they're so small, we can make smaller and smaller devices and more powerful computers."

Carbon nanotubes also have many laboratory applications and have even been used as the world's smallest test tube. Another notable appearance is in "the world's blackest black", the light-sucking pigment Vantablack.

Nanotubes can be "grown" in the lab from any organic carbon source, such as graphite or methane gas. The application of a metal catalyst starts a reaction that makes the nanotube grow like hair grows from a follicle.

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Diamond

In diamonds, each carbon atom is connected to four neighbours, forming a repeating lattice structure. While some diamonds are classified as gemstone quality due to their clarity and colouring, their less photogenic counterparts are used in industrial applications for their hardness and thermal conductivity.

"These [industrial] diamonds don't look very beautiful but are nevertheless diamond," explained Khlobystov.

Currently, a lot of research is going into nanodiamonds – microscopic diamond particles with an average diameter of around four to five nanometres. In comparison, a human hair has a diameter of 120,000 nanometres.

"Nanodiamonds can be used for example as sensors, they can absorb light, they can mimic light and they can react to a magnetic field that is around them," he said.

"That makes them more useful than standard diamonds that we see in jewellery."

While most lab-grown diamonds are not gemstone quality, some are. In 2019 US company The Diamond Foundry used its technology to produce an all-diamond ring designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson, which sold for US$256,250.

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Buckminsterfullerene

Unlike the other allotropes, which are potentially infinite lattices, buckminsterfullerene, or the "buckyball", is a closed mesh of exactly 60 atoms.

It was named after Buckminster Fuller due to the fact that its atomic structure resembles the geodesic domes the American architect popularised and patented in the 1950s.

While the lattice-shell of a geodesic dome is constructed from triangular elements, buckminsterfullerene’s atoms are arranged in a pattern of hexagonal and pentagonal shapes that enable the mesh to curve around and close.

There are few known applications for the allotrope, although it is being used in solar cells and more experimentally in medicine and skincare, as it has the ability to trap free radicals and stop them from harming and ageing our skin.

"It's not super useful at the moment, it is still sort of like a curiosity molecule but I think it has applications," said Khlobystov.

There are also other kinds of fullerenes that have a similar closed or nearly closed structure, among them carbon nanotubes with their distinctive cylindrical shape.

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Carbyne

Carbyne, or linear acetylenic carbon, is the latest carbon allotrope to be isolated — and simplest. It consists of a single chain of carbon atoms in a straight line. Unfortunately, this structure is also highly unstable.

"Diamond, graphite, graphene, they're really, really stable — it's one of the beauties of carbon actually," said Khlobystov. "But carbyne, particularly when it's very long, becomes tangled somehow and sort of reacts with itself.

"At the moment the best method to make it is inside carbon nanotubes," he continued. "So you use the nanotube as a little container to protect it from reacting with anything else."

While its instability is a problem and it has only been made in tiny quantities so far, the existence of carbyne shows where chemistry might take us next. Calculations show it to be the strongest material known per density — stronger than graphene, carbon nanotubes or diamond.

There could also be more carbon allotropes to come.

"I think there probably could be some more," said Khlobystov. "But I think these will probably be based on hybridisation or mixing and matching current allotropes. It's almost like a chimera-type thing, so you have elements of one allotrope combined with another one."

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Carbon fibre

Carbon fibre is not technically an allotrope of carbon as it contains some other elements such as oxygen and nitrogen but those other elements occur in very small proportions.

Carbon fibre has a similar structure to graphite, with the same hexagonal pattern but a difference in how the layers interlock. Whereas in graphite the bonds are weak making it soft and brittle, in carbon fibre the sheets are crumpled or folded together, making them more interlocked and strong.

The first carbon fibres were made in the 19th century, with Thomas Edison baking cotton threads at high temperatures to carbonise them for use in light bulbs. Nowadays, the material is made to higher quality using the polymer polyacrylonitrile as the base.

Typically, carbon fibre is used as the reinforcement in composite materials, usually with resin surrounding it. This kind of carbon fibre commonly features in sports cars, such as Buggati's €11 million La Voiture Noire (above, as well as fighter jets, bikes, tennis racquets and even some furniture.

There's also an alternative process using filament winding, which has been said to produce a higher quality fibre and has been used to make structures such as the Elytra Filament Pavilion.

The carbon fibre composites could get even stronger in the future with the addition of carbon nanotubes, and greener by using plant-derived cellulose instead of petroleum-based polyacrylonitrile as a precursor.

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

The post Buckminsterfullerine, diamond and graphite illustrate "the very rich chemistry of carbon" appeared first on Dezeen.

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Explaining the difference between net-zero and carbon neutrality "is a challenge" says The Carbon Trust

Companies wanting to achieve net-zero carbon emissions are being hampered by confusing jargon and inaccurate information, according to UK organisation The Carbon Trust.

"We recognise making this accessible is a challenge, but equally this is a technical area and there is a risk of oversimplifying," said Diane Millis, communications manager at The Carbon Trust.

In particular, companies are struggling to understand the difference between net-zero and carbon neutrality, she said.

"Many companies and organisations are only just beginning to understand [that] net-zero is fundamentally different to carbon neutrality so there is a lot of information out there that isn’t accurate, unfortunately."

"Net-zero and carbon neutrality are quite different"

The Carbon Trust helps businesses, governments and organisations reduce their emissions.

Millis wrote to Dezeen after reading its guide to carbon, which included simplified definitions of both net-zero and carbon neutrality.

She said the statement in the guide that the two terms meant "more or less the same thing" was incorrect (the guide has since been updated).

"Net-zero and carbon neutrality are quite different," she wrote. "Net-zero is considered the benchmark standard for decarbonisation."

No internationally recognised standard for net-zero

Net-zero has become a global rallying cry in the race to tackle climate change.

"Put simply, net-zero means we are not adding new emissions to the atmosphere," says the United Nations, which is coordinating the global Race to Zero campaign.

"Emissions will continue, but will be balanced by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere."

However, there is no internationally recognised standard for net-zero, whereas carbon neutrality is defined by the PAS 2060 standard.

Race to Zero aligns with scientific targets to put the world on track to meet the climate goals set out in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. This aimed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

To achieve this, the entire global economy will need to become net-zero by 2050.

Net-zero considers emissions generated by the entire value chain

Net-zero is harder to achieve than carbon neutrality. One key difference is that net-zero involves eliminating indirect emissions generated by the entire value chain, which includes all suppliers and customers.

These emissions are known as Scope 3 emissions and include emissions generated by purchased goods and services, third-party distributors and "use of sold products", which means the emissions generated when customers use a company's products.

To become net-zero, a company must eliminate these emissions on top of its Scope 1 emissions, which are emissions it is directly responsible for, and Scope 2 emissions, which are emissions generated by "purchased electricity, heat and steam".

These emissions must be reduced on a timeline that is compatible with the 1.5 degree Celsius target of the Paris Agreement.

By contrast, carbon neutrality only covers Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.

Offsetting must permanently remove atmospheric carbon to achieve net-zero

A second key difference is that under net-zero, any residual emissions – emissions that prove impossible to eliminate – must be eliminated by purchasing greenhouse gas removals (GGRs) that permanently remove an equivalent amount of carbon from the atmosphere.

This can include afforestation "providing the trees remain in the ground for around 100 years," Millis said. It can also include "direct air carbon capture and storage, where emissions are physically removed from the atmosphere".

Carbon neutrality, by contrast, allows residual emissions to be dealt with by purchasing offsets that lead to carbon reductions or efficiencies.

"There is work to be done to raise general knowledge in this area so people are better able to identify meaningful action and targets," Millis said. "It may not be easy to simplify entirely, so hence we need to explain what terms mean."

Companies that have set net-zero targets include Danish furniture brand Takt, which expects to achieve the benchmark within two or three years.

Earlier this year, the Intenational Energy Agency said achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is "the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced".

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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Blue bubbles helped "make the cause of climate change visible" say visualisers behind viral video

A 2012 animation showing New York City being buried under a mountain of giant bubbles allowed people to appreciate the scale of carbon emissions for the first time, according to its creators Real World Visuals.

Released in 2012, the computer-generated timelapse shows the city being buried under a mountain of bubbles representing the city's 54 million tonnes of annual CO2 emissions.

"Carbon emissions are invisible and that's a core part of the problem," said Real World Visuals co-founder Antony Turner. "If carbon dioxide was purple, we would start taking notice."

Making abstract concept of emissions more understandable

In the video, the communications agency depicted the city's annual emissions as 54 million bubbles, each ten metres in diameter, which gradually subsume the city.

Nine years later, the iconic image of the blue mountain towering above the Empire State Building remains one of the highest-ranking climate change images on the internet.

Despite the fact that the three-minute video features almost no audio, it has been viewed almost half a million times on YouTube and was picked up by outlets including the Guardian and Scientific American.

The simple animation helps to make the abstract concept of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions more understandable to the general public.

The animation shows New York being buried under a mountain of blue bubbles representing its carbon emissions

"Part of the problem is that some people are very cut off from quantitative information," said the agency's creative director Adam Nieman.

"You put numbers and graphs in front of people and they bounce straight off."

This is compounded when it comes to the issue of atmospheric carbon, he argues, which is "a problem with an invisible cause".

"Our [aim] is to make the cause of climate change visible because very few other people are approaching it like that," Nieman added.

Viewers can relate to spheres on a physical level

Based in England, Real World Visuals was originally founded in 2009 under the name Carbon Visuals with the aim of visualising imperceptible environmental challenges such as emissions, air pollution and ozone depletion.

The New York City emissions animation, which the agency created for the Environmental Defense Fund, is its most successful project to date.

Since it was published, the city of New York has managed to decrease its carbon emissions slightly to 50.7 million tonnes of CO2e in 2017 and committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

Real World Visuals has also used the blue spheres to represent the rate of global emissions for the 2018 G7 Summit

Meanwhile, Real World Visuals has used the same blue spheres to show the carbon footprint of entire countries from Ireland to the United States, as well as visualising the rate of all global emissions – 112 million tonnes of CO2e a day – for the G7 summit in 2018.

The agency has also been using the spheres to demonstrate how much carbon can be captured and stored in timber building elements or aquatic "blue carbon" sinks such as salt marshes and peatlands.

"We've been doing this for a long time so we've thought through all of the different ways you can show quantities of carbon dioxide gas," said Nieman.

"And the nice thing about spheres is you can relate to the shape," he added. "Because you can relate to it on a physical, visceral level, people were responding to it."

Showing emissions in real-time

Real World Visuals calculated that each tonne of CO2 would fill a sphere with a diameter of 10 metres.

New York City emissions amounted to two of these bubbles every second in 2010, which is the year the animation's data is based on.

The video initially shows these spheres ballooning up in real-time, before visualising the emissions that are generated after an hour, a day and ultimately a year when a panoramic view from the Statue of Liberty shows the city's skyline buried underneath a mountain of the blue balls.

"A really powerful way to turn an abstract number like 54 million tonnes a year into something that people can relate to is to show it in real-time," Neiman explained.

"A day is a period of time that we can imagine and feel like we inhabit. A year is an accountancy term but it's not something we can relate to that well."

Using a mountain of smaller spheres rather than one large sphere to represent the emissions helps to give viewers a more accurate sense of scale, Neiman said.

"As human beings, we're quite good at estimating discrete quantities but we're really bad at comparing volumes," he said."If you put two spheres with twice the volume next to each other, people will think that they're pretty much the same."

Prompting rather than answering questions

Contrary to most data visualisations, which Neiman says provide answers to specific questions, Real World Visuals hopes to provoke questions instead.

This is achieved by stripping back any evaluations of the data and letting the visuals speak for themselves. The New York animation, for example, is presented without any context about climate change.

"People responded by saying 'this is rubbish because climate change isn't real', which is an interesting response because we didn't mention climate change at all," Neiman explained.

"We just said: this is the carbon dioxide that is entering the atmosphere as a result of human activity in New York City. We didn't say this is a lot, we didn't say it's good or bad. And that provoked lots of discussions."

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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Natural materials "lack investment and focused innovation" says Allbirds sustainability head

Plant-based materials need the same amount of funding as fossil materials in order to tackle carbon emissions, according to Hana Kajimura of Allbirds, which has launched a low-carbon trainer with Adidas.

"We lament how natural materials maybe don't perform as well as synthetics," said Kajimura, head of sustainability at the New Zealand footwear brand.

"But this is just because of the lack of investment and innovation in this space."

The new collaboration with Adidas, called Futurecraft.Footprint, is the latest in a series of moves by the sneaker industry to reduce the carbon footprint of its products. The two brands believe it is the lowest-carbon trainer ever made.

Last year, Belgian brand Norm managed to whittle the footprint of its unisex 1L11 shoe down to 6.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) by using recycled plastic while Nike's lowest-carbon trainer to date, the 2020 Space Hippie, weights in at 3.7 kilograms of CO2e.

The carbon footprint of the Futurecraft.Footprint trainer (top) is labelled on its midsole (above)

The new Futurecraft.Footprint pushes this even lower to 2.94 kilograms of CO2e.

By contrast, the average sneaker emits around 13.6 kilograms of CO2e throughout its life and is constructed from 65 distinct components – most of them plastics.

But to create a zero-emission trainer, Kajimura believes the industry needs to invest in developing plant-based materials that are capable of storing carbon while rivalling the performance of petroleum-based plastics.

"We've been innovating on synthetics for decades, since the 1800s when we discovered and started drilling for oil," she said.

"And we just haven't placed that same amount of investment on natural materials and really figuring out how to increase their performance."

Sneakers responsible for 1.4 per cent of all global emissions

Sneaker production is singularly responsible for 1.4 per cent of all global greenhouse gas emissions compared to the 2.5 per cent that is contributed by air travel.

To mitigate this, Adidas has committed itself to going climate neutral by 2050 in line with the targets set out in the Paris Agreement.

So far, the brand has created an endlessly recyclable trainer and one made from recycled ocean plastic but has not declared the footprint of these products.

Now, the company has teamed up with footwear brand Allbirds, which has created its own carbon footprint calculator and has been declaring the emissions associated with all of its shoes since last April.

The brand was also among the initial signatories of the B Corp Net Zero 2030 pledge, committing itself to reaching net-zero emissions 20 years ahead of the Paris targets.

Created by Allbirds and Adidas, the trainers emit 2.94 kilograms of CO2e throughout their whole life

Adidas and Allbirds worked together over the course of a year to develop the Futurecraft.Footprint trainer, which will be available in limited quantities from the end of 2021.

According to the brands, the sneaker emits 63 per cent less carbon throughout its life than a comparable running shoe such as the Adizero RC3, which emits 7.86 kilograms of CO2e.

"What's really exciting about this project is that we were able to get from 7.86 to 2.94 kilograms in 12 months with stuff that's completely available today," Kajimura said.

"It basically proves that maybe we can't get to zero with what exists today but we can get the majority of the way there. And if we can do that with this one shoe, imagine what that could do for the industry."

Simplifying construction drives down footprint

According to Kajimura, simplifying the trainer as much as possible and reducing its components down to seven had the single biggest impact on its carbon footprint.

Among other things, the design cuts out the many layers of polyurethane (PU) foam that are normally used in trainers to support the runner's foot and replaces them with a strategic embroidery pattern on the shoe's upper.

The final Futurecraft.Footprint trainers weigh only 154 grams, around as much as a bar of soap.

"That really plays out across every element of the carbon footprint," she said. "It doesn't just help with the materials aspect but it means fewer transportation emissions and less energy use."

The lining, laces, embroidery and 70 per cent of the upper are made from recycled polyester and a portion of the shoe is already made from natural and plant-based materials.

Tencel, a type of cellulose fibre derived from wood pulp, was used to form the remaining part of the upper, while 10 per cent of the outsole is made from natural rubber and the midsole, sock liner and tongue consists of between 18 and 28 per cent of a sugarcane-based bioplastic called SweetFoam.

Natural materials can act as carbon sinks

But a significant part of the shoe is still made from virgin, petroleum-based plastics, such as the thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) used to form more than 80 per cent of the midsole.

Senior Adidas designer Florence Rohart says this is currently still necessary to guarantee the performance of the running shoe.

Parts of the shoe are constructed from recycled and plant-based materials

"We want to have a shoe that allows runners to perform to their highest level," she said.

"So having good durability, good responsiveness, [a structure that is] lightweight but strong enough – these are elements of designing for performance that define how low we can go."

In the future, to get all the way to zero and beyond, Kajimura says more money needs to be poured into ensuring that natural, plant-based materials can fulfil these same performance requirements.

"It really requires innovation and it requires really focused investment in natural materials," she said.

"To balance out whatever emissions are created in other parts of the shoe, the materials have to be carbon negative and act as carbon sinks."

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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Mineral Carbonation International aims "to lock a billion tonnes of CO2 into products by 2040"

Industrial carbon emissions can be captured and turned into useful materials on a vast scale, according to Sophia Hamblin Wang, chief operating officer of Mineral Carbonation International.

"We're trying to embed emissions into as much of our everyday life as possible," said Hamblin Wang. "We turn waste into new products. And we aim to do it in a way that makes money."

The Australian company turns CO2 into raw materials that can be put to a huge range of uses, according to Hamblin Wang.

"We're looking at carpet products, detergents, you name it. Anything that can have carbonates in it can be made from our synthetic carbonates."

Above: Sophia Hamblin Wang is chief operating officer of MCi. Top: the company captures carbon emissions from industries such as steel to turn it into useful materials

Hamblin Wang joined Mineral Carbonation International (MCi) as its first employee in 2013 after the startup received funding to build a pilot plant in Newcastle, New South Wales.

It is now looking to scale up the technology to handle bigger volumes. "Our aim is to lock a billion tonnes of CO2 into usable products by 2040," said Hamblin Wang.

$5.9 trillion construction materials sector "needs to decarbonise"

MCi is initially focussing on producing construction materials, particularly new types of cement and drywall products to replace carbon-emitting Portland cement and gypsum-based materials.

"We know that cement is a heavily emitting industry, like four billion tonnes of CO2 per annum," Hamblin Wang said.

"The industry needs to decarbonise. Our silica products can displace ordinary Portland cement and we're working with giant cement majors on new products."

The construction materials sector is worth $5.9 trillion and, according to Hamblin Wang, there is "an explosion of interest" in low-carbon alternatives.

"Holy moly," she said. "It's been tumultuous in the past two years. We're working with some of the largest companies in the world on charting their path to zero carbon. We're helping them plan the decarbonisation of whole industries and whole facilities."

Slow natural processes can be compressed "into a matter of hours"

The Canberra-based company uses chemical processes that imitate natural weathering to remove carbon from factory emissions and sequester it in solid minerals.

"The earth naturally stores CO2 through a process called weathering, or mineral carbonation," said Hamblin Wang. "It's slower and less glamorous [than other carbon-capture methods] but it's one of the largest ways that the earth currently absorbs CO2."

Carbon dioxide dissolves in rainwater, forming weak carbonic acid. This slowly weathers rock, with the carbon combining with elements released from the rock by the weathering process to form new carbonate minerals.

"This happens over thousands or millions of years," Hamblin Wong explained. "What we've done is we've compressed that process into a matter of hours."

MCi received funding to build its first pilot plant in New South Wales, Australia, in 2013

Instead of rock, MCi takes industrial waste such as steel slag, mine tailings and bottom ash from incinerators as well as quarried minerals such as serpentinites.

To make its raw materials, MCi bubbles CO2 through the industrial waste, approximating the way water-borne carbon interacts with rock in the natural weathering process. This creates new minerals such as magnesium carbonate, calcium carbonate and silica.

"The minerals absorb the CO2, which effectively gets turned from a gas into a solid," said Hamblin Wang. We then process it into myriad materials and products for everyday life."

MCi buys carbon dioxide from polluting industries

The process is exothermic, meaning the chemical reaction creates heat, so does not involve vast amounts of power.

However, crushing the industrial waste in the first place is energy-intensive. MCi uses renewable energy "where we can," says Hamblin Wang, but future plants will need to switch entirely to renewables if they are to offer a viable contribution to global decarbonisation efforts.

MCi buys its carbon dioxide from polluting industries that have fitted scrubbers to their chimneys to capture the gas before it reaches the atmosphere.

"Right now we take our emissions from an ammonium nitrate factory, which captures its emissions every day," said Hamblin Wang.

"We can carbonate raw flue gas," she said, meaning that MCi is able to purchase emissions containing low percentages of carbon that have few other commercial uses. "We can take it [in concentrations] as low as 15 per cent [CO2]."

Steel industry doesn't have "viable decarbonisation options"

Carbon scrubbing, also known as post-combustion capture, is a long-touted technology that could theoretically remove greenhouse gases from factory flues, preventing them from reaching the atmosphere.

The drawbacks are the cost of retrofitting plants, the fact that it could encourage polluting industries to continue burning fossil fuels, and the issue of efficiency: for a factory to be carbon neutral, one hundred per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions need to be captured.

MCi uses carbon to create building materials such as carbonate bricks

However, Hamblin Wang argues that some key industries will struggle to decarbonise due to their high-intensity energy needs, which can currently only be provided by burning and processing fossil fuels.

"The problem is that the steel and cement industries don't currently have viable decarbonisation options," said Hamblin Wang.

"The kind of heat that you need in order to make steel, for instance, you just can't get through electrification. These thermal processes don't have pathways [to net-zero]. You will still need metallurgical coal in order to create steel."

Company aims to make carbon emissions "not only inert but profitable too"

In addition, minerals such as nickel, lithium, cobalt and copper that are vital to making batteries, among other things, all involve carbon-intensive processing.

"There are technologies being developed like hydrogen, but it's still looking like it's 20-plus years in the future," said Hamblin Wang. "If we're looking at a gradient to get to net-zero, those industries are the ones that really need help."

"So our real mission is to help with this transition to capturing the emissions, say, of a steel plant's stack pipe and then rendering those emissions not only inert but profitable too."

Carbon can be captured and put to use in a range of different ways

Hamblin Wang sees mineral carbonisation as one of several emerging approaches that need to scale up and work together to tackle climate change.

These include: dramatically reducing new greenhouse gas emissions; removing anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere; and storing or utilising that captured carbon on earth.

MCi is "trying to embrace the circular economy"

Direct air capture technologies such as that developed by Climeworks could one day scale up to significantly reduce atmospheric CO2 but the problem, according to Hamblin Wang, is where to put all the captured carbon.

"Even if we captured all of the CO2 emissions from all of our industry right now, and we suck CO2 out of the atmosphere in the volumes that required, we currently don't have enough places to put the CO2," she said.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS), which involves burying carbon, is "a linear business model where they pump it underground and it costs money and you monitor it forever," said Hamblin Wang.

The alternative is carbon capture and utilisation (CCU), whereby the carbon is put to use.

"We're trying to embrace the circular economy where you turn your waste from your industry and your waste gas into valuable products that can be used in the economy," she said.

"Those products also displace products that would need to be mined or that may have high carbon intensity embedded in them. So the benefit is twofold."

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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Serpentine Pavilion's use of biomaterials "more than compensates" for concrete emissions, says Aecom

The construction of this year's Serpentine Pavilion removed 31 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, according to a report by construction consultant AECOM.

As a result, the structure can claim to be carbon negative, meaning that it will remove more CO2 equivalent from the atmosphere than it emits, up to the point it is dismantled.

"The total cradle to grave embodied carbon emissions of the pavilion are -31,000 kg of CO2 equivalent," the report states.

The Serpentine Pavilion 2021 opened to the public last week

However, the assessment did not take into account the carbon emissions that will be generated when the pavilion is moved to a new location at the end of the summer.

This will require the construction of new foundations but since the location is unknown, AECOM said it has been unable to calculate the carbon impact.

Negative carbon "a surprise"

"There are a number of options available, all of which have a substantially lower environmental impact than the concrete used at Kensington Gardens," AECOM said.

"The initial assessment of these options has shown that a net-carbon negative or, at worst, a carbon-neutral build can be targeted in a whole life cycle assessment of the relocated pavilion."

"These options will form part of the handover documentation to the new owners," AECOM added.

The construction team said it didn't expect to achieve negative carbon with the project.

"The goal here was to do a low-carbon building," said David Glover, technical adviser to the Serpentine Galleries, which commissioned the structure.

"It wasn't necessarily to get to negative [carbon] but this particular architecture lent itself to it and it gave us this result, which was a surprise because I don't think any of us thought we would get to a negative situation this year."

The pavilion was designed by Johannesburg-based practice Counterspace

The temporary structure, which opened in Kensington Gardens in London last week, emits approximately 60 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent and absorbs around 91 tonnes via the timber and other biomaterials used in its construction, according to the life cycle assessment (LCA) prepared by AECOM.

The assessment was made prior to construction using eToolLCD LCA software, which takes into account whole-life emissions including transportation and decommissioning of the structure.

Pavilion criticised for its concrete foundation

AECOM, a multinational engineer and construction consultant, has worked on the pavilion each year since 2013, when it was designed by Sou Fujimoto.

AECOM's embodied carbon assessment is an internal document that has not yet been signed off for public release.

But the firm shared the document with Dezeen following media criticism of the structure's concrete foundation and scepticism about claims that the pavilion is carbon negative.

Although it looks solid, the pavilion is mostly hollow

For a building to be carbon negative, it needs to sequester more atmospheric carbon over its entire lifecycle than it emits.

AECOM's 10-page document states that the pavilion's concrete foundation emits 44 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, making up by far the largest percentage of emissions.

The remaining 16 tonnes of emissions come from roofing materials including steel purlins, polycarbonate and a waterproof membrane, concrete blockwork, micro cement finish and paint, as well as materials used to build the pathways.

Timber and cork "more than compensates" for other emissions

In addition, the assessment calculates that 1,400 kg of carbon emissions resulted from the recycled steel structure, although this figure would have been far higher if virgin steel had been used.

However, all these emissions are outweighed by carbon sequestered in the wood, plywood and cork used to build the pavilion, according to AECOM.

"The sequestration of the timber and the cork more than compensates for the emissions," said AECOM sustainability director David Cheshire.

The superstructure of the pavilion is made from wood, plywood and cork

The pavilion, the twentieth in the annual architecture commission, was designed by Johannesburg architect Counterspace. Construction was postponed from last year due to the pandemic.

Counterspace initially proposed using recycled materials including K-Briqs, which are bricks made from construction waste.

The architect worked with AECOM and Glover to refine the initial design, re-engineering the solid-looking building into a lightweight, hollow structure that uses the fewest materials possible.

K-Briqs "a step too far"

"We did this life cycle assessment from the outset," said AECOM project director Jon Leach. "The aim was to really try and reduce the environmental impact of the pavilion as far as we could. But obviously, that's not the only thing that drives the pavilion design."

However, K-Briqs "proved a step too far in terms of the procuring time and the long-term durability of the product," said Leach.

The team explored a range of innovative sustainable materials including using mycelium for the cladding and zero-carbon concrete for the foundation.

The biomaterials used on the structure are supported by a recycled steel frame

However, the former was rejected due to concerns over its long-term durability and the latter due to its longer curing time compared to traditional concrete.

"The programme is so tight," said Leach. "You literally have to lay out and start working on it straight away. That was a reason why the concrete impact is higher than obviously we'd ideally like."

Carbon emissions reduced significantly by using recycled steel

The team managed to reduce the carbon footprint of the foundation by replacing 30 per cent of its volume with ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS).

GGBS, a by-product of the iron-smelting industry, produces just 10 per cent of the emissions generated by Portland cement, the binding ingredient in concrete that emits vast amounts of carbon when it is made.

"We've maximised the cement replacements as far as we can," said Leach.

The pavilion has been criticised in the media for its concrete foundation

Using recycled steel tubes for the structure saved up to 97 per cent of the carbon emissions that virgin steel would have created, according to data provided by Cleveland Steel.

The methodology used by the team discounts emissions generated by previous uses of materials such as recycled steel. Those historic emissions don't count because that's already been counted on the previous project," Cheshire said.

The pavilion's hollow superstructure is made of plywood and corkboard, both of which were sustainably sourced, according to the team. The roof structure is made of timber.

Pavilion expected to last 60 years

Even though the pavilion will be dismantled at the end of the summer, the assessment assumes the pavilion will have a service life of 60 years.

"The design life is equivalent to a normal building site," Cheshire said.

"We've been very careful in the way we designed it to ensure that it can be reused and it does have an extended life way beyond the five or six months it will be at Kensington Gardens."

For the third year in a row, the pavilion has been bought by wellbeing resort brand Therme Group and will be moved to an as-yet-unknown location later this year.

"We have talked with them and made sure that they understand that this is how you've got to handle the building and make sure we're not throwing away the sequestered carbon," said Glover. "And lucky enough, they've got a very strong environmental policy as well."

Photography is by Iwan Baan.

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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Shopify to spend $5 million per year "to kickstart demand in carbon removal"

Shopify's Sustainability Fund is pumping $5 million into projects that remove atmospheric carbon and publishing the results so other companies can follow its lead, fund director Stacy Kauk told Dezeen.

Established in September last year, the fund "intentionally overpays for carbon removal, funding pilot projects and generating demand to kickstart the market and drive down future prices."

The Canadian e-commerce brand is sharing its research on its website and in a free downloadable 50-page "playbook" document.

Above: Stacy Kauk is director of Shopify's Sustainability Fund. Top: Shopify has created an animation illustrating types of businesses its Sustainability Fund is backing

"We wanted to share those commitments so that people can get familiar with the companies and learn about our selection process and the research that we've done," Kauk said.

"It allows folks that don't have an engineer or a scientist on staff doing deep dives into the technical world of carbon removal to know that these are vetted companies. It can give you the confidence to follow along."

Shopify provides services including payment and shipping tools to over 1.7 million online retailers. It is committing money to climate initiatives because it's "on a mission to be a 100-year company," Kauk explained.

"We want to be able to use our $5 million annual climate fund to kickstart demand in carbon removal but to also leverage our platform and use commerce for good."

Shopify has offset its own emissions and is helping its customers offset theirs

Under its climate strategy, the brand has already offset all its emissions going back to 2004 when CEO Tobias Lütke launched Snowdevils, a snowboard e-commerce site that became Shopify in 2006.

"We have offset all our scope 1 and scope 2 emissions, as well as corporate travel, back to 2004," said Kauk, referring to the way greenhouse-gas emissions are categorised by types, or "scopes".

Scope 1 emissions are emissions directly caused by a company, scope 2 covers emissions caused by utilities it buys while scope 3 are indirect emissions caused by the supply chain.

Shopify helps its customers with their own carbon-reduction strategies through its Shop Pay checkout system, which Kauk says is "the first carbon-neutral way to pay".

In addition, Shopify automatically calculates the emissions generated by each shipment, allowing retailers to offset them.

Shopify Sustainability Fund supports companies tackling climate change

The Shopify Sustainability Fund is separate from these initiatives. It is a capital-expenditure project that supports young companies that are developing innovative ways to tackle climate change.

"We have uncoupled our climate fund from our corporate carbon neutral commitments," Kauk explained. "That allows us to spend our $5 million in the most impactful way possible."

In its first year, the fund has funded the removal of sixteen times more carbon from the atmosphere than Shopify itself emits.

"To put it in perspective, our corporate carbon footprint in 2020 was around 6,000 tonnes [of carbon dioxide equivalent]," said Kauk.

"With our first $5 million that we committed through the sustainability fund, we've actually committed to buy well over 100,000 tonnes."

Fund investing in ten industries it believes can reverse climate change

The goal is "to seek out those companies with solutions that we need to spend money on today so that they're there in 5, 10, 15 years," Kauk explained. "When we can no longer reduce our emissions any further, we need these products and solutions to be available to buy."

The fund is putting cash into ten high-potential industries that it believes "can help reverse climate change globally" by permanently capturing and storing carbon.

Almost a quarter of the budget goes to biomass initiatives, supporting companies that turn organic material into renewable energy or carbon-capturing materials including biochar, a high-carbon, charcoal-like substance that increases soil carbon levels as well as being a highly effective fertiliser.

The second biggest spend is on direct air capture, which mechanically removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via machines such as those developed by Climeworks.

Next is product, which sees carbon sequestered in useful products such as concrete.

The other areas are soil sequestration, afforestation and transportation, collaboration (including education and sponsorship), renewable energy, mineralisation (storing carbon underground) and ocean sequestration.

Shopify has created a market for high-quality carbon-capture projects

The fund came about in 2019 when Shopify was exploring ways of becoming carbon neutral.

"Our CEO is incredibly passionate about climate and carbon removal and has spent a lot of time learning about this space," Kauk explained. "We have this historical carbon footprint that we wanted to address."

"But we didn't just want to go out and buy a low-cost carbon offset so we could wave our hands and say 'Oh we did it, we're carbon neutral!'"

But after looking for high-quality solutions, the company came to the conclusion that "the product we wanted to buy actually doesn't exist in the market."

So it decided to create the market itself through its sustainability fund.

Companies should not delay committing to carbon removal, Kauk says

Kauk offers advice to companies that are daunted by the complexity of climate change and confused about how to address their own contribution to it.

She suggests a two-track approach: companies should strive to understand their emissions and reduce them as far as possible. But they should not wait until this work is finished before committing money to carbon removal.

"Start that now because it's going to give three benefits," she said.

"One, you're going to get familiar with the market; you're going to learn about carbon removal: what it is, what works and what doesn't. That learning is invaluable."

"The second part is that you're going to have made relationships with these companies who are providing carbon removal as a service," she continued.

"These are gonna pay off down the road because I would hypothesize that we may not have demand matching supply when a lot of these net-zero commitments start to become due."

"And then the third part is that it's going to provide a benefit to that company later on. If a company spends a small percentage of its sustainability budget on carbon removal now, that money is going to help develop these technologies, drive the cost down faster and make these solutions and these high-quality credits more affordable and more accessible sooner."

"This means that in the long run, you'll end up spending less."

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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Polestar's aim to produce a climate-neutral car is a "moonshot goal" says sustainability head

Plans to produce the Polestar 0 electric car without creating any carbon emissions is a challenge comparable to putting a man on the moon, according to Fredrika Klarén, the brand's head of sustainability.

The carmaker is aiming to eradicate all CO2 emissions from the entire supply chain of the vehicle, which is due to launch in 2030.

"This is truly a moonshot goal," Klarén told Dezeen.

"Just like JFK, we don't know how to land on the moon but we know that we need to do it," she said, referring to US president Kennedy's 1961 speech that pledged to put a man on the moon within a decade.

"Building the roadmap as we go"

"We're putting the goal out there and then we're building the roadmap as we go along."

Polestar will take the next nine years, starting from when the project was first announced this April, to develop the Polestar 0 and its production process so that it generates zero carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions.

This forms part of Polestar's wider goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2040.

The electric carmaker, which was founded in 2017 by Volvo and Chinese car brand Geely, has committed to undertaking lifecycle assessments of all new vehicles starting with the Polestar 2 model launched in 2019.

Above: the Polestar 2 is the brand's current electric vehicle. Top: Polestar visualised the emissions associated with its different components in a video made by Wang & Söderström

"We will declare this for all of the coming models," Klarén said. "And when we get to Polestar 0, you will see clearly that it has zero carbon footprint."

The production of the electric Polestar 2, which sold just over 8,700 units in the last half of 2020, creates 26.2 tonnes of CO2 emissions while a comparable petrol car generates only 16.1 tonnes, the brand claims. The next step is to get this down to zero for the Polestar 0.

Electric battery responsible for most emissions

Higher emissions in EV production are largely due to the manufacturing of the sturdy steel-and-aluminium platform that houses the heavy battery as well as the lithium-ion battery itself, which contains metals such as cobalt and nickel that have to be mined and refined.

"With the Polestar 2, it's the battery and the big chunks of aluminium and steel that stand for maybe 70 per cent of the CO2 footprint," Klarén said.

"It is the raw material extraction and the processing of these three areas that are really the biggest culprits."

The battery pack of the Polestar 2 contains emissions-intensive metals

"We also have direct emissions stemming from aluminium production, for example, that will have to be eliminated or captured either through carbon capture or changing processes somehow," she added.

The lifetime emissions of an electric vehicle are highly dependant on the energy mix of the area where it is being charged and how much of it comes from renewable sources.

Hence the Polestar 0 project focuses only on eliminating emissions generated from cradle to gate – meaning from the sourcing of the raw materials to the time the finished car leaves the factory.

Recycling metal from scrapped cars

Polestar 2's life-cycle assessment, which is published online, is being used by the company's R&D department as a baseline for the Polestar 0 model to help them tackle the most carbon-intensive stages of creating a car.

As well as transitioning its entire supply chain to renewable energy, Polestar will minimise the number and quantity of raw materials used in the Polestar 0, Klarén said.

The team is also looking into reusing materials such as aluminium from scrapped cars.

"If you look at a car, you have a very high recyclability but somehow we are not completing the loop," Klarén explained.

"We don't have a large recycled content today in cars so that would be a challenge going forward."

Polestar is partnering with UK blockchain company Circulor to audit the emissions generated by the supply chains of metal components.

Circulor's technology works by creating a digital representation of the material in question, known as a digital twin, which serves as the material’s real-time counterpart so it can be traced on its journey from mine to factory.

Every transport or refinement step along the way is recorded on the blockchain. Here, the information cannot be altered or tampered with, so it can be used to hold suppliers accountable.

"We are setting hard targets for climate emission reductions and use of renewable energy," Klarén said. "The same goes for recycled content."

Using recyclable over bio-based materials

While the R&D department is investigating new materials and processes, Polestar's design team is looking at ways of decarbonising the surface materials and finishes that will be used in the Polestar 0.

"In terms of impact, these things are not as big as the mining and refining," said the company's head of design Maximilian Missoni.

"But if you want to really get to zero, at the last stage they become extremely crucial."

Polestar 0 aims to emit zero tonnes (0t) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e)

Here, the team is prioritising materials with a high degree of recyclability such as Econyl, a kind of regenerated nylon made from plastic waste that generates 50 per cent less emissions in its production than virgin nylon.

The company is also investigating the possibilities of flax-fibre composite panels created by Swiss company Bcomp, which Missoni says can rival the strength and lightness of carbon fibre but is recyclable.

"Everything generates emissions; even natural fibres," Missoni said.

"Sometimes you think if you use natural materials it must be better. But what we've learned is that if you use materials that are recycled and can be recycled, that can be a better solution from an emission point of view than if you use natural materials."

Unavoidable emissions will be offset

Polestar aims to cut out emissions from the production of the Polestar 0 entirely but says it will use offsets as a fallback to cover any potential gaps that might remain.

Klarén hopes that over the next nine years, direct air capture (DAC) technologies such as those pioneered by Climeworks will be scaled up and made more affordable, which would allow Polestar to pay to have unavoidable emissions removed from the atmosphere.

The carmaker will display life-cycle assessment results prominently in dealerships

But the company will only use permanent, reliable offsetting methods rather than afforestation, which it regards as a less secure form of sequestration.

"When we are in 2030, hopefully, there will be direct capture methodologies to capture CO2 that might remain from some processes but we will not offset something that has too weak a link," Klarén said.

"So hopefully we will see capture technologies being developed and implemented because I think that they would be needed. But we will aim for zero regardless."

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Carbon revolution

This article is part of Dezeen'scarbon revolution series, which explores how this miracle material could be removed from the atmosphere and put to use on earth. Read all the content at: www.dezeen.com/carbon.

The sky photograph used in the carbon revolution graphic is byTaylor van Riper via Unsplash.

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