Imperial College London hosted Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and American business magnate Bill Gates for the launch of the Cleantech for UK initiative.
The aim of the initiative is to establish a dialogue between the UK’s policy-making community and those living the reality of creating, incubating, investing in and scaling cleantech companies.
Adaptavate’s founder Tom Robinson was fortunate to be accepted onto the programme back in 2015, and he strongly believes that Adaptavate wouldn’t be here without it.
In this short video he reflects on his journey to grow his Cleantech idea, including how it transformed him from being a builder, to building a business of the future.
Click here to view the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVhgiga6NQo
Glasgow City Council and Low Carbon Homes present the 2023 Glasgow Retrofit Summit, and Adaptavate will be presenting their Fabric First Solutions.
The Summit will be held virtually on Tuesday 28 February, Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd March from 08.45–12.00hrs. Participants will learn how to achieve faster progress on energy efficiency measures, how landlords will be supported through green finance, plus more information about collective buying and LCRCA’s work on local heat networks to decarbonise and reduce the cost of heating homes.
Click here for the full agenda, and to register: https://lowcarbonhomes.uk/event/44/liverpoolretrofit23
To raise awareness about the importance of retrofitting, Metro Mayor Dan Norris visited low-carbon retrofit specialists Hawkland Construction and tried his hand at plastering with Adaptavate’s Breathaplasta.
Retrofitting is the process of making alterations to an existing property to reduce energy consumption, and Breathaplasta Thermal is ideal for this, being a quick-setting, low-density plaster, proven to reduce damp and mould.
Hawkland and Adaptavate have been working closely for many years, sharing similar values which includes creating healthy, low-carbon spaces. During the visit Hawkland highlighted the technologies they are using on the property and the materials they’re using to reduce the energy consumption.
Metro Mayor Dan Norris said: “I want to praise the brilliant employers we have in the West – those like Hawkland, who are ensuring warmer homes across our great region.”
Gary Martin, Business Growth Manager at Adaptavate attended the event and said: “Retrofitting is vital for meeting the UK’s net-zero targets, so it’s great to have our Mayor Dan Norris draw attention to this issue. Together with Hawkland, we’re making the change, one wall at a time.”
The Finishes and Interiors Sector (FIS) Awards shine a light on innovations that meet the needs of the sector, and has evidence of adoption or planned use in a commercial environment.
Adaptavate’s Breathaboard has been shortlisted in the Sustainability Innovation category. Breathaboard is a low carbon plasterboard which passively regulates moisture in the internal space through its breathability and moisture buffering capabilities.
The winners will be announced at the FIS Awards Ceremony on 27 February in London.
Adaptavate has enhanced its Board with the appointment of Andy Williamson as Non-Executive Director. Andy is well known in the UK construction industry with over 20 years’ commercial and management experience within construction product manufacturing and distribution businesses, along with holding Director positions with a number of industry trade associations.
Designing low-carbon, high-performance construction products to facilitate healthier homes and to protect our ecosystem, Adaptavate is a globally unique technology business and has been acknowledged as one of the top 50 emerging climate tech companies in the UK in a recently released PwC report.
Prior to working as Commercial Director for one of the UK’s largest distributors SIG, Andy worked as Group Managing Director for IKO Group, a global leader of building materials. In addition, Andy has been a Master of The Worshipful Company of Builders’ Merchants – the most senior member of the Company playing a key part in the sector, promoting training and education for builders’ merchants and fundraising for a number of charities. Andy is recognised as being a forward thinking, active and progressive voice in the UK construction industry.
Thomas Robinson, Managing Director of Adaptavate said: “We’re so excited to appoint someone with Andy’s caliber, who is not only well connected in the industry but also brings vital commercial experience and passion to the company. Andy’s appointment will allow us to build and run our globally pioneering manufacturing facility, and help us achieve our overall aim; to be a global leader in low carbon wallboards of mainstream construction industry.”
Andy Williamson, Non-Executive Director said: “I’m delighted to be part of a company that is making a significant improvement to the future of building materials. The construction industry has a serious impact on our carbon footprint, and for some time I have been aware of the vital need to adjust how things are currently done with the use of more sustainable products. Having worked with the team at Adaptavate for a while, and learned more about their products and plans, it’s great to be able to help them be a leading part of that change.”
Bristol, UK – 31st March 2022
UK based bio-technology company Adaptavate announced today that they have secured investment of £2.16 million to scale production of their carbon absorbing plasterboard; Breathaboard.
Amidst growing pressure for the construction sector to identify practical ways to reduce embodied carbon in buildings, products that offer significant carbon savings are increasingly prized. Adaptavate have designed a scalable, carbon sequestering alternative to one of the most widely used building products used globally; plasterboard.
This funding will allow Adaptavate to build a world first pilot production line, enhance research & development lab facilities and teams and complete testing and licencing programmes for Breathaboard. Adaptavate’s already available Breathaplasta product will continue to be marketed through key distribution partners.
The investment round was led by Low Carbon Innovation Fund 2 (LCIF2) and Counteract, the world’s first early stage Carbon Removal investor. Several climate focused funds including Perivoli Innovations and One Planet Capital also participated, alongside well known figureheads from the construction industry. Adaptavate have also secured a grant from Innovate UK in excess of £800,000.
This strong consortium of climate investors comes together to accelerate carbon removal through one of the few carbon utilisation pathways capable of durable sequestration in the gigatons of CO2e by mid-century – construction.
Tom Robinson, Managing Director and Founder of Adaptavate said “This investment will enable us to revolutionise the way construction materials are made without forcing any change on end users. We’re using industrial carbon absorbing processes to produce a healthier, high performance product that is better for the health of people and planet and a genuine drop-in replacement for gypsum plasterboard. It’s a fundamental re-think and re-design of the current system and we are excited to scale this approach around the world”.
Ian Thomas, managing director at Turquoise, fund manager of LCIF2 said: “LCIF2 is pleased to make this investment round in Adaptavate. The construction industry is in urgent need of sustainable, low carbon solutions and Adaptavate’s technology has the potential to make a very positive impact in this area.”
Andrew Shebbeare, Managing Partner at Counteract, said: “The built environment opens up carbon sequestration pathways with the rare potential for significant value creation combined with the scale to move the carbon needle globally. The key is finding solutions that are easy and cost-effective to implement and can scale rapidly. Tom and Jeff’s deep experience of the space has allowed them to do just that. We’re excited to team up with them and prove the opportunity for carbon negative construction materials.”
About Adaptavate
Adaptavate is fundamentally re-thinking and re-designing the way building materials are made for the mainstream construction industry. They develop and commercialise industrial processes to make carbon absorbing construction products that are drop-in to standard materials like plasterboard and plaster. The combination between large scale industrial processes and widely used products results in the potential for significant carbon removal on a global scale.
About LCIF2
LCIF2 is managed by Turquoise and is a venture capital fund investing in eligible small to medium sized businesses based in England, particularly the areas covered by its local government backers, developing products and services which will have a beneficial environmental impact. LCIF2 is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), following a successful bid by Norfolk County Council and the University of East Anglia. ERDF is an investment programme part financed by the European Union. LCIF2 is part of the UK government’s portfolio of business support products.
About Counteract
Counteract combats the climate crisis through research, development and investment in carbon removal. Counteract gives engineer, scientist and business-model entrepreneurs the financial and strategic support to turn fresh ideas into self-sustaining businesses with the potential to capture or store greenhouse gases at gigaton scale. The team’s investments span nature-based to engineered carbon removal solutions around the world.
Media Enquiries: tom@adaptavate.com
Adaptavate has been acknowledged as one of the top 50 emerging climate tech companies in the UK in a recently released PwC report. The PwC Net Zero Future50 report has identified 3,000+ companies that could lead the way to decarbonisation by 2050 across a wide range of sectors.
Adaptavate was shortlisted as one of nine innovator start-ups that have made a significant impact within the ‘Built Environment’ category The Built Environment accounts for 20.7% (UK 17%) of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
PwC’s report highlights the magnitude of the challenge the world faces in meeting essential decarbonisation targets, whilst illustrating the significant opportunity this represents for businesses with game changing technologies to deliver impact.
The report further noted the comparably low level of funding that Built Environment solutions have received, versus the high impact they deliver to our planet. It suggests that Adaptavate’s solutions can offer fast decarbonisation to a sector that is struggling on its path to Net Zero emissions.
Adaptavate is leading the way in the development and commercialisation of carbon negative materials for the mainstream construction market. The initial focus is on launching a carbon negative alternative to the third most used construction product in the world – plasterboard.
Tom Robinson, Managing Director of Adaptavate said: “This is a timely and powerful validation of our work as we focus on delivering carbon negative wallboards to the mainstream construction market. We can see the clear need from the market and are focussed on delivering this as rapidly as possible.”
It’s estimated that 29 million homes in the UK will need to be retrofitted with low-carbon solutions if the UK is to meet its 2050 Net Zero ambitions. Tom Robinson continued: “We know we have the right low-carbon solutions that can help the construction industry at scale, anywhere in the world. We want to collaborate with other organisations to make this happen at the scale that is needed to help hit the Net Zero targets that are desperately needed.”
Breathaboard is a direct alternative to plasterboard that is specified and used in the same way but with carbon and performance benefits. It can be produced at industrial scale using industry ready production techniques with a production process that can absorb CO2.
Breathaboard is compostable at the end of life and can be used as soil conditioner or to create energy in anaerobic digestion creating a completely renewable and regenerative material flow.
To find out more about how Adaptavate can help your organisation achieve its Net Zero construction goals, please contact info@adaptavate.com. and follow us on social media using @adaptavate.
Adaptavate have been awarded a £500,000 development project co-funded by Innovate UK, the UK’s Innovation agency. This is to further develop techniques to take CO2 from the atmosphere and other CO2 emitting processes, such as lime and cement. The project focusses on locking this into construction products, such as the award winning Breathaboard technology.
‘This is a really exciting project at a pivotal point for Adaptavate. It enables us to grow the team and technical partnerships at a really exciting time in our industry. It affirms Adaptavate and the partner universities as leading the way in CO2 sequestration in building materials and industrial processes – helping us reach ambitious CO2 targets that are being set by governments and industrial bodies”.
Tom Robinson, Founder of Adaptavate
In parallel the project is asking the question; can the waste of these materials be used as soil nutrients for use in agriculture, to grow more crops and bio-materials, completing a circular economy approach to construction bio-materials? Ground up construction waste will be compared to the digestate from Anaerobic Digestion (AD) of the same material. The AD process also generates synthetic gas, predominantly Methane. Here a second and third nutrient loop can be exploited as the Methane created can be burnt to create electricity to run the factory, creating CO2 , which can sequestered in the curing of new material. This is totally in line with Adaptavate’s purpose: to positively disrupt the material flows in the construction sector.
“Environmentally positive solutions are not one size fits all, and neither are business cases. This project will allow us to scale the next generation of bio-materials though absorbing CO2 from emitting processes all over the world through localised production models. This is a really transformative way of looking at this conservative, vertically integrated industry that is looking for a step change”.
Jeff Ive, Technical Director at Adaptavate
The project builds on the strong relationships that Adaptavate have built with the University of Bath and Bio composite Development Centre in York.
“Personally, I am really excited to work with Adaptavate as it builds on our track record of working with this Innovative leading SME, realising the potential impact of a previous BBSRC funded project carried out in collaboration with Adaptavate. There is great potential is the development of genuinely low carbon, possibly even carbon neutral building materials for the mainstream industry – this is a real potential game-changing solution and we are excited to be a key part of it.”
Professor Pete Walker, of the University of Bath and Director of BRE Centre of Innovative Construction Materials
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