ECONYL®Brand ha diffuso questo post
Host, Supercool — Climate Innovation Now Scaling | Co-Founder, Plantd — Carbon-Negative Materials
The next wave of material innovation wins on cost, carbon, and performance. A new material economy is taking shape. Built from waste, residue, and renewable resources that once sat outside mainstream manufacturing. And it reverses 20th-century industrial flows: * Using regenerative inputs instead of extracted * Locking carbon into products instead of releasing it Plantd, a company I co-founded, builds structural panels from perennial grass that grows ten times faster than trees. In 2024, it secured a supply agreement with D.R. Horton, the nation’s largest homebuilder, for 10 million structural panels. Cambium turns fallen urban trees into Carbon Smart Wood. Its digital platform tracks every board’s origin and carbon impact, creating a new supply chain that keeps local wood in use and carbon out of the atmosphere (deep dive feature in this week's newsletter). EcoCocon manufactures prefabricated wall systems from straw, delivering airtight, high-performance buildings across Europe. Its expansion into North America signals how natural materials can meet code and cost at the same time. UBQ Materials turns unsorted household waste into recycled thermoplastic used by Mercedes-Benz, McDonald’s, and PepsiCo. Its commercial plant in the Netherlands processes over 100,000 tons of waste a year. Modern Mill uses upcycled rice hulls to make durable, weather-resistant siding and decking. Its Mississippi facility shows what regional manufacturing looks like when circular inputs become competitive materials. Hempitecture produces bio-based insulation from American-grown hemp. Its U.S. factory is proving that natural fibers can outperform synthetics on performance and carbon without importing a single bale. CarbonCure Technologies injects captured CO₂ into concrete, where it mineralizes and strengthens the mix. The technology operates in more than 800 plants across 30 countries, turning one of the world’s highest-emission materials into a carbon sink. ECONYL® brand regenerates discarded nylon — from fishing nets to carpet fibers — through a chemical recycling process that rebuilds the material at a molecular level. More than 1,900 brands already use it, proof that circular chemistry scales when quality meets demand. Together, these companies point to a future without compromise—where the best materials are the most sustainable. ** This week's Supercool newsletter explores how carbon is the new material advantage. Link in header. ☝️