Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm happy to be participating in this. I think we have some information that should be addressed in light of our status as a clean technology provider for the natural resource sector. I would like to begin by telling you a bit about CarbonCure, some of the challenges we're facing, and some of the solutions we think would work for ourselves and others who are providing clean technologies in the natural resource sector.
CarbonCure is a Halifax-based technology that offers concrete producers a technology to recycle and sequester waste carbon dioxide into concrete. The CO2 is sourced from local industrial emitters and is injected into concrete during production. A chemical reaction occurs where the CO2 is converted into a mineral, thereby becoming sequestered permanently into concrete while also making the concrete greener, lower cost, and stronger. The technology reduces GHG emissions, lowers production costs, and improves concrete performance, a win-win process.
We recognize that industry today has a very limited budget for spending on new technologies, and because of that we've been successful in deploying a SaaS model, which requires no capital investment at all for industry to adopt clean technology. We think this is a business model that other clean technologies can successfully employ.
CarbonCure has attracted domestic and international venture capital investment and received numerous awards. We were also included in the 2017 budget as a success story for clean technologies. We received the 2016 Manning Innovation Award, as well as the 2016 and 2017 Top 100 Cleantech Award, which looked at over 10,000 clean-tech companies globally. Also we're part of the $20 million Carbon Xprize, a global challenge that looks to commercialize technologies that turn CO2 into commodities.
Concrete made by CarbonCure has been installed in hundreds of construction projects across North America, including York University, Tridel's Hullmark Centre, the Markham Aquatics Centre, and the list goes on and on. We have over 50 plants installed, albeit only two of the roughly 900 concrete plants in Canada are equipped with CarbonCure. So we understand first-hand some of the limitations of clean technology adoption in Canada and how that is relative to other countries where we've had much more success.
I'd like to take a few moments to share some of the solutions we're now working on to turn around that trend and to encourage Canada to adopt more clean technologies. We think those are transferable to other technologies in the natural resources space. I believe there's already adequate support for clean technology companies in the early R and D stage, and many of the policy measures such as procurement and regulations are probably going to take too long to have an impact on the timeframe for clean technology adoption that we're focusing on.
While these policy measures are very important, I believe that the focus should actually be on looking at addressing the valley of death, also known as “crossing the chasm”. What I mean by this is the period when technology companies pass out of the lab and into early commercial high growth. I believe the best way to do that is to focus not on the technology company but rather on the incumbent industries in the natural resource sector. This means developing policies that help these industries adopt technologies and to lower the initial testing or adoption period required to test out these technologies, validate them, and then share those best practices with other incumbents in the industry. I think the key here is focusing on policy measures that would help incumbents within industry to adopt clean technologies, as opposed to focusing on R and D, or long-term market-based approaches such as procurement. I think this is where we'll have the fastest impact and be able to generate a number of other benefits.
I'll tell you a little bit more about a space that we're in called “CO2 utilization”, where I think a lot of parallels can be drawn with other technologies. Canada possesses a global competitive advantage in CO2 utilization technologies. This also builds upon our strength in geological carbon capture and storage. As evidence, about nine of the 27 semi-finalists in the Carbon Xprize a $20-million global CO2 utilization challenge, are Canadian companies. This originated with nearly 2,000 entrants into this competition. CarbonCure is one of those 27.
As well, there is a $400-million investment group called the Global CO22 Initiative, which is investing and commercializing these technologies. They predict, in their report that was written by McKinsey consulting, that this space will generate $1 trillion of new revenue by 2030 and reduce GHG emissions by 10% to 15%. This report is available online.
The provinces of Alberta and Ontario are also targeting this technology sector as a key area of growth in clean technology and GHG reductions, as seen in the OCE program in Ontario, as well as the ERA program, or ERA, in Alberta.
By fostering the development of a CO2 utilization cluster, not only will Canada benefit from the environmental and economic benefits of these technologies, but many spillover benefits will be also realized through increased traditional industry productivity, new business formations, development of pan-Canadian strategic networks and clean technology business scaling and trades.
CO2 utilization is a particularly important carbon mitigation strategy for the cement and concrete sector, and the natural resource sectors generally. There's a large impact for Canada, as concrete is the second most abundant man-made material on earth. It's also Canada's largest manufacturing industry. It contributes roughly 5% of the global GHG emissions. Due to its size, it has a great potential to be able to provide a large demand for clean technologies, and as well a large solution for GHG emissions.
I think the trick with good policy developments in the cement and concrete industry, as well as any other, is not to try to finance a clean-tech option broadly, but to focus on catalyzing change. That's why I believe that financial incentives would be the best measure for early adopters to adopt these technologies under the condition that they share the findings of those technologies broadly; and other organizations or institutions within the federal government can participate in disseminating that knowledge, as well as conducting any additional third-party testing to be able to increase the credibility of those pilot project studies.
To close my comments, I believe there are many Canadian clean technologies that can be very successful. However, a great number of these technologies are failing early because they have not adequately addressed the valley of death challenges. And because of that, we're seeing many clean technology companies in this industry either fail because they've run out of money, because they're not attracting enough of a market domestically, or they're being acquired by foreign companies and being relocated into other markets.
In all of these cases, Canada is not receiving a return on the investment that they've made in nurturing and developing these early technologies because they're not able to succeed in that early technology growth. That's why I believe that financial policy measures which encourage the early adopting of clean technologies in the natural resource sector will lead to widespread change in best practices across the industry.
Thank you very much.