Major Wins for a Nascent Carbontech Industry - Year 1 Results of the Carbon to Value Initiative

Jan 12, 2022 - By Frederic Clerc

Due to the buildup over time of excessive, long-lived carbon emissions, commercializing carbontech — technologies that capture and convert carbon dioxide (CO₂) into valuable end products or services — is now necessary to meet global climate goals. This is why the Urban Future Lab, Greentown Labs, and Fraunhofer USA partnered with NYSERDA in 2020 to launch the Carbon to Value (C2V) Initiative — a first-of-its-kind collaboration. This three-year, multi-stakeholder program aims to create a thriving innovation ecosystem for the commercialization of carbontech. After the completion of our first year in 2021, and ahead of our second year in 2022, it’s a perfect time to look back at the main outcomes and lessons learned and look ahead to where this new innovation sector is headed.

How the C2V Initiative Helped Grow the Carbontech Ecosystem and Support Innovation

Thanks to the C2V Initiative, over 130 stakeholders across government, corporates, expert non-profits, startups and mentors are now directly working together to identify collaboration opportunities and help scale carbontech innovations. The C2V Initiative’s work appears in the news regularly, and we've reached out to thousands through our public events and external engagements.

The C2V Initiative created 70+ new connections between startups and our Carbontech Leadership Council (CLC) members. One great example is startup participant Carbonfree’s partnership with CLC member Fluor to scale and commercialize its next-generation mineralization technology, SkyCycle. We're expecting many more collaboration announcements in the months to come as we watch the seeds we planted grow. The showcase video and the individual startups presentations in the cohort book have more specific details about each of the 10 C2V Initiative Year 1 Cohort startups' progress and needs across fundraising, hiring, pilot projects, partnerships and more.

Through our unique format combining discovery groups and workshops, we've identified gaps in the ecosystem and initiated responses to them. For example, it became apparent that there was an unmet need for a stronger carbon utilization & conversion voice in policy conversations. Anna Pavlova from startup participant CarbonQuest and Tom Dowers from Lanzatech — who participated in one of C2V’s workshops — led the charge and are now exploring the feasibility of a separate policy coalition focused on carbon utilization & conversion, which has gathered interest from a critical mass of large corporates and leading carbontech innovators.

We’ve also gathered numerous insights on the needs of the industry, and how a group like the C2V Initiative can help. Here are two that particularly struck us this first year:

Insight 1 - Understanding the Climate Impact of Carbontech

As the industry emerges, we are witnessing some confusion on the climate impacts of the many different carbontech pathways. Some are “carbon negative,” i.e., will be able to remove carbon from the atmosphere, whereas others avoid/reduce carbon emissions by lowering the carbon footprint of products compared to their incumbents. In general, without having to perform a complete Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), three main factors must be considered in order to characterize the climate impact of a particular carbontech technology: (1) where the CO2 is coming from, i.e., from industrial point source emissions or directly from the air; (2) the emissions related to the carbontech process itself (e.g. energy use) and (3) how much carbon can be stored in the final product and for how long (also sometimes referred to “carbon permanency”).

It became quickly apparent that the lack of a standard way to measure, report and verify carbon avoided and/or removed through carbontech innovations was a barrier to investment and commercialization. Some legislation, such as 45Q or LECCLA, will close this gap in some industry sectors, but not all. In the meantime, carbontech innovators, project developers and other commercialization players should privilege transparency and verifiability, e.g. by sharing LCA results publicly.

Insight 2 - Realizing the Value of Carbontech

As detailed by Carbon180, carbontech has the potential to become a trillion-dollar market. While startups are developing the technologies and business model innovations to achieve this potential, corporates also perceive carbontech as an opportunity to grow new revenue streams while contributing to their climate goals, in particular when the carbontech products can integrate with the corporate’s own value chains, assets and operating expertise. With this in mind, complete new and complex carbon value chains will have to be built and operated, from the capture of the CO2, through to conversion, use and end-of-life of new carbontech products. Partnerships, not only between corporates and startups, but also between corporates that operate on complementary value chains, and between corporates and governments on financing or local labor development, will be essential to realize the full potential of carbontech.

What is Next for the C2V Initiative?

In 2022, we will select a new cohort of carbontech startups. We plan to release our Year 2 call for applications in February 2022. We will also continue to build and develop a vibrant carbontech ecosystem through our public events, as well as foster deployment opportunities, especially in the New York State with the support of NYSERDA. Stay tuned by subscribing to C2V Initiative updates.