A new house in the Bahamas is built with an alternative concrete that sucks CO2 out of the air. It\u2019s a home that\u2019s supposed to help in the fight against climate change, and the plan is to build 999 more like it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That\u2019s the slam dunk NBA Lakers legend-turned-actor Rick Fox is working toward now on the small island nation where he grew up. Fox is the CEO and co-founder of the sustainable building materials startup Partanna that unveiled its first home today. If they\u2019re successful in the Bahamas, the goal is to make its alternative concrete an everyday building material that could cut down pollution from construction. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI shut down my entire career that was in Hollywood to pursue and create [climate] solutions,\u201d Fox tells The Verge<\/em>. \u201cI had to move around the industry that was new to me and meet people that were looking at me like, \u2018What the hell are you doing in concrete?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWhat the hell are you doing in concrete?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Concrete just happens to be a major source of the greenhouse gas emissions causing more intense storms, wildfires, and other catastrophes through climate change. The culprit is actually cement, a key ingredient in concrete that alone is responsible for more than\u00a08 percent<\/a>\u00a0of carbon dioxide emissions globally.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMy entry into the world of concrete was one out of just sheer survival and the need to innovate in my own home country,\u201d Fox says. Hurricane Dorian struck the Bahamas in 2019, wrecking 75 percent of homes on the worst hit island of Abaco and displacing thousands of people. Fox was in Los Angeles at the time. \u201cThe closest thing I could do was race to CNN to scream from the rooftops that we needed to do something better,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Soon after, he met California-based architect Sam Marshall, whose home had sustained damage in the 2018 Woolsey fire, one of the most destructive blazes in the state\u2019s history. Marshall had already \u201ccaught lightning in a bottle,\u201d according to Fox. Working with material scientists, they\u2019d developed a way to make concrete without using carbon-intensive cement. Together, they co-founded Partanna.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The pair are pretty tight-lipped around the process, but the main ingredients are brine from desalination plants and a byproduct of steel production called slag. By getting rid of cement as an ingredient, Partanna can avoid the carbon dioxide emissions that come with it. Making cement produces a lot of climate pollution because it has to be heated to high temperatures in a kiln and because it triggers a chemical reaction that releases additional CO2 from limestone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Partanna says its mixture can cure at ambient temperatures, so it doesn\u2019t have to use as much energy. It also says binder ingredients in the mixture absorb CO2 from the air and trap it in the material. In a home or building, the material continues to pull in CO2. Even if that structure is demolished, the material holds onto the CO2 and can be reused as an aggregate to make more of the alternative concrete.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s how the startup and can call its material and the newly constructed home \u201ccarbon negative.\u201d The 1,250-square-foot structure is supposed to have captured as much CO2 as 5,200 mature trees a year. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n To be sure, carbon-counting with trees is tricky. A Guardian<\/em> investigation<\/a> earlier this year found that 90 percent of rainforest offsets certified by one of the world\u2019s leading carbon credit certifiers, Verra, are \u201cworthless\u201d because they likely didn\u2019t lead to actual reductions in pollution. Verra is also certifying carbon credits for Partanna. Fox says the CO2 Partanna captures is easier to quantify than forest offsets and isn\u2019t as vulnerable as forests that need to be protected from deforestation in order to store carbon. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s also worth noting that Partanna\u2019s key ingredients, slag and brine, come from energy-intensive steel and desalination facilities that can produce a lot of CO2 emissions on their own. Partanna isn\u2019t counting those emissions in its carbon footprint. \u201cThat\u2019s not on us … These are waste materials that we are taking and using for good,\u201d Fox says. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s good that they\u2019re making use of waste,\u201d says Dwarak\u00a0Ravikumar, an assistant professor\u00a0at the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University. Even so, Ravikumar says, \u201cWe need to conduct a robust analysis of this from a systems perspective to understand what is the overall climate impact.\u201d It\u2019s important for the company to share its data so that researchers can assess Partanna\u2019s entire environmental footprint and how scalable its strategy is, he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe are not just on the frontline of climate change; we are the frontline of solutions.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Fox isn\u2019t the only one on a mission to make a more sustainable building material than traditional concrete. Microsoft announced last month that it\u2019s testing low-carbon concrete<\/a> for its data centers. And other startups<\/a> are working to take CO2 out of the atmosphere and trap it in concrete. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Partanna says it has an edge since its material is made with brine. It\u2019s actually supposed to get stronger with exposure to seawater \u2014 an attractive trait to a country made up of many low-lying islands exposed to worsening storms and sea level rise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe are not just on the frontline of climate change; we are the frontline of solutions,\u201d Philip Davis, prime minister and minister of finance of the Bahamas, said in a Partanna press release.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Bahamian government is partnering with Partanna to build 1,000 homes, starting with a community of 29 more houses that are supposed to be built by next year. No one is living in the first one in Nassau yet; it\u2019s a prototype. But the next are expected to be part of a program to help first-time homeowners. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n