A NASA analysis confirms 2023 as the hottest year on record, outlining worrying trends that will most likely continue into 2024. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), one of the industries with the highest CO2 emissions contributing to climate change is building and construction at 38%, and concrete alone accounts for 8%. Partanna has developed the world's first carbon-neutral building material that reduces emissions.
Partanna Founder and CEO Rick Fox joins Yahoo Finance to discuss how his company aims to reduce the construction's carbon footprint and revolutionize how buildings are made.
The 3-time NBA champion elaborates on the current customer base that is utilizing this breakthrough material:
"Those out there that want to make the change from traditional materials that are being used to the more nature-positive materials, they're making decisions around purchasing our materials, which is great. Depending on the product, there's a large scale in spectrum from high-end products all the way down to affordable housing. So, where we are in the Bahamas right now... we're building affordable housing, some thousand homes there where the materials there, obviously the margins are lower in that regard, all the way up to higher-end developers where we're building materials and structures for high-end development, luxury developments."
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance Live.
Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino
Video Transcript
BRAD SMITH: When you talk about the material and the difference for Partanna and what you're bringing to the market, naturally, a lot of the attention will go towards, OK, well, what's this going to cost us? How much different is the cost between the existing concrete that people have become accustomed to that creates an emissions problem versus what Partanna is bringing to the market?
RICK FOX: So I will give you comfort in the area of we currently have customers. So those out there that want to make the change from the traditional materials that are being used to more nature-positive materials. They're making decisions around purchasing our materials, which is great. Depending on the product, there's a large scale and spectrum from high-end products all the way down to affordable housing.
So where we are in the Bahamas right now under the leadership of the prime minister of the Bahamas and the government of the Bahamas, we're building affordable housing, some thousand homes there. We had the materials there. Obviously, the margins are lower in that regard. All the way up to higher-end developers where we're building materials and structures for high-end development, luxury developments.
So you'll get a wide range of price in general, depending on where you are in the world, determines where you're getting materials from. Concrete in general, cement as a binder in general has fluctuated as a commodity for many years, many decades. Ours will be no different.
When you think of the price, just think of us as a simple plug-and-play. For cement, we take the binder of cement out of the production of concrete and we plug Partanna in. So no extra equipment is needed. All the aggregates and materials that would make concrete with regular cement, you use our Partanna as a solution.
BRAD SMITH: And then scaling, what does that look like for the business as you think about the roadmap for this point going forward?
RICK FOX: Well, the two challenges and I think our business model are scaling because it requires capex, and also change, getting people to adapt to a new way of being, right? As you can imagine, capex and building factories is not the easiest thing for an investor out there in your audience to get excited about. But as you can see from CCUS, billions are being poured into that execution.
Now, we avoid and remove CO2 in the process of making our concrete without the use of extensive energy. We cure at room temperature. So you take our materials and through the magic of chemistry, you get to a concrete without the negativity that's produced from energy in the area of CCUS.
At the end of the day, Rick Fox is not the scientist in the room, so we can all relax. My history being from the physical arts and sports and also in the entertainment arts is now pushing me to be an innovator in the area of team building and the area of bringing the brightest minds in the world. And when I point about the science around our Partanna, we have some of the greatest scientists in the world that worked on this for six years.
They've been innovating concrete for decades. This happens to be their greatest contribution to the world right now, bringing this material to the world. Excited that their work will be seen from the lab to actual commercialization, which is usually the biggest challenge. We talk about the financing of something like that, the scaling of something like that, and then also the challenges around getting people to adopt something like that.
I would challenge people and comfort people with the news that when you are verified stringently globally by the verifying bodies ASTMs, [? interlockings, ?] any international standard, I promise you that we would not be allowed to build structurally anywhere in the world if it wasn't approved by the architects and the engineers and the technical folks that makes sure that when a person walks into a building, it is safe for them to be in.
We've passed all of those standards. We now are moving to commercialization. And we're finding the partners that want to innovate in the world, that want to make these changes and bring these materials to bear.
