Cutting Carbon: The Supplier’s Guide to a Low-Carbon Future
When it comes to tackling climate change, materials suppliers have a very important role to play. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum, the manufacturing and production sector accounts for one-fifth of global carbon emissions and 54% of the world’s energy usage. Moreover, your organisation’s scope three emissions (i.e. indirect emissions caused by your company’s supply chain) are up to 25 times higher than their direct emissions (McKinsey Catalyst Zero analysis, based on 2022 CDP data).
Those are daunting statistics — so what is the industry attempting to do about it?
Well, the first thing to point out is that:
The client’s requirement for carbon reduction is changing, and pressure on suppliers to deliver quantifiable impact is growing.
It’s safe to say that sustainability within the materials sector has well and truly gone beyond “high-level industry-wide carbon reduction targets”.
The most important business indicator that times are changing is that both GCs (“General Contractors”) and real estate developers now factor in several sustainability-related assessments when picking their suppliers and regularly include it as part of their tender. Key considerations, with supporting evidence often now required, include:
- Carbon intensity per £ turnover/profit
- Emission Offset Calculations
- Supplier’s Commitment to achieving carbon net zero or even carbon-negative
So why has the momentum shifted so much…?
Well:
New and emerging software and hardware technologies have now rapidly scaled a supplier’s ability to solve key sustainability challenges, meet their carbon reduction targets, and improve project margins — meaning the option to utilise new technology is no longer a ‘nice to have’, but a growing necessity in a very competitive and fast-moving market.
We now find ourselves in a technology-enabled world where thousands of solutions exist (on both the software and the hardware side). Technology is playing a pivotal role in attempting to plug the gap between the industry and the huge (and complex) problem of climate change.
But how do you know which technology solutions to use? There is so much noise…
At the start of July, my colleague Michelle Wilk (Investment Manager) hosted our ecosystem for a virtual portfolio showcase aptly titled Future of Low-Carbon Construction Tech. Four companies from our portfolio tackling challenges in the construction and materials space had the opportunity to pitch their solutions to a global audience of target customers and investors.
This article will focus on four built-world software solutions. Each has been backed by our team at Pi Labs after careful competitive analysis and rigorous diligence, and each is focused on solving a very specific problem in the materials and supply chain space.
Let’s dive into how these companies can help you and your team lead the charge toward a more digital and sustainable future.
1. Trunk: Tech to accelerate your delivery of sustainable buildings worldwide
Trunk’s software platform optimises offsite manufacturing and site assembly by offering live dashboards and production targets. This ensures your projects stay on track, which in turn reduces waste time and unnecessary resource use. By reducing non-value-add activities, Trunk helps lower your overall carbon footprint.
Plus, with features like pre-flight checks and dispatch checks, you can ensure quality at every step, reducing the risk of costly and environmentally detrimental rework. It’s like having a personal trainer for your production line, pushing you to hit your sustainability goals every day!
Want to save time and environmental waste during your offsite manufacturing? Reach out to Trunk’s Founder, Tom (tom@trunk.works), directly!
2. Pathways: Climate intelligence for construction to reduce the embodied carbon of your buildings.
Understanding the environmental impact of your materials is crucial for meaningful carbon reduction, and that’s where Pathways shines. Their platform simplifies the creation of product life cycle analyses (LCAs) and environmental product declarations (EPDs). Think of it as a nutritional label for your materials, but instead of calories, you’re tracking chemicals and carbon emissions.
Pathways’ AI-powered technology integrates seamlessly with your operations, providing real-time visibility into your emissions and helping you identify hotspots for reduction. With automated, real-time reporting, you can eliminate the cumbersome manual processes and focus on decarbonizing your products efficiently.
Interested in automatically generated “nutritional labels” for your materials? Reach out to Pathways’ CEO & Co-founder Leise (leise@pathwaysai.co) directly!
3. Alrik: Turning your logistics into a competitive advantage
If logistics were a sport, Alrik would be your coach, data analyst, and cheerleader all rolled into one. Alrik’s software helps manage your fleet and shipping operations while keeping a keen eye on cost and emissions data. By using Alrik’s Fleet Planner and Fleet on Demand, you can optimize routes, update time slots, and utilize a vast carrier network to ship goods more efficiently. This not only saves money but significantly cuts down on emissions. With real-time data on costs and emissions, you can make informed decisions that benefit both your bottom line and the planet.
Keen to supercharge your logistics with Alrik? Reach out to Alrik’s Co-founder Axel (a@alrik.com) directly!
4. Tangible: Transforming your buildings into a climate solution.
Early planning can make a world of difference on sustainability impact, and Tangible offers the tools to do just that. Their platform provides real-time carbon data, automated take-offs, and EPD mapping to help you cut carbon and costs from the get-go.
Whether you’re at the initial design stage, in full swing of construction, or retrofitting existing stock, Tangible gives smart recommendations for reducing emissions. With real-time data management and API integration, you can ensure compliance and align with sustainability standards effortlessly.
Fancy decarbonising your developments? Reach out to Tangible’s Co-founder Nicole (nicole@tangiblematerials.com) directly!
If there’s anything I have come to understand in ~4-years of working closely with our global ecosystem of industry stakeholders, it is that the biggest barrier to effective tech deployment is not company size… this is the convenient excuse. It is fundamentally a two-pronged issue: 1) a necessity not to upset the status quo and replace “part of the furniture” incumbent systems, and 2) more importantly, a culture of innovation and adoption that is not encouraged or incentivised business-wide.
Reducing your carbon impact isn’t just about saving the planet — it’s also about staying ahead in a market that increasingly values sustainability. Ultimately, then, your motivating factors should be two-fold (as they are for us and our team at Pi Labs):
- First, we believe that by investing in the leading emerging technologies focused on making the built world more digital and more sustainable, we are aligning ourselves to rockstar founders bringing meaningful change to the built environment and, ultimately, our planet.
- Second, we see sustainability as solving the greatest challenge in the built environment. When strong emerging tech solutions are coupled with a robust business model, promising founder / management team fundamentals, and intentional product-market-fit, we are not only backing companies for impact, but for outsized returns too.
If any of the companies mentioned above resonates with a challenge you, your team, or one of your colleagues is facing, I’d highly encourage you to reach out. If you’d prefer a warm introduction, please reach out to me (henry@pilabs.vc) directly, and I’ll be happy to make the introduction.
