Biohm, a sustainable bio-material construction company has launched a £1.25m funding drive to help increase production in a bid to create a circular economy.
The construction industry currently accounts for 39% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, 11% of which comes from manufacturing building materials.
To help reduce these emissions, Biohm will use commercial and local-authority waste as raw materials for its bio-manufactured products.
The construction of the materials is due to start production at Watchet in Somerset in September, supplying 20 homes a month, rising to 120 further down the line.
The factory will be producing mycelium insulation panels made from mushroom roots and semi-structural construction panels produced from food waste such as orange peel.
The biocomposite materials work on a similar principle to Fiberboard, they combine bulk waste such as orange peels that they collect locally from their special plant-based binders, yielding a strong and fully organic material.
The £1.25m funding will be used to help develop bio-manufacturing technologies to scale up its research into revolutionary, laboratory-grown building products. The funding will also be used to hire more scientists, engineers and designers.
The aim of the company is to create a fully circular economy to tackle consumer waste and to transform the construction industry by moving away from fossil fuel-powered construction materials.
Ehab Sayed, Biohm’s founder and director of innovation, said: ‘Our collaborations with social enterprises and local authorities put social impact at the heart of our business model through community profit share, so we can address start-up scaling challenges very effectively.
‘This generates rapid growth to meet the demand for our materials and will establish Biohm as an IP-rich and a research-driven company that quickly becomes self-sustaining.’
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