Sublime Systems

In the largest-ever advance transaction for clean cement, Microsoft has made a purchase that will deploy up to 622,500 tons of cement products from Sublime's first two factories! For scale reference, that's enough cement to build roughly 31 NFL stadiums. Microsoft has identified Sublime’s innovative low-carbon cement as a material that is essential for its global construction and decarbonization goals. In this early, binding commitment to purchase, Microsoft is enabling us to scale our manufacturing more quickly to become an integral part of the clean construction supply chain.  Cement is a heavy material that has been traditionally produced and used within a local geography, limiting long-term procurement options with global buyers. At the same time, investors want to see committed, high-intent customers before funding the manufacturing scale-up of innovative technologies. Microsoft’s pioneering transaction untangles this knot. The tech giant will deploy Sublime Cement® in their construction projects (think data centers) when geographically possible. Alternatively, they can procure the environmental value separately and enable the material to be used locally around our first plants.  “We need breakthrough, reimagined products like Sublime Cement at scale to reduce emissions—both at Microsoft and globally," said Jeff W Leeper, Vice President of Global Datacenter Construction at Microsoft. Similar to how renewable energy certificates have enabled clean electricity to proliferate more rapidly, this transaction will transform the market for clean cement. It complements broader efforts from RMI and the Center for Green Market Activation (GMA) to establish a book and claim system in cement and concrete, better connecting buyers with the technologies they need—fast.  Read more about this deal in today's story from Michelle Ma at Bloomberg: https://lnkd.in/eVCrpdWJ And read our press release: https://lnkd.in/e7ajU7CF #KeepBuilding. #cleancement #offtake #innovation #manufacturing #commercial #scaleup #datacenter

When it comes to data center construction, technology leaders “want to do everything they can to bankroll emissions reductions now. And that manifests itself in low-carbon cement, in green steel, in all sorts of technologies,” Matthew Nordan of Azolla Ventures told Heatmap News’s Katie Brigham. We are so excited to see this important momentum get the coverage it deserves! The data center construction boom represents an incredible opportunity to scale clean technologies in critical implementations that power our future economic growth. When people first think of sustainable buildings, they often consider the operational emissions savings found in cleaner power sources, yet using low-carbon construction materials enables drastic embodied carbon reductions before the building is even put to use.  This boom is evidenced by the surging capital investment rate from the four “hyperscaler” companies – which is expected to exceed $320B in 2025. And it’s clear this is tightly correlated with increased procurement of cement and concrete. The American Cement Association recently projected that data center cement consumption will reach 25.7% of total office cement consumption by 2027, up from only 7.2% in 2021. These dynamics helped catalyze Microsoft’s recently announced long-term offtake that will deploy up to 623k tons of our low-carbon Sublime Cement®. Sublime continues to engage with the hyperscalers, developers, contractors and concrete producers that are leading America’s data center growth. These companies are eager to hit their important, ambitious emissions reductions targets and simultaneously #KeepBuilding.    Read the story here:  https://lnkd.in/ebuaerGw #datacenter #cleancement #sustainableconstruction #AI

In this career Q&A with Nature Portfolio, our CEO Dr. Leah Ellis shares, "I’m driven by US president John F. Kennedy’s 1962 Moonshot speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas, when he said: 'We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.'" At Sublime Systems, we embrace that call to action every day (and even have it on our website), from a place of courage—choosing to “do something frightening based on belief in the value of a goal.” Read on for a closer look for Leah’s career journey to founding Sublime, our path to scale, and how we’ve assembled a cross-disciplinary team unified by the belief that we can reimagine the material that builds our world, without the carbon footprint that has burdened it for centuries. https://lnkd.in/ePK8WiYi #KeepBuilding #cleancement #courage #leadership

We've been to NYC. We've been to SF. We've been to D.C. But, Heatmap News hadn't yet been to Boston. Until now! On August 7th, we'll be talking about decarbonizing buildings and construction at our first-ever Boston event. And we'll have Massachusetts climate champion Senator Markey keynoting alongside Robinson Meyer. Heatmap's Emily Pontecorvo will also lead a conversation featuring Leah Ellis of Sublime Systems, Johanna Wolfson of Azolla Ventures & more on cleaning up construction. And a big thanks to Mintz ML Strategies, LLC for their support of the event. I hope to see you there! https://lu.ma/uyxi23jn If you want to get involved, give me a shout.

Take a peek at the future of cement. One possible future that is. It's a pretty glorious one, if we choose to take it. https://lnkd.in/e94wMgRC You might recognize The YEARS Project as the folks behind The Years of Living Dangerously, the Emmy award-winning Showtime series, with that other Austro-American correspondent you may have heard of. Less Arnold here, more Columbia Business School, but Leah Ellis did bike the length of Africa before founding Sublime Systems. A lot more on cement decarbonization here: https://lnkd.in/e6Gv8sZf

The World Economic Forum First Movers Coalition has played an early, important thought leadership role around the potential for book and claim systems to accelerate demand and scale-up for new decarbonized technologies in heavy emitting industries. This piece on their website highlights our recent transaction with Microsoft, which leverages book-and-claim for an advanced purchase that enables Microsoft to use Sublime Cement® to reduce corporate emissions, regardless of the location of our future plants. Our SVP of BD and Policy Joe Hicken joined Microsoft’s Julia Fidler at the First Movers Coalition Days event in Geneva last week to share more about how this innovative transaction solves historically intractable problems for cement innovators. It was an invigorating event that gathered buyers and suppliers of the innovative technologies we need to hit net zero globally. Read the post: https://lnkd.in/g5bExG4k #KeepBuilding #cleancement #scaleup #bookandclaim #WEF #FMC

Last week, we hosted the first-ever First Movers Coalition Days event at our offices in Geneva. It brought together around 100 critical voices from our member companies and other private sector players, financial institutions, governments, climate experts and academia. Together, we explored the levers and actions that different stakeholder groups can take to help scale the supply and offtake of deeply decarbonised products in key heavy-emitting industrial sectors. In a time of significant policy shifts, regulatory and geopolitical uncertainty, and supply chain disruptions, the need to reach Net Zero remains critical. The First Movers Coalition’s decarbonisation targets are an important part of heavy-emitting industries getting there. Communication and collaboration remain key to overcoming the policy, technological, economic and market obstacles that many industries face on the path to Net Zero. Our cement & concrete working group session focused on three major considerations that can enable developers to become demand-makers for low-carbon cement: 💡 Procurement signals 📝 Risk mitigation 💰 The right mix of financing incentives - and making them more affordable and accessible Value chain complexity remains a major barrier to building strong business cases for low-carbon cement. While end consumers may be willing to pay a small premium for greener buildings, that demand often doesn't make it upstream to sub-contractors and suppliers. Moving forward, we’ll explore how different players can drive change through specification, communication, education, and support across the value chain. Cross-sectoral discussions and learning played a key role across the two days. Attendees from the aviation, trucking, shipping, and cement & concrete sectors shared insights on implementing alternative chain of custody models. Discussions covered key topics on book & claim, including: ·      Consolidated vs. multiple registries ·      Applicability and additionality ·      Regional compliance ·      Access for incumbents v start-ups ·      Multi-modal approaches In the cement & concrete working group, huge thanks Genevieve Rose Sherman and Krystel Terzis who co-facilitated the session, to Martin Feth, Julia Fidler, Joe Hicken and Fragkoulis Kanavaris for sharing your insights and case studies, and to all who participated! Proud to work alongside our brilliant FMC team - Noam Boussidan, Pedro G Gomez Pensado, Eneida Licaj, Jelena R. Aleksić, Ph.D., Mette Asmussen, Thibault Villien de Gabiole, Giorgio Parolini, Nasim Pour, Pelayo Gonzalez Escalada Mena, Mathilde Haccart, Julia Franchi Scarselli, Anne-Lise Hadzopoulos, Nadia Mondini and Princella Boateng

At Sublime Systems, we’re working to making waves in clean cement—and a few weeks ago, we made a few literal ones, too. We held our “Dunk or Get Dunked” team bonding event, in the patio right outside our HQ at Somernova. Ten teammates (including our CEO and several managers!) braved the chilly waters and their colleagues’ best fastballs. The event was a nice break from our hard work on cement innovation, and a reminder that it’s always a good idea to laugh, not take ourselves too seriously, and cool off! Take a look at the full video on our Instagram linked below and thank you again to our landlords Somernova and Rafi Properties for embracing our crazy ideas and to our incredible Sublime Social Committee, led by Sai Akshay Ponduru, for putting this on. Video on Instagram: https://lnkd.in/eRT3vN5b #KeepBuilding #Innovation #NextGenCement

Low-carbon cement isn’t a future vision - it’s happening now! 🏗️ In 2024, Turner became the first general contractor to commercially implement Sublime Systems zero-carbon, using it at One Boston Wharf. This early collaboration helped demonstrate the material’s real-world potential, and today, Sublime is expanding access through a growing channel distribution partner program. We’re proud to support innovations that move sustainable materials from pilot to practice. For more on our sustainability efforts, visit: https://lnkd.in/eThtzrpA For more on the Sublime channel distribution program, visit: https://lnkd.in/gJgRY39x #SublimeCement #EmbodiedCarbon #SustainableConstruction #TurnerInnovation #NetZeroMaterials #BuiltEnvironment

We at Sublime are proud to join the next generation of Western Massachusetts innovators at HardTech Holyoke on June 18! To register and learn more, head to hardtechholyoke.org! #KeepBuilding #HardTechHolyoke #Innovation