Amazon and Microsoft invest in producer of carbon-infused concrete

CarbonCure infuses CO2 into concrete to reduce the environmental impact of the world’s most abundant human-made material

Amazon and Microsoft are among a group of technology and property developers that have invested in CarbonCure, a Canadian-based startup that injects re-captured CO2 into the concrete manufacturing process.

Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, used by the e-commerce and technology giant to invest in companies that will assist its 2040 net-zero carbon goal, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) co-led the investment syndicate which alongside Microsoft included BDC Capital, 2150, Thistledown Foundation, Taronga Group, and GreenSoil Investments.

“We are excited to invest in CarbonCure, a company producing stronger, more sustainable concrete, which will help Amazon and other companies meet The Climate Pledge, a commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040,” said Kara Hurst, Vice President of Sustainability, Amazon.

“We are looking forward to lowering the carbon footprint of many of our buildings by using CarbonCure concrete, including in Amazon’s HQ2 building in Virginia,” she added.

Data centres builds require a sizable amount of concrete and the sector is a key part of CarbonCure’s growth plans as IT infrastructure construction accelerates and the industry’s environmental credentials are increasingly scrutinised.

Yet while CarbonCure concrete has been readily adopted for motorway, skyscraper and airport construction, the data centre industry is comparatively late to the party.

CarbonCure, which already works with nearly 300 concrete producers to supply low embodied carbon concrete to construction projects, said the new capital will enable its geographical expansion and help it achieve its goal of removing 500 megatonnes (500 million metric tonnes or 500 Mt) of carbon dioxide annually from the concrete industry by 2030.

“This collaborative investment by technology and property development firms is a great endorsement of CarbonCure as the go-to CDR solution for the growing tech construction space and the overall shift towards low embodied carbon construction materials,” said Robert Niven, CEO and Co-Founder of CarbonCure Technologies.

In May, Canadian data centre provider Compass Datacenters revealed of all its facilities will be built with CarbonCure concrete.

According to Nancy Novak, CIO at Compass Datacenters, leveraging the material will reduce the company’s CO2 footprint by an average of 1,800 tons per campus (the equivalent CO2 sequestered by 2,100 acres of forest or driving a car 4 million miles).