Decarbonising the built environment

About 15 years ago Allison Dring was investigating the role that smart materials could play in improving air quality in towns and cities. A trained architect, Allison had observed a “sort of dissonance” between what was happening in climate tech and those working with the built environment. Driven to bridge the gap, she started a company targeting existing climate technology in photocatalytic titanium dioxide – a substance that can be coated on buildings and, when it reacts with sunlight, can safely break down pollutants from the air.

The idea was to develop a product to maximise the effects of this process; a sculptural, plastic façade that can slow down wind speeds in street canyons and trap air pollution. But as Allison began to learn about the source, life-cycle and sustainability of the materials required – calculating its “embodied carbon footprint” – she realised that in trying to solve air pollution they were creating another environmental cost altogether. “I think that’s where my co-founder and I realised that we were maybe working on the wrong problem,” she says. “We began to look more closely at what these materials were – and the raw materials entering production.”

In 2016 Allison and her co-founder, Daniel Schwaag, started Made of Air. The Berlin-based startup develops carbon-negative materials for industrial use. Its mission? Use deep tech to decarbonise the built environment. Starting with a team of just three people, Made of Air has grown to a company of 16. In 2021 it closed a $5.8 million seed round and has continued to drive forward with new R&D, filing five patents, as well as providing tens of tons of materials to customers, including a leading car manufacturer and a high street fashion brand.

The product at the heart of Made of Air is a filler that can be used for a range of polymers (it can also be provided as pre-made panels). The material itself is made from waste biomass in the form of sawdust and woodchips collected from the forestry industry and farms. Usually this will be burnt, or left to decompose, causing C02 to be released back into the atmosphere.

Allison and her team have developed a way to disrupt this process. It takes the waste and – through pyrolysis – converts the CO2 into a biocarbon suitable for use as a filler or composite. By locking in CO2 that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, then using the resulting material to replace conventional building materials such as steel and aluminium – which have a particularly high carbon footprint – the product can “radically decarbonise” supply chains. 

Building materials account for more than 10 per cent of global carbon emissions and by attacking the problem of carbon emissions further up in the supply chain, Allison believes Made of Air can have the greatest impact helping direct projects towards more sustainable choices as early as possible. “If you are working on a building, you can have a single decision-maker deciding on tons and tons of materials,” she says. “It really worried me that there was no sustainability discussion at that decision point.” 

The culture around sustainability has evolved in the time since Made of Air was founded. She recalls being in meetings in the past with larger corporations, where it would be a challenge to persuade the customer to swap a PVC flooring for a natural rubber one. “The idea of a life-cycle assessment did not come into it. There was no discussion about carbon footprint. It was just, is this fit for purpose and price?” Now, new regulations – as well as a growing social awareness of the need to decarbonise – is driving corporations to take initiative, fuelling interest in the sorts of solutions offered by Made of Air. It is important to Allison that the impact is quantifiable, as this helps the business work within a system of sustainability goals and carbon credits. When Made of Air provided façade panels for the exterior of a car dealership, it was able to permanently remove 10 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, for the same price as conventional materials. 

Currently, Made of Air produces its products through a decentralised supply chain. This year Made of Air will open a production demo facility and will start planning the launch of their first full scale facility that will open within the next 2 years. From there, says Allison it will build out its capacity. The company describes its products as “recipes” and it is always working on bespoke formulas to create alternative materials that not only compete on sustainability metrics, but in functionality, too. The product is, in many ways, invisible, but she hopes it will become pervasive. “We are fitting ourselves into established markets. We can become a systemic ingredient that will lower the carbon footprint, without disrupting production lines.”