GreenJams

Agrocrete® is a carbon-negative building material made up of crop residues and industrial by-products that reduces the cost of construction by up to 50% and improves the building energy efficiency by up to 25% while reversing climate change. We solve the problems of crop residue burning, which costs the country almost $27Bn annually on health-related expenditure, and the carbon emissions from the built environment which contributes to almost 45% of global carbon emissions because of the space conditioning of buildings and manufacture of construction materials.

When scaled globally, Agrocrete® could potentially eliminate 10% of global carbon emissions, restore 14.9 million years of healthy life in India, and generate revenue of almost $1Tn annually.

The built environment contributes to 45% of global carbon emissions on account of space conditioning of buildings and the manufacture of construction materials. This is because current building materials are poor insulators and also employ carbon-intensive manufacturing processes. 

Across the globe, almost 400 million tons of crop residues are burnt. In India, about 100 million tons of crop residues are burnt, and the phenomenon claims 14.9 million years of healthy life in North India and alone and costs the country almost $27Bn in health-related expenditure annually. The phenomenon especially affects almost 75 million people in the north Indian states of Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. 

Farmers resort to crop residue burning because of the high expenditure involved, which significantly affects the low profits they earn from agriculture. 

We procure the crop residues from the farmers at a fair price and mix them with our proprietary low-carbon mineral binder comprised of industrial by-products from steel, paper and power industries, in a patent-pending zero-emissions manufacturing process. We mould the mix into blocks using a hydraulic press and cure it for a period of 7 days, after which it is ready to be dispatched to the end-users.

By retaining the original chemical composition of the crop residues, we are able to prevent their decomposition and return to the carbon cycle. They are entombed within and chemically bonded with the mineral matrix which ensures that the carbon compounds in the crop residues do not ever escape back into the environment forever.

We are creating value-added products while capturing carbon dioxide and storing it.

While we are solving for the general society at large, our innovation majorly benefits farmers. While crop residue burning does affect public health, farmers are also penalised for it, putting them between a rock and a hard place. We are helping them by paying them Rs. 3000 per acre for the crop residues and taking care of the transportation expenses to our facility. 

Further, affordable housing in India is built using ancient construction materials that do not offer adequate thermal insulation. We are creating high-quality construction materials that are also 50% more thermally insulating, enabling decent living quarters that are also energy efficient. Construction with Agrocrete® blocks is 50% cheaper than the traditional materials.

Also, our business model is based on licensing the technology, where farmers, rural entrepreneurs, farmer producer organisations or even traditional brick manufacturers who have access to crop residues establish their own manufacturing facility. We supply the binder, technical support and market access in exchange for a royalty on the sales of blocks and monies for the binder.

Communities are able to create their own housing and community buildings using carbon-negative building materials that are made using zero-emissions processes without impacting the air quality and enabling carbon storage.

We have deployed our project in Roorkee, Uttarakhand, where aggregated almost 20 tons of paddy straw using the model described above. We have produced about 4000 Agrocrete® blocks and built two buildings - a residential building and an industrial building.

With 50% lower construction cost, we are expecting this technology to explode in the market. It would enable the uptake of more carbon-negative building materials and create newer avenues of application for crop residues. Also, with red bricks and other traditional bricks becoming more expensive, Agrocrete® blocks will have great future value.

Full-time staff: 4

Factory workers: 9

Tarun is the founder and creator Agrocrete®. He has more than 5 years of R&D experience developing vegetal concretes.

JLN Murty, Managing Director, has 35 years of construction experience and over the span of his career has led construction projects worth $1Bn. He also commercialised 3 new construction technologies and installed and operated Asia's largest fly ash brick plant, at the time.

Varun Jami is a lawyer by training and is a finance and legal whiz.

On the factory floor, we have workers coming from all castes, gender and religion without any discrimination. 

At the leadership and executive level, we are looking to expand the team and hire people from across ethnicities, gender, and religion.

We need access to funding, visibility, partnerships and international markets.