The Climate Cycle

• Decarbonizing Cement with Apoorv Sinha, Carbon Upcycling

  Apoorv Sinha is the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Upcycling Technologies, a Calgary-based startup turning industrial waste and captured carbon into low-cement.Cement is a huge part of modern life but also one of the biggest sources of carbon pollution. Carbon Upcycling helps cement producers lower their emissions by replacing traditional cement with low-carbon alternatives made from industrial or mine waste and reacting it with CO2 to permanently lock away carbon.Their tech slots right into existing plants and helps cement makers localize their supply chains, making it easier and cheaper to cut emissions while building the infrastructure Canada needs.About ApoorvApoorv is a chemical engineer by trade and has extensive experience in conventional energy.Since launching Carbon Upcycling in 2014, he’s built partnerships with some of the biggest cement companies in the world, including CRH, Titan, and CEMEX, and just closed a major funding round led by Builders Vision.Talking PointsHow waste from mining and steelmaking can replace emissions-heavy cement ingredientsWhy working with local materials matters for climate, economics, and supply chain securityWhat it takes to scale a startup in Canada’s hard-to-decarbonize sectorsThe policy and funding tools that could speed up adoptionWhy Canada's infrastructure push is a huge opportunity for climate tech📬 Stay in the loop on Canadian climate tech: subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Get weekly updates on Canadian climate tech funding, industry news, and trends directly to your inbox.More→ ⁠⁠⁠Check out the full show notes & resources for this episode→ Support the show with a review on Spotify and Apple!→ Send feedback and episode ideas to [email protected]⁠

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• Commercializing Climate Chemistry with RXN Hub

  Morgan Lehtinen and Sebastian Alamillo are the co-founders of RXN Hub, a new facility to help ChemTech ventures scale from lab to market.RXN Hub is tackling one of the biggest and least-addressed challenges in climate tech: how to scale chemical technologies from the lab to commercial scale. Whether you're working on carbon capture, energy storage, or green industrial processes, there’s often nowhere to go once your research is too big for a university but too early for a full-scale plant.Morgan and Sebastian have both lived that experience as chemtech founders, and now they’re building the infrastructure they wish they had to make scaling up faster, easier, and more cost effective.In our conversation, you’ll learn about:Why chemistry is at the core of so many climate solutionsWhat’s driving a renewed interest in chemistry techCrossing the capital and infrastructure valleys of deathHow RXN Hub is cutting costs and complexity for first-of-a-kind projectsWhy international ventures are looking to Canada for their first pilotsThe value of founder experience in building better infrastructure📬 Subscribe to the Climate Tech Canada newsletterGet weekly updates on Canadian climate tech funding, industry news, and trends directly to your inbox.→ ⁠⁠Check out the full show notes & resources for this episode→ Support the show with a review on Spotify and Apple!→ Send feedback and episode ideas to [email protected]

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• Industrializing Mass Timber Construction with OD Krieg, Intelligent City

  Oliver David (OD) Krieg is the President of Intelligent City, a Vancouver-based company redefining how we build housing using mass timber, advanced manufacturing, and parametric design. Intelligent City is working to solve Canada’s climate and housing crises.About Intelligent City: Intelligent City manufactures prefabricated building panels out of renewable mass timber. Their platform enables faster, lower-carbon, and higher-quality housing construction that can scale across Canadian cities.About OD: With a background in architecture, robotics, and computational design, OD was one of the earliest team members at Intelligent City. He’s helped guide the company from early research and prototyping to full-scale manufacturing, including recent projects in Vancouver and Toronto. Their work is pushing the frontier of what’s possible in Canada’s construction and climate sectors.In our conversation, we discuss:The carbon math behind mass timber and why end-of-life planning mattersWhat’s slowing down construction, from financing models to permittingWhat it takes to get developers and builders to shift mindsets and start exploring mass timber and prefabThe role of Canada’s forest supply chain in enabling sustainable constructionOD’s vision for local factories building homes across across the countryYou’ll gain firsthand insight into what it takes to bring climate tech into a sector that can be slow to change and adapt, and why prefab construction might finally be ready to scale in Canada.📬 Subscribe to the Climate Tech Canada newsletter Get weekly updates on Canadian climate tech funding, industry news, and trends directly to your inbox. → ⁠⁠Check out the full show notes & resources mentioned in this episode⁠⁠→ Support the show with a review on Spotify and Apple!→ Send feedback and episode ideas to [email protected]

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• Smarter Tools for Scaling Home Retrofits with Arman Mottaghi, Properate

  Canada needs to retrofit millions of homes - fast. But outdated tools, confusing incentives, and a narrow focus on ROI are holding us back.In this episode, Arman Mottaghi, CEO of Properate, lays out what it will take to bring retrofits to scale. We explore how Properate is rebuilding the software stack for home upgrades, why health and comfort are the real drivers of adoption, and how single-family homes - an overlooked part of our built environment - could become a climate linchpin.We cover:- The hidden impact of low-rise residential buildings- What’s broken in Canada’s retrofit ecosystem- How Properate is bringing energy assessments into the 21st century- Why indoor air quality could be the secret weapon to unlock more retrofits- Navigating ROI without consumer carbon pricing - Creating feedback loops across governments, homeowner, and contractors- Bootstrapping a climate tech company without VC fundingThis is a conversation about the systems change behind climate tech and what it takes to create momentum in a market.→ Check out the full show notes and resources on our website👉 Stay in the loop: Subscribe to the Climate Tech Canada newsletter.Get weekly funding updates, industry news, and Canadian climate tech insights. Sign up here💬 Enjoyed the episode? Leave a review or drop us a line at [email protected].

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• Turning Rooftop Beehives into Nature Intelligence with Nyla Ahmad, Alvéole

  Nyla Ahmad is the COO at Alvéole, a company helping commercial real estate go nature-positive, starting with rooftop beehives. What began as a tool for tenant engagement has evolved into a scalable biodiversity monitoring platform, combining physical infrastructure with environmental data collection.Nyla brings a background in media and telecom, having held senior leadership roles at Rogers and OWL Kids, before making a career pivot into sustainability. At Alvéole, she’s helping property owners prepare for the next wave of ESG disclosures, turn rooftops into biodiversity sensors, and reconnect people with nature.Learn more at https://www.alveole.buzz/In our conversation, we explore:Why biodiversity is the next frontier in ESG—and why it’s so hard to measureHow rooftop beehives act as biosensors, collecting eDNA and pesticide dataWhat’s driving commercial real estate interest in nature-based solutionsThe role of tenant engagement in return-to-office strategiesWhat’s coming in the regulatory landscape (like GRESB and TNFD)How Alvéole is scaling across 70+ cities with 2,200+ hives and 80 million beesLessons from customers, and why data and education go hand in handReflections on a career transition from telecom to climateYou'll gain insight into how real estate owners are starting to measure nature-related risk, how Alvéole blends tech and hands-on experiences to drive action, and why connecting people with nature might be the most overlooked lever in the climate fight.📬 Subscribe to the Climate Tech Canada newsletter and get weekly updates on Canadian climate tech funding, industry news, and trends directly to your inbox. Sign up here. ⁠→ Check out the full show notes and links on our website→ Support the show by leaving a review on Spotify or Apple!→ Send feedback and episode ideas to [email protected]

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