The worldwide demand for wooden might develop by 54% between 2010 and 2050, in accordance with a examine by the World Resources Institute. Whereas some constructing supplies like metal get consistently recycled again into the availability chain, wooden doesn’t. Cambium hopes to repair that.
Cambium appears to be like to construct the availability chain that retains wooden from being wasted by connecting these with already-been-used wooden to the companies and people that want it. Cambium co-founder and CEO Ben Christensen just lately informed TechCrunch’s Found podcast that solely 5% to 10% of wooden will get reused at the moment with most ending up in landfills or become mulch.
“We’re building a better value chain where you can use local material, you can use salvaged material, and all of that is connected through our technology,” Christensen stated. “So that’s what we do is we deliver carbon smart wood, locally salvaged wood, tracked on our technology, to large buyers to build buildings to build furniture to use any sort of thing that you use wood for. And we do that in a really efficient and cost competitive way.”
Demand for extra sustainable wooden has been rising in recent times, Christensen stated, however earlier than Cambium there wasn’t a great system to seek out the recycled wooden. Cambium fixes that and extra he stated. The corporate goes to companies with recycled wooden to promote and reveals them the demand for his or her merchandise whereas additionally promoting its software program that helps with stock administration and level of sale to those suppliers.
Cambium additionally helps consumers get higher visibility into the place their wooden is coming from and may additional cut back their carbon footprint by deciding on an area vendor, Christensen stated.
“People like really, really want to buy this material, we’ve been really overwhelmed with demand there and that helps us get sourcing and volume onto the platform in order to go and meet that demand,” Christensen stated.
Christensen added that the corporate has benefited from a generational shift too as building corporations and folks in wood-related trades retire and the following technology of oldsters in these fields look to undertake know-how and be extra environmentally pleasant.
Cambium was based in 2019 and relies in Washington D.C. The startup has raised greater than $8.5 million in funding from VCs together with The Alumni Fund, Gaingels and MaC Enterprise Capital, amongst others.
