Capital is increasingly being allocated to help heavy polluters fund their costly decarbonization plans. ‘Transition finance’ may be the greatest economic opportunity ever in the race against climate change.
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By Charles Newbery and Rodrigo Amaral
At a plant outside Montevideo, Vantem pours and presses materials into concrete-like boards. The electrified process runs at nearly room temperature, consuming only a fraction of the energy for making cement at high temperatures with fossil fuels. The panels make buildings five-times more energy efficient than their traditional counterparts. Add solar panels onto the roofs, and buildings can achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions and sell the excess electricity on the grid.
This lower carbon footprint has caught the attention of construction companies. To reach net-zero emissions by 2050 in the race against climate change, total emissions from buildings – cooling, heating and powering – as well as construction and materials must be slashed. Buildings may only account for 10% of energy-related emissions, but when factoring in operational and process-related emissions it made up 37% of the total in 2021, more than industry at 30% and transportation at 22%, according to the International Energy Agency.
Vantem, with backing from the Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has sold its panels to Japanese electronics maker Panasonic for a factory in Brazil. Homes, a five-star hotel and a co-working space have been built with them in Uruguay, and an observatory for the Chilean Navy on cold and windy Cape Horn.
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Originally published on July 30, 2023
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