Decarbonizing Concrete: A Sustainable 'Cure'
A brief analysis on how CarbonCure can maintain its competitive position in the Concrete Industry.
Over the past two weeks we've explored CarbonCure’s position in the Concrete Industry and the capabilities they're leveraging to decarbonize concrete production. CarbonCure, like the overall climate tech sector, is growing quickly. There’s big venture capital investment pouring into this space, but investment follows innovation and CarbonCure will need to continuously innovate to build on its early success.
Applying the lessons of Darden's Foundations of Business Strategy, I believe CarbonCure's competitive position is an integrated position of offering a niche solution at a low cost. CarbonCure has homed in on the concrete production aspect (their niche) of the overall value chain and their business model offers their technology to concrete producers at zero up-front cost.
For CarbonCure to hold this position into the future, they will need to continuously improve their solution, provide more value to their customers, and influence the cement industry's overall value chain to drive technology adoption. One way that CarbonCure will do this is through an improved software that will allow clients to track their total CO2 avoided or sequestered.
Today there is reasonable demand from architects, engineers, and contractors for a low CO2 concrete, but there's a challenge to find producers that are sustainability focused with an appetite for change. Government procurement and regulators are also important players that CarbonCure will need to influence. Today it is much easier to get CO2 mineralized concrete approved in residential or municipal applications as opposed to larger scale industrial and heavy civil applications.
It could be interesting to consider a future where CarbonCure is injecting more than just CO2 into concrete. Recently, researchers in Switzerland have developed a rechargeable concreate battery by adding carbon fibers and embedded electrodes into the concrete mixture.1
While this concludes my three-part analysis of CarbonCure, I will be watching them carry out their mission of making carbon dioxide removal technology standard for all concrete production across the globe!
“Cement battery could turn buildings and bridges into gigantic energy-storage devices” https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2021/05/74784/