Over the past six months of Greentown Go Build 2023, Saint-Gobain has worked closely with six building tech startups to advance innovations for circularity and decarbonization of the built environment.
The six participating startups—Active Surfaces, Carbon Upcycling Technologies, Endeavor Composites, Hempitecture, Puro Renewables, and ZS2 Technologies—were chosen in a highly competitive selection process that saw more than 100 applications. Throughout the accelerator, a group of experienced startup mentors and industry experts, including a team of varied subject matter experts from Saint-Gobain, worked together with the startup founding teams to progress their technology and business models, de-risk their technologies, discover potential market applications, and explore viable go-to-market strategies.
As one of the world’s largest building materials companies and a worldwide leader in light and sustainable construction, Saint-Gobain works to fulfill its global purpose—Making the World a Better Home—through its innovative building materials and solutions. For more than a decade, Saint-Gobain has been a dedicated partner of Greentown and its startup community, including making multiple sustainable product donations that have enabled high-performing, efficient, and comfortable incubator spaces for startups in Somerville and Houston, and becoming the presenting partner of Greentown’s Town Green event space. The company has made many science-based climate commitments, including reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, eliminating its production of waste that isn’t recovered, and excising non-recyclable raw materials.
Go Build 2023 is the third Greentown Go program partnership between Greentown and Saint-Gobain, following successful buildings-focused accelerators in 2019 and 2021—results from those programs can be found here and here.
“The Greentown Go Build program presents a great opportunity for us to learn from startups that are disrupting the building sector with innovations that extend product life cycles, identify alternative raw materials, and enable technologies for waste revalorization,” said Sven Harmsen, director of external ventures, NOVA by Saint-Gobain. “As our third Greentown Go Build program ends, each of us will bring back insight and knowledge to our respective teams as we continue to work toward sustainable practices to make our world a better home.”
Read about the startups, their progress during the accelerator, and how they worked with Saint-Gobain below, and check out a recording of the Go Build 2023 Final Showcase here!
Active Surfaces
Technology at a glance: Active Surfaces (Woburn, MA) develops an ultra-lightweight, flexible solar technology for the built environment.
Progress during the program: Active Surfaces and Saint-Gobain conducted significant testing at Saint-Gobain’s North American research headquarters in Northborough, MA, in addition to tests at Active Surfaces’ facility on different adhesion methods and materials to attach the startup’s solar modules to Saint-Gobain roofing materials. Active Surfaces is continuing to work with Saint-Gobain Research North America to conduct R&D and testing.
“Who understands turning a city sustainable better than Saint-Gobain, the leader in the built environment?” says Active Surfaces Co-founder Shivam Bhakta. “As we scale from TRL 4 to market entry, we’re fortunate to know Saint-Gobain so early in our journey. We can leverage their shared resources, equipment, and R&D facility, continue our research discussions, and work toward a potential joint development agreement.”
Carbon Upcycling Technologies
Technology at a glance: Carbon Upcycling Technologies (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) is a circular-decarbonization solution for hard-to-abate industries—utilizing low-purity industrial CO2 and industrial byproducts to decarbonize cement.
Progress during the program: Carbon Upcycling Technologies and Saint-Gobain collaborated to explore valorizing and upcycling waste for the startup’s process. Additionally, Saint-Gobain led a session for the startup on hiring and maintaining gender-diverse talent and helped to redesign Carbon Upcycling Technologies’ sample and material-transfer tracking system.
“We are deploying real-world projects today, and with the help of Saint-Gobain and Greentown Labs, we can go even further,” says Kristin Skelton, business development associate at Carbon Upcycling Technologies. “Our immediate next steps will be further testing of two Saint-Gobain non-recoverable waste materials for potential cement and concrete applications.”
Endeavor Composites
Technology at a glance: Endeavor Composites (Knoxville, TN) intercepts landfill-destined post-industrial fibers and sustainably repurposes them into semi-finished goods for the composite industry.
Progress during the program: Two pilot trials are underway—at Saint-Gobain Research North America in Northborough and Endeavor Composites’ facility in Knoxville—to fabricate new construction products by combining the startup’s non-woven fiber composite technology with Saint-Gobain’s materials.
Endeavor Composites’ corporate mentors from Saint-Gobain invited the startup to pitch to dozens of additional Saint-Gobain business lines, recognizing that multiple divisions within the company may be interested in collaborating with Endeavor Composites.
“We presented at the Friday Forum for Saint-Gobain, a global webinar, so we talked to all the divisions across the globe and found avenues that we’re exploring today with them,” says Endeavor Composites CEO Hicham Ghossein. “I want to give shoutouts to my mentors, who’ve been instrumental in supporting us to achieve the goals we are working on.”
Hempitecture
Technology at a glance: Hempitecture (Ketchum, ID) manufactures and distributes biobased building materials, including a low-embodied-carbon insulation, HempWool®. Hempitecture also manufactures a rigid insulation board called PlantPanel® for both exterior and interior continuous insulation applications. These products are made using locally grown industrial hemp fibers through a low-impact manufacturing process in Jerome, ID.
Progress during the program: During the program, Hempitecture and Saint-Gobain worked closely to evaluate Hempitecture’s products and held meetings with relevant parties within Saint-Gobain. Saint-Gobain is currently exploring the unique properties and benefits of the startup’s hemp-fiber insulation.
Puro Renewables
Technology at a glance: Puro Renewables (Miami Beach, FL) upcycles carbon-negative biowaste for use in reducing the amount of fossil-fuel-based resin and carbon footprint in typical plastic products.
Progress during the program: Throughout Go Build 2023, Puro Renewables and Saint-Gobain worked closely to explore applications for PuroShell—the startup’s low-carbon, eggshell-based calcium carbonate product for building applications.
Their initial tests returned positive results for PuroShell use in exterior products. Puro Renewables and Saint-Gobain are currently working on a life-cycle analysis for PuroShell as well.
“Saint-Gobain is a key partner for us,” says Chris Stephens, Puro Renewables’ COO, and the startup’s CEO Justin Danko calls the access to Saint-Gobain through Go Build 2023 “unparalleled.”
ZS2 Technologies
Technology at a glance: ZS2 Technologies (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) creates magnesium-based advanced building products that can store up to one-fifth of their weight in CO2 via a proprietary carbon-capture technology.
Progress during the program: ZS2 Technologies worked with various Saint-Gobain businesses throughout Go Build 2023 to collaborate on product development opportunities.
“We hosted Saint-Gobain at our facility in Calgary, Alberta three times to learn more about the differences that our magnesium cements can make, and we’ve had our mentors out to an active build site in Houston,” says Kristin Davis, the startup’s COO. “They’ve literally gotten to get their hands dirty testing our cements. The latest results speak for themselves: our magnesium cements achieved higher strength ratings than Portland cement demonstrates in 28 days in just under 24 hours, all with half the density.”
“Through Go Build 2023 in concert with Saint-Gobain, we have gained valuable mentorship from industry leaders, been given access to a host of resources that are essential for a startup to scale up growth, and have been connected to a much wider network within Greentown Labs that has helped us focus on development plans that will push our business forward,” she adds.