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honext healthy materials
77 Plays5 years ago
GUEST / Pol Merino of HONEXT
HOST / Matt Morley
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction with Paul Merino
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to episode 22 of the Green and Healthy Places podcast, in which we explore the worlds of wellbeing and sustainability in real estate and hospitality today. This episode is with Paul Merino of Onexed here in Barcelona, maker of an innovative circular economy building material that makes use of paper mill waste.
Transforming Waste into Sustainable Materials
00:00:32
Speaker
A youthful, upbeat and driven leader, Poles speaks passionately about their mission to convert waste into practical yet aesthetically appealing building materials, specifically partition boards, that combine form, function and a respect for the environment. Showing that there's an alternative to linear economy construction materials that
00:00:51
Speaker
Often do off gas during their lifetime and always end up in landfill at the end of their life. Onyx have developed an online presence that breaks conventions in many ways. So be sure to check out onyxmaterial.com for their nature inspired branding.
00:01:08
Speaker
The product is cradle to cradle certified meaning it meets the highest standards in sustainability and the zero environmental impact factory can now in theory be replicated in multiple locations always close to another paper mill all around Europe over the coming years.
Overview of Onex and its Innovations
00:01:23
Speaker
If you enjoy this type of content please consider subscribing and you can find me online at mattemorley.net. Here is Paul Marino from Onyxt.
00:01:35
Speaker
Well, really excited to have you on today. Thanks for sharing a bit of your time. Your brand seems to really...
00:01:43
Speaker
It's incredibly well communicated online and it comes across, it's just a beautiful bit of work. And yet you're dealing with something that's quite, you know, the material itself, you're managing to somehow create this narrative around it. And that was what appealed to me personally. And that was why I wanted to connect with you today. I'm not going to try and describe what you do. Why don't you give us like the quick 30 second description of what Onyx does.
00:02:08
Speaker
Thank you, Matt, for having us here today. What we do, it's pretty simple, actually. We get something that people consider waste and transform it into a material which has a lifespan of 25 years and can be perpetually recycled. So our goal is how can we try and do things better, especially in the construction industry, where it's way too traditional and way too few changes have happened in the last years.
Health and Environmental Issues of Traditional Materials
00:02:36
Speaker
So when you think about what the main environmental problems are then with building materials, for those of us who are involved in this world, we can sometimes, even me, I'm sometimes surprised at the health risks or the issues with recycling of some of the materials that are very, very common in most buildings, especially in developing regions. From your perspective, what's the problem you're trying to fix?
00:03:03
Speaker
What we are trying to fix is that it is a way to linear economy. Over the last years, construction has grown drastically, exponentially, and the companies that were manufacturing the materials, what they have tried to do is increase productivity and reduce costs. Just looking at the next step of what they're producing, and that is once it is installed. They make products that, let's say mechanically, meet everything that needs for that application, but that's all they care.
00:03:33
Speaker
It's, let's say, to us, it makes no sense because, for instance, during the life cycle or during the application of a material, it has an impact on people's health. And those companies, they didn't look into it, into volatile compounds, emissions, especially. Some of them have proven cancer. There are also studies showing that internal indoor environments with no emissions make people more productive.
00:04:03
Speaker
And it's not just that, but also that once those materials, I mean, construction materials, we renew buildings pretty often. The way they are thought till now, they always end up in a landfill because when you try to reduce cost and when your only driver to increase capacity is let's reduce cost, you end up mixing the worst things that may come to your mind. And again, that will give good mechanical properties.
00:04:33
Speaker
But that's it. It destroys any potential reuse of the raw materials in those construction materials.
00:04:43
Speaker
Okay, so I'm hearing two parts to this then. One is the increasingly talked about, but actually really not very well understood by the majority of your average person and even those working in real estate, that there is a health impact of materials that we use
00:05:05
Speaker
in the construction of the building and also in the fit-out and interior. So on one side, the impact on us as users and occupants. But then the other end is more, well, how is the material created and what happens to it at its end of life, right? Which is kind of where the landfill and circularity piece comes in. And how have you tried to change the game? How are you trying to change the approach of the industry with what you
Enzyme-Based Process for Improved Sustainability
00:05:27
Speaker
do at Onyx? Okay, yeah, indeed, those are the two problems. And we tried
00:05:32
Speaker
to change like when we're a startup and when we thought how we wanted to do things, we design that so that the whole model, everything that we do would have a positive impact on those. And let's say on the application side, the main problem with current materials is that they use resins. And I mean, normally they, most of them, especially wood-based materials, they use version fibers or straw material, then they mix them together with
00:06:00
Speaker
resins, either formaldehyde-based or not, apply a lot of heat and pressure. And then this material, due to the resin and the heat and pressure applied, it keeps on emitting formaldehyde or other volatile organic compounds over the whole lifespan while it is used. And that, to us, the way we, let's say,
00:06:26
Speaker
went around this and avoid it was when we started designing our process, we thought first thing is it cannot have any resin because without resins, we solve both problems. We avoid emissions, but again, as we do not mix a virgin material with, when you mix it with resin, it's impossible to separate. And that's why it ends up in a landfill. So if we avoid resins, we solve both problems at once. So our initial research was on how can we achieve the mechanical properties needed for the
00:06:56
Speaker
for indoor applications as partitions without resins. And what we came up with was enzymes that allow us to increase the cellulose fibres natural ability to link among them. And so leaving aside the resin piece, then the raw material itself is coming from? It's waste. We take the end of life of paper fibre. So we work with paper mills using recovered paper as raw material.
00:07:24
Speaker
There is a small fraction that they can no longer use because it has been too damaged. And that's the one that we use as raw material. So what you might call, say, like a byproduct of an existing industry that would otherwise presumably go to landfill itself? It's actually the main industrial waste. And it depends a bit on the country and regulations. It goes to landfill, others need to generate thermal power. But at the very end, the only thing paper mills do with it is pay to get rid of it.
00:07:55
Speaker
So we actually cycle it and generate the material where we don't damage those fibers anymore. And that allows us to keep on using them for several cycles.
00:08:10
Speaker
It would be interesting to understand that process of how you take paper waste, your alternative resin or a way to bind it together and then at the other end comes effectively partition boards. But to those who perhaps don't necessarily understand where those sit within the context of an interior space, like where are the partition boards around us and how does the construction industry use them because they're pretty dominant. And they're actually pretty simple. I mean, partition boards are
00:08:40
Speaker
The walls and ceilings you get to see, that's it. And they are non-structural material, so it's not that you need a super strong board there, because it doesn't... Actually, the main properties of partition boards are reaction to water and reaction to fire, because in water, you don't want them to, let's say, move in case there's humidity changes, because you would see the joints.
00:09:01
Speaker
And reaction to fire, obviously, because it's the first protection, especially for the room next to you. So those are the main properties there. That's why right now we do not meet the mechanic. We still do not have the mechanical strength of an MDF, but we have a better reaction to fire, to water and to fire. We have a lower dilation when due to humidity changes. And that's why material itself, it's perfect for partitioning. And it also, it goes to us.
00:09:29
Speaker
It makes no sense for such a, let's say a simple application. It makes no sense to cut down trees and generate mountains of waste. And besides, because construction or refurbishing of buildings nowadays, we really often change the distribution inside houses and offices. So even though drywall may have a 50 years lifespan,
00:09:55
Speaker
I don't think it has ever been installed and been in place for 50 years. So we really need on those places that are, let's say, flexible, we need to put materials that meet all the requirements, but at the same time with the lowest environmental impact.
Design and Recyclability of Partition Boards
00:10:15
Speaker
I noticed that you've taken this really unique approach of presenting the product, so you're presenting the partition boards as almost the design object in itself. In terms of how you communicate, that really stands out because typically partition boards are something that happens, we then cover them up. We don't necessarily look at them. Whereas you've tried to elevate, it seems,
00:10:39
Speaker
the aesthetics into and almost bring it so that it can stand by itself as potentially something that you wouldn't necessarily cover. Is that right? Yeah, that's our goal right now because I mean, obviously, we have a small production and we want to be seen. I mean, we do believe it adds value and being with the production that we have right now, it's
00:11:03
Speaker
We want to be there and we want to work with people who understand that waste or let's say that residents are not something to get rid of, but something that can be beautiful and can be installed and adds a lot of value to their buildings. And also because the lower the post-processing that we do to any material, we reduce the environmental impact and also the easiest it is to recycle. Say for instance,
00:11:31
Speaker
wood can be wood, would be, and it could be recycled. But at the moment that we paint on it or that we add a melamine layer on top of it, okay, that's, it's done for it. It goes to allow it because it's afterwards, it's way too complicated to recycle drywall could be recycled. But when we paint on it, then we add, we screw it to an aluminum structure in the back. It's, it actually the,
00:11:59
Speaker
all this complicates the recycling process. And as those companies say, I do no longer want to have a headache of trying to separate those compounds. And so I'd rather throw it to landfill. And that's why. So by removing, so you then effectively provide the option of just letting it be in its raw state. Yeah. And we are actually also working with woodworking industrials that allow for those, obviously, I mean,
00:12:24
Speaker
partitions have to be painted sometimes. So we are working with industrials that paint the boards and that can install it in a way where, first point, we ensure that anything that is added to Honex meets the highest sustainability criteria. And here we are based on the crowd to crowd certification. And then that any step that or any post-processing that is done to it
00:12:48
Speaker
never jeopardizes the possibility to recycle the material. Let's say by tracing what happens to Honex after it leaves our factory we ensure that once it reaches its end we can put it back in the process and make a new board out of it. So we touched on it a little earlier but that production process then of
00:13:12
Speaker
water, sorry, waste, fiber and water and you're creating a new material. In the very sort of simplest of terms, like how does that work? Because you're based near Barcelona, you have your main factory there and that's where you're starting this. So what's happening in that space? Like what is that process? Okay. I mean, think of when you take paper, if you throw some water in it and you shape it when it's dry, it has some mechanical properties. I mean, it gives that shape. So
00:13:38
Speaker
Let's say that's a similar process to what we do. We take the slats from the paper mills nearby our factory. We dilute it in water. And what we do is we add enzymes, proteins on this fiber dilution that increase this natural ability of the fiber to link among them. So say in this paper that you would shape, if we put the enzymes, it's 10 times stronger afterwards. Then we shape it.
00:14:06
Speaker
Let's say it's a mold with pressure and vacuum, and we dry it. And that's our process. I mean, when we dry this, when we generate the mechanical properties, because it's a moment when you remove water to heat of the cellulose fibers, hydrogen bonds are generated. And those are the ones that we maximized to ensure the mechanical properties of the board. So it's actually a pretty simple process. It's nature-based, because all the enzymes we use
00:14:35
Speaker
come from very common microorganisms in the nature. But it's also what allows us, I mean, I'd say it's simple and it's nature-based. And thanks to that, it follows all the nature cycle where we can recycle, where we can, I mean, nature, when things that happen in nature, they can be undone. I mean, nature has found a way to do them and to, let's say, undo them. So it's about, let's copy that.
00:15:03
Speaker
in our recycling strategy so how can we make something really good but at the same time at the end of its life get it back and that's why to us the enzymes were the key. I do a lot of work with the biophilic design interiors whether it's a gym or a co-working space and you know I'm always trying to describe what that means to a client and for me when you have
00:15:27
Speaker
What you just described sounds to me like biophilia or that connection to nature because nature just has it worked out, right? It's not going to harm itself. Therefore, it's going to be environmentally friendly and sustainable. And it doesn't really want to harm one component of itself, which is the human being. So it's healthy on one side.
00:15:44
Speaker
it's natural in the kind of which is the bridge between the two but at the same time it's not damaging to the environment so i think that that sort of triangle is a really interesting space to be operating in you mentioned the idea of these healthy certifications i know that's something that you follow for example cradle to cradle so what role how important
00:16:05
Speaker
is that to have a third party certification for a new product when you're sort of in the launch phase of a business needing that name to, what does it offer to you? Is it like a quality guarantee? Yeah, it is key. It's an external validation that we do things the best way we can. Because over the past few years and also now, there's been a lot of greenwashing. I mean, obviously, the companies in the market, they have
00:16:32
Speaker
Their approach has been, OK, let's try to reduce the harm we are doing it. And so they have more powerful boys than we do have. So the key to differentiate and to really explain why we do things, we don't reduce impact. But from design, we generate a positive impact, was to target crowd to crowd, achieving silver, and also understanding what was needed to become gold.
00:17:02
Speaker
and that's something that it's going to happen next year. But not just that. The second point was that we took it in our DNA. We were born sustainable, and when we created Honex, that was the main driver. But we also needed the standard to be able to easily explain it to the public. And to us, Crawl2Crawl was that. Whereas many companies, let's say they have a huge portfolio of products, and one of them
00:17:30
Speaker
is their sustainable boards. The other is the one with a lot of emissions. At everything that we do, any product that we launch meets all crawler to crawler criteria. So for us, it was also really good to have these protocols that were easy to explain to the public. And for instance, crawler to crawler has a banned substances list of over 400 substances.
00:17:56
Speaker
anything that comes in our process. I mean, when we want to make, say, an increased fire reaction, mechanical strength, any additive that we test, the first screen that it goes is through that. If it has any of those one substances, it does not go in the process. And so it's not just that we could communicate to the public, hey, it's not just us saying that we have a super environmentally friendly process and product, but Cloud to Cloud has certified
Third-Party Certifications and Sustainability Assurance
00:18:22
Speaker
it. And we've learned a lot from it.
00:18:25
Speaker
to ensure that anything that we launch, it's more and more sustainable. It becomes almost like a certified organic food. It tells you the whole story. It tells you the background of how you got there. And in very short, even just in a symbol, it says, OK, this is a product. And therefore, behind that product, there's a business and an organization that has really, really taken this message to its heart because Cradle to Cradle is not an easy
00:18:54
Speaker
uh certification for sure i recommend anyone who hasn't read the book that's also a really good intro to to that that world so stepping back then to the organizational level i was fascinated to see that you managed to do this you've got you've got on board early with the negative carbon footprint a lot of businesses are now talking about how they're going to reduce their carbon emissions over the next five years
00:19:16
Speaker
10 years in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals etc but you're already doing it, you're already out there so describe that process like that was obviously part of your mission from the
Carbon-Negative Production and Sustainable Practices
00:19:27
Speaker
beginning. Yes and especially the startup where we have a few things to find it was let's say it was really hard to
00:19:37
Speaker
Sorry, let me rephrase it. The only way we could have a positive impact without having a historical data was to go to an extreme. And that's why the factory that we have, we built it in a landfill where all the energy we use, the electricity and heat comes from waste. We generate value gas from the digestion of organic waste and that's all the energy that we use. But not just that, ours is a water-based process, so we need actually a lot of water.
00:20:05
Speaker
And what we do is all the liquids, the, the leakages from the landfill. We clean them. And that's our process water. And once we have to clean it we send it back to the water treatment station and they put it back to us. So, as we couldn't have
00:20:22
Speaker
We even know what our consumption would be of water, of heat, electricity. When we started the factory, we obviously had some hypotheses, but it was not nothing certain. So we said, OK, whatever it is, we have to find a way that it has no impact. And that was the beginning of it. And then this, obviously, from a financial point of view, it was much more expensive. We had to do a much bigger investment that it would have gone to any
00:20:52
Speaker
industrial area and build a factory there. But it makes sense. And it is the way that we see things. I mean, to us, it's not simply the financial return of the startup, but it is that everything that we do makes sense from a circular point of view.
00:21:14
Speaker
Yeah, it does make sense and certainly looking from outside, you know, it just is very clear that that value system is running all the way through your business. You see other businesses that are perhaps moving, as you say, like they have one product or a product range that is in that sustainable space, but then the rest of the organization hasn't had the time or
00:21:35
Speaker
They weren't built that way and they have history behind them and it's like a big ship that has to change direction. Whereas you have the opportunity in a sense to start out on that same course. So you knew what the product was going to be.
00:21:49
Speaker
And you had this value system at a corporate startup level, but then there's this piece in between around actually constructing the factory. So who was involved in that? You had presumably a team of consultants to make that happen because that piece is perhaps beyond your expertise in the product. We had some of our shareholders that are industrial companies. They helped us a lot on that. And also in the team, we had a
00:22:16
Speaker
and a person with a lot of industrial experience, and they managed to build a factory. Having said that, we made lots of mistakes, but luckily we made them now because we've learned a lot from them. But clearly, I mean, we had a lot of help, internal and external, to be in it. Better to get it done. And then you're on the right path, right? Yeah, I mean, it was actually... Because we have the process
00:22:46
Speaker
attended. We had validated the process in semi-industrial scale before building the factory as well as the material. And so we were like, instead of building us a factory, let's see if an industrial, if a paper mill wants to do it. And they obviously back then, it was too risky for them. Paper mill companies have been running for hundreds of years and they know how to make paper and how to sell paper, but nothing else. And that's what, at a point, it forced us to build
00:23:14
Speaker
a proper industrial factory. Luckily, we had a lot of help and now it makes a lot of sense because it gives us independence. We have the patent from one side, but we have learned so much on running an industrial site from the other. As a company, it brought us much more value.
00:23:36
Speaker
And so how do you then expand beyond Spain, Barcelona, where you are now in terms of, is it, obviously there's the further you're exporting, the greater the impacts again on that. So the transportation and there's an environmental question around that. So I know you're interested in the idea of doing it elsewhere and the idea is clearly to expand. So what does that look like for you as a business plan over the next five years? We have the, we are lucky because our raw material is
00:24:06
Speaker
is the paper mill waste, and paper mills have already, let's say paper doesn't travel well, so they already need the effort to be close where their demand is, and those are the big cities. Thus, we want to take advantage of this, and instead of having a macro side of Honex here in Spain to reduce cost and then ship it all over, we have designed the technology in a way that it can be easily implemented inside or beside the paper mill locally.
Scalable Expansion Model in Europe
00:24:32
Speaker
And so that it transforms their waste right where it is produced. So actually we avoid waste generation and the material it manufactures is just for the regional market because paper mills, let's say they're normal or mid-sized paper mills, they generate 20,000 to 30,000 tons of this waste a year. In terms of material, in terms of partitioning, that's nothing in a national market. So that is what allows us, okay, by being in a paper mill, whatever they generate,
00:25:02
Speaker
stays in their country because it actually will not meet all the demand there. And that's the way that we see of avoiding the impact of transportation, that I think it's over one third globally in terms of CO2 emissions. And on the other side also of empowering local industrials that now have a problem, because the paper mill industry in the last years, there has been a lot, like five companies growing a lot
00:25:33
Speaker
It's a bit of an oligopoly and killing, let's say, the small to mid-sized companies. Those are the ones that are really struggling with the waste and everything. It also allows us to collaborate with them, empower their production for them to avoid the generation of any waste, make a product for the local market, and to us also to acquire the knowledge, their industrial knowledge, which is huge.
00:26:01
Speaker
So we generate really a win-win. It sounds like a great model. I mean, it's fully scalable, right? I mean, you could do 10 of those just in Europe if you wanted to. Yeah, because besides the technology itself, we've been working a lot on that. Let's say the line would be modular. We're not going to engineer a production line based on the needs of each paper mill, but instead of that, we're going to replicate what we already have, that we know it works, we know how it works, we know its production.
00:26:30
Speaker
in different paper mills. And that's, this allows for a fast scalability because we, otherwise, if we engineer a site construct and everything that goes, that is easily three years. If you just replicate something that it's working, you can do so in a year.
00:26:48
Speaker
Nice. One final question for you. I've noticed that you're involved in what's called the European Green Bauhaus and talk to us a bit about that.
Creating Sustainable Neighborhoods in Europe
00:26:58
Speaker
First of all, what is it and how did you get involved and what are the benefits for you and being part of that? It's a project that is going to happen in the next three to five years where we want to build three
00:27:11
Speaker
three sustainable neighborhoods over Europe in three different latitudes that let's say represent all the weather that we see in Europe. So let's try to build small neighborhoods with the best environmental impact in terms of energy efficiency, waste production and so on. And that afterwards serve as a model to replicate all over Europe and thus improve a lot the impact of construction.
00:27:38
Speaker
And we got involved in it because back in 2018, we were awarded a European grant. They consider us one of the most promising startups in the environmental field. And this put us in contact with lots of actors over Europe with construction companies. And by the end of last year, this opportunity appeared. It's actually a project that we would like it to be partially funded by the
00:28:06
Speaker
by the Green Deal, and we are working on it. But we are 20 companies all together. The neighborhoods will happen in Finland, France, and in Spain. And we bring in the expertise on really circular materials. And the challenges, actually, we have been challenged to make boards for flooring and for external users.
00:28:34
Speaker
It's going to be an interesting few years for you. I can see that. Look, I don't know. It just looks like you could be in the right place at the right time and you've got a great product and a great business and brand profile already. So congratulations. I know it probably hasn't been easy, but you're smiling and I think that was going to be a very exciting few years for you guys. It's been challenging, but we've learned a lot. We've made an amazing team and I agree with you. Now it's the momentum.
00:29:00
Speaker
I mean, it's a momentum for us and for the companies in similar stage like ours in the environment. I mean, people are looking at us. The market is starting to react because five years ago you told sustainability in Spain. He laughed at your face. And there was a reason for that. We suffered the biggest crisis in 2008 and it was due to construction. So no one wanted to feel construction and innovation in construction. Well, that was, but now people are starting to understand we are
00:29:29
Speaker
Over the last year, we have been locked in the house for several days in a row. So we get more concern on what's happening there on those indoor environments. And it is the moment, it is the moment. And we really look, we're really excited about what is to come in the next years.
Connecting with Onex for More Information
00:29:49
Speaker
So in terms of communication online, if people want to reach out, learn more, connect with you guys, what's the best route?
00:29:55
Speaker
I would say if they can contact us through our website or we also have social media, if anyone has any Instagram, you can see some of our projects, also the materials that we use, if you have questions, you can contact us from anywhere because we will respond. We'll put the links in the show notes. Bo, thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Matt.