MineralCarbonation International (MCi) is pleased to announce its founding membershipwith Materials & Embodied Carbon Leaders’ Alliance, a joint initiative ledby WWF, Presync, Climate-KIC Australia and funded by NSW Government.
MCi founderand Chief Executive Officer Marcus Dawe said MCi’s membership in MECLA wascrucial to advancing their shared objectives.
“MECLA aimsto reduce the embodied carbon in the building and construction industry totransform the sector to reach net-zero emissions. MCi aims to lock away onebillion tonnes of industrial emissions into useable products by 2040,” Mr Dawesaid.
“We’reproud to have joined MECLA to support their important mission. We need industryadvocacy to ensure governments support the transition to a net zeroconstruction industry by updating materials and building standards to reflectadvances in technology.”
“MCi’stechnology takes CO2 from industrial operations, mixes it withfeedstock such as mining tailings, or natural quarried rock and by speeding upthe Earth’s natural carbonation process, we create new products such as calciumand magnesium carbonates and silicas.
“These lowcarbon embodied materials have locked away the carbon and can be used in buildingproducts, creating negative emissions plasterboard and low carbon concretes forready mix, and pre-cast and high performance construction products.
“Forexample one tonne of concrete made with just some of our substituted materialhas shown to save 300kg of CO2 from going into the atmosphere.That’s just the start. We can do even better as we now work further with ourcement customers to get as close to carbon neutral as possible.”
“Uptake ofour products could result in low-carbon, carbon-neutral or negative carbonbuildings,” Mr Dawe said.
“Right now,the Australian building material standards are antiquated and not reflective ofnew, low-carbon products which have demonstrative improvements in safety andreliability on existing products.
“We’ll workwith our MECLA partners to advocate for these changes, and many other importantinitiatives while we all look towards 2050.”