Going green doesn’t have to be a giant money suck

When companies or policymakers try to force green technology onto an industry, it usually doesn’t work out.

It’s akin to forcing on footwear that’s too small. Something’s going to get squeezed or pinched, and the attempt is likely to fail eventually. In the case of shoe-horned technology, the demise usual begins after subsidies run dry.

The ideal climate-friendly technology fits — and doesn’t fight — market forces. That means the new method or device adds value while replacing something more costly that also pollutes more. Electric lights were clearly superior to kerosene lamps.

A couple of startups in industries as disparate as transportation and building materials have developed green innovations that ride the market’s wave instead of struggling against it.

Nicole Glenn, who owns Candor Expedite, a broker for time-sensitive shipments, believes she has discovered a contraption that can save money and emissions on small shipments of refrigerated cargo. Instead of customers sending small loads of frozen or chilled cargo in a refrigerated truck, Glenn’s new venture, Candor FoodChain, will ship it in a special box that doesn’t require cooling for up to nine days. This means that frozen goods can be shipped alongside regular freight that doesn’t require climate control or in small vans, which are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to refrigerate.

Glenn stumbled upon the insulated containers, which are made in the U.K., while helping customers during the pandemic who were desperate to move small batches of refrigerated goods. The boxes had been sold in Europe mostly to transport pharmaceuticals. She teamed up with the maker of the containers and a Spanish company, Cool Chain Logistics, that uses them.

The secret to the reusable boxes, which come in different sizes and temperature ratings, are plastic liners filled with a paraffin liquid that can remain frozen for days. The solution allows frozen freight to be hauled by a regular truck. It also eliminates the use of dry ice, which is frozen carbon dioxide. Dry ice lasts only a couple of days in a cooler and can be dangerous because of the gas released when it melts.

Glenn is operating in Dallas and plans to open locations in six other cities including Chicago and Los Angeles to provide the service while keeping possession of the boxes, which require cleaning and refreezing of the liquid-filled liners. In a test with a large fast-food chain, Candor FoodChain showed it could ship chilled products and save $2,000 on the typical dry-ice solution.

Another green technology that holds promise is an alternative type of cement that uses carbon dioxide as an ingredient. The idea, developed by the firm Fortera, has moved beyond the testing phase with the first large-scale plant already operating on the site of CalPortland’s cement facility in Redding, California.

Ryan Gilliam, the chief executive officer of Fortera, worked for many years at a startup that was seeking to make low-emission cement. The venture gave up on the quest because the market wasn’t willing to pay a "green premium” for the product. That was a wake-up call for Gilliam. He realized the technology would gain acceptance only if the cement fit in the current construction ecosystem while meeting or beating the price of the traditional product.

"The goal is the same performance and the same cost,” Gilliam said in an interview. "Trying to retrain the industry that your material will set differently or flow differently just creates too many challenges.”

Frontera’s system is designed to work alongside existing cement facilities, tapping into established mining for limestone and the expensive kiln that’s needed to heat the rock and transform it into lime. When limestone is heated, it releases carbon dioxide. Fortera captures that industrial gas and combines it with a liquid mixture of dissolved lime and ammonium chloride.

After separating the liquids and drying the remaining solids, the result is a cementitious white powder called vaterite. Gilliam says the vaterite-based cement can be used as a standalone product that’s just a strong as cement and sets even quicker.

Right now, it’s mixed with typical cement up to 15% of the blend to meet current industry standards. This alternative cement has 70% lower emissions. Concrete, which is cement mixed with water and aggregates such as sand and crushed rock, contributes up to 8% of total emissions. The world isn’t going to reduce the use of concrete. To the contrary, demand for this key building material only increases as economies grow. Making the substance cleaner is the only option to reduce pollution.

Now that Fortera has an operational plant, the company has attracted interest and has 25 memorandums of understanding to build facilities at existing cement facilities, Gilliam said. There’s upside because vaterite has a white color, and white cement is a niche product that commands a premium for its aesthetics.

Some people may be willing to pay extra for lower-emissions products, but most aren’t. In the day-to-day struggle to buy groceries, pay the rent and make car payments, most people can’t afford to think how their purchases will impact the planet a decade or two down the road.

Going green requires more of these products that address customer needs at a competitive price in addition to helping the environment. As with most new products, time will tell if these technologies catch on. If they do, the planet will be better off and customers will save money.