How can we reimagine the construction industry to be more sustainable? Plantd, a company dedicated to developing sustainable construction materials, seeks to answer this question through developing a new form of wood materials. We spoke with Plantd CEO Nathan Silvernail about the company’s goals and achievements. For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/plantd-with-nathan-silvernail/.
Overview
The buildings and construction sector accounts for approximately 37% of global carbon emissions (UNEP). According to the UN Environmental Programme, much of this impact is derived from the operational aspects of buildings including heating, cooling, and lighting. However, building materials and their production also play a major role. Construction materials include cement, steel, and aluminum. Timber and wooden materials play a major role as well. According to Plantd co-Founder Josh Dorfman, “The global economy produces and transports 4.1 gigatons of concrete, 1.9 gigatons of steel, and 0.8 gigatons of timber products every year.”
The UK Green Building Council highlights that timber harvesting (logging) can be conducted with varying degrees of sustainable forest management, “from clear-cutting to regenerative forestry.” While the timber industry has been focusing on more sustainable practices, the process often leads to soil erosion, habitat loss, negative impacts on the water cycle, and potential harm to indigenous communities. Further, trees can take several years to grow and harvest.
What is Plantd?
Plantd, a startup dedicated to creating sustainable construction materials, seeks to solve this issue. The company has developed its own material: a grass species similar to bamboo and sugarcane with high fiber strength embedded into the plant itself during growth. The plant can grow on large plots of land, is ready for harvesting two to three times per year the year after it is planted, and is not subject to wildfire in the way that forests are. When the plant is harvested, the fiber can be extracted and reoriented to create a wood-like product according to different specifications with an electric press invented by Plantd. It is fully certified as a durable construction material, meeting both strength and moisture requirements. According to Plantd CEO Nathan Silvernail, “ if you take a timber-based material and you fully submerge it in water to the point where it can no longer take on any more water and you dry it out and you strength test it, it loses 70% of its strength. Our material under the same exact conditions and exposure loses only 1% of its strength.” Ultimately, with the new natural material and more efficient press, Plantd hopes to develop construction materials that are far more cost-effective and scalable.
Potential Drawbacks
In order to overcome potential dubious consumers and encourage widespread adoption of their product, Mr. Silvernail is optimistic that the company will attract buyers with a lower price point for the product. According to Mr. Silvernail, “ Our bottom line is not counted in dollars. It's counted in tons of CO2 captured. I tell all of our investors that. So we are not sitting here trying to just make the biggest margins we can. We're trying to make an impact. And again, the only way that I'm gonna do that is through price and volume.”
Mr. Silvernail also hopes that the government can subsidize costs for buyers to buy their carbon-negative product, allowing it to penetrate the longstanding foothold of the traditional timber industry over construction. However, many government programs aimed toward assisting sustainable companies are being cut, presenting a potential challenge for Plantd to build its market and appeal to consumers. Further, once Plantd is able to encourage demand for their product, their biggest challenge is scaling to meet demand. While they are sold out at the moment, the company is working to optimize their build processes to create enough panels to eventually sell in stores for home builders.
About our guest
Entrepreneur and engineer Nathan Silvernail is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Plantd Materials. While working at SpaceX, he led the team that built life support systems for astronauts aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft, and made history by building the first payload fairing recovered from space and reused on a later mission. In addition to his work at SpaceX, Nathan founded a company that designed, built, and flew reduced gravity experiments onboard NASA's zero gravity simulation aircraft. He has received recognition for his work in the industry, including the Emerging Space Leaders Grant and the First Suborbital Research Flight with Virgin Galactic.
Resources
Further Reading
For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/plantd-with-nathan-silvernail/.
Ethan: I’m Ethan Elkind, and you’re listening to Climate Break—climate solutions in a hurry. Today’s proposal: reducing the carbon footprint of new buildings by using lumber made from grass. We spoke with Nathan Silvernail, CEO of Plantd, about their product.
Nathan: So we invented a new type of wood that doesn't come from trees and is carbon negative. It involves a perennial grass that's, uh, very sustainable and fast growing. It captures, uh, CO2 from the atmosphere using photosynthesis. And we've, identified a way of manufacturing that product, uh, in a way that's very sustainable
Ethan: While traditional lumber from trees takes 15 years to grow, Plantd has developed a plant capable of much faster production.
Nathan: It's a cross between bamboo and sugarcane. We wanted to come up with something that allowed us to harvest multiple times a year, harvest very soon after we planted the, the initial, you know, seedlings, if you will. And so what we do is we cut it down and we extract that fiber in a way that doesn't damage it, and we reorient it in a way that allows us to create whatever morphology we want
Ethan: Silvernail sees the potential for construction companies from almost every sector to use Plantd’s products, but he acknowledges that the most important way to attract buyers is for the company to keep its prices low.
Nathan: We've seen some pretty, some pretty great adoption in the, in the built market, ultimately the play is large volume. Really low price so that these large builders can come in and they've got something that they can be really excited about other than sustainability. They can really improve their bottom line because their building material cost is going down.
Ethan: To learn more about Plantd and sustainable lumber, visit climatebreak.org.