The Big Question: How can we cut house prices and keep using concrete?
According to the European Commission, the construction industry in Europe provides 18 million direct jobs and accounts for about 9% of the bloc's GDP.
It also produces roughly 250 million tonnes of carbon per year. That's more than the entire emissions of France in 2023 (216.7 million tonnes).
With the EU Clean Deal's pledge to slash emissions by 90% by 2040, but the need for continued construction ever present, something needs to change.
Concrete is the most widely-used material in the world, after water. So when deciding how to apply their innovative technology, despite it being applicable to bioplastics, regular plastics and paper, Paebbl opted to focus on concrete for maximum effect.
In this episode of The Big Question, Angela Barnes sits down with Marta Sjögren, co-founder & co-CEO of Paebbl to discuss their technology which helps to trap carbon dioxide in concrete.
'Concrete is difficult to decarbonise because cement is difficult to decarbonise. Cement also, for various reasons, hasn't been really innovated on for quite a long time. There's really been no incentives,' Marta told The Big Question.
But with the climate urgency, complex supply chains leading to rising prices and a general need for industrial resilience, the time is now.
Paebbl has developed a technique which speeds up a natural process, which usually takes centuries, down to just an hour.
Drawing CO2 from the atmosphere, the gas merges with magnesium silicates or calcium silicates to form a carbonate rock. This is then powdered down to create an industrial filler that can be mixed into concrete, reducing the quantity of cement needed in the mix.
Every tonne of Paebbl's material stores up to 300 kg of CO2. Traditional cement emits around 600 kg of CO2 for every tonne produced, according to the IEA. Depending on how much of Paebbl's material is mixed into concrete, it could reduce the carbon footprint of concrete by up to 70%.
'The built environment, because it is such a huge source of emissions today, if you can flip that equation and if every single building can be storing a little bit of carbon as a carbon custodian, I think that goes a long way, both economically and environmentally,' Marta added.
Despite only being a 3 year old company, Paebbl has already made enormous leaps. They've received backing from Amazon and the world's biggest cement manufacturer, Holcim, and over the course of 3 scale ups, have grown 1000 fold.
'We've just completed our demo plant in record time. So industry average time is about two to three years for building up such a project. We built ours in about 15 months and also under the industry average budget as well, under 10 million euros.
'Now the next step is about scaling that up to an industrially sized production facility.'
While Paebbl are still producing at a small scale, the cost of their material is currently higher than traditional concrete ingredients, however as they continue to grow and produce larger amounts that cost will reduce.
'We foresee that we will be quite price competitive and that's because we're using CO2, which is usually a waste stream, and as an input in the mix,' Marta explained.
Plus as it's a negative emissions technology, there's no carbon tax to pay either.
In the long run, Marta hopes this will help reduce the cost of housing in Europe. Though she did stress the need for regulation to support the testing of new materials and the speed at which they can come to market.
'I believe that private companies will be at the very centre of this, leading the way in terms of creating a blueprint for how you can use the built environment as a sustainability solution and also save money.
'But let's not forget, most concrete today is used by public spaces. So hopefully the public projects that are going to be built in the coming decade, or slightly more than a decade, will learn quickly from the private sector and also therefore enable the larger scale up of these technologies.'
The Big Questionis a series from Euronews Business where we sit down with industry leaders and experts to discuss some of the most important topics on today's agenda.
Watch the video above to see the full discussion on decarbonising the construction industry.
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