Episode Transcript
Jackie De Burca here for Constructive Voices. And I'm super excited to start off the season four of Constructive Voices with a superb guest who's actually been featured in Time on the list that Time does of the 100 top climate people for 2024. Now you're going to learn an awful lot from Ryan Gilliam. Ryan is the CEO and co founder of Forterra. As you probably realize, cement production is actually responsible for around 8% of all global emissions. It's a really stubborn industry to decarbonize because of course it is so energy intensive.
Now I'm going to be chatting with Ryan. I'm delighted that he's here. Thank you so much for taking the time.
[00:00:57] Ryan Gilliam: Great. Well, thanks so much for having me. Yeah, so my name is Ryan Gilliam and just as a bit of background. So I'm, I always say I'm a tech, tech guy at heart. I did my Undergrad and my PhD in Materials Engineering and I've spent my whole career now in the sustainability space founding multiple companies that are really all focused on looking at old industries where the technologies were developed before CO2 and energy efficiency and things like that were really a focus. And so it's knowing what we know now, how best can we design these technologies to be better for the environment as well?
[00:01:35] Jackie De Burca: So are you somebody who kind of like dreams about your work?
[00:01:38] Ryan Gilliam: That is, yes, unfortunately, too much.
There's a lot of both dreaming nights and sleepless nights, always thinking about the next thing or how to fix problems. I think the hardest part of developing a new technology is it's just an, it's an incredible amount of things that you have to go through to really figure everything out. And so it's, it's hard not to sweat all those details all the time.
[00:02:03] Jackie De Burca: Yes, I totally understand that, Ryan. So let's go from your, your background and what led you to join Forterra.
[00:02:10] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah, so Forterra actually has a, has a long, interesting history.
So I, after finishing my PhD, I was invited out to an interview with a company called Calera in California. And it was really one of the first CO2 to actually, I guess it was the first CO2 to cement company, a company focused on trying to, just to solve the CO2 issue and maybe just for some context, background. So cement is the glue that's in concrete and concrete is the second most consumed thing on earth behind water and upwards of about 8% of the world's CO2 emissions. So this Company really had a great way of looking at the problem and, and they, they took their cues from nature. So the same way nature forms its building blocks, where if you look at how coral reefs form and shells form, you absorb CO2, make a reactive form of these carbonates, that, that actually gives that cementing properties to make, to make coral reefs. And so this company, Calera, that's really what they figured out how to do was to take this, you know, the CO2, take this technology or take this, this concept that exists in nature that's only typically acts as a fraction of a second, but do it in an industrial way. And so that's, that's the company I initially started my, my world into the startup world in and it was an incredibly successful company technically, unfortunately in Cleantech 1.0, you know, everyone thought people would pay for CO2 and that's what would drive adoption. And so it wasn't really grounded in economics. And so I took over that company, pivoted into another sector and shut down the CO2 to cement business quite a few years ago, back in 2014, 2015. And so then fast forward with Forterra. What we finally figured out was, and this was really from our learnings with some of the other companies been part of, is that if you want to have a meaningful impact in the sustainability space, it really means you need to get through economies of scale. You know, it's a huge problem. And so things like cement, these are really large plants, a million plus tons a year. And so the requirement really to make a technology successful is you need to be able to scale it, make it economically competitive. And so what we figured out was that we could take that technology we had developed in the clear days where we had put, you know, 100,000 hours of R&D into, had 100 patents on, piloted the technology for five years, put product into real world applications. We're able to take that technology we had already proven out, but now do it in a way that actually fit within the existing cement ecosystem. So you know, the thesis we have at Forterra is by using the same feedstocks that exist already at every cement plant, by using as much of the capital infrastructure from quarry through to kiln, this already exists. There's a trillion dollars of the capital infrastructure that already exists by making a product that fits under the existing regulations.
And yes, we do believe regulations will change in time, but that that'll take time for adoption. It's a risk averse industry and rightfully so. And in doing all of that, that's really what we learned is that then we could drive the economics to be competitive with cement. And so that's what led us to found, or led myself to found with. With our chief science officer found Forterra. Back in 2019, we actually opened up our lab, our first lab, about a week before COVID So. So great timing for a company, fantastic timing.
But because we had that history behind us and we were able to leverage a technology we'd already spent so many years developing, we were able to found Forterra, take this new business approach that, again, was complementary to the cement world, gave cement companies an opportunity to bolt on our technology beside their plants and really help solve the CO2 issue. It. It allowed us to scale really fast. So we went right from forming the company to our first partnership. We just. Earlier this year, we opened up our first commercial, small commercial plant in California. So we're putting product to market now, and we have now a significant pipeline of commercial plants that are. That are in the works. So it allowed us to go from founding the company to scale really incredibly fast for a new technology.
[00:06:18] Jackie De Burca: That's obviously excellent from your perspective. Now, Forterra is known for its innovative approach to reducing carbon emissions in cement production, as you've pretty much explain to us. Can you explain in more detail, though, how the technology works?
[00:06:32] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah, absolutely. And so the traditional. I mean, the main feedstock to traditional cement is limestone, which is calcium carbonate. That's about 80% of the feedstock to a traditional cement kiln. So because it's the bulk of the feedstock, basically every cement plant is already co located at a limestone quarry. So for us, what we do is we take that same limestone as our feedstock and we still process that through the kiln. In doing so, limestone is about 44% by weight, CO2, and that's actually why cement is so CO2 intensive, is because you lose that 44%, that weight of CO2 to emissions. And then you've also used hydrocarbon fuels to heat it up, which has. Has additional emissions. So in our case, we still put that same limestone into the kiln, but then we capture the CO2 and the lime that comes out of the kiln in our chemical process and recombine those. And then when we do those, under the right conditions, we can actually make a reactive form of limestone. So, I joke, it does sound a little comical. We take limestone and we turn it back into limestone, but we go from. Yeah, but we go from an inert rock that doesn't have any cementing properties to a form of limestone that's actually cementitious. Again it's the same form of limestone that forms coral reefs and shells in nature. And so that's really is doing the process at the right conditions that we can get to this highly engineered particle of limestone that when you add water to it will react in cement.
[00:08:02] Jackie De Burca: Fascinating process obviously. So what like if you were sort of selling this to a new buyer, what would you be saying? How does Forterra cement differ in terms of its performance and cost compared to traditional products?
[00:08:17] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah, and this is a pretty deep question so I'll get a little bit to the thesis on it and also the products itself. So I mentioned before that this is a very risk averse industry and rightfully so. Right. We're putting concrete into into life bearing applications. And so the challenge with that is bringing a new material to the market is going to take time to get people comfortable with the material. Now the benefit we have at Forterra is that because of that original company we have our material out in in real world projects for 15 years now. So we know that our material stands up over time. But the first products that we're going after and this is what those project is what they call a partial cement replacement or a supplementary cementitious material where we only replace a portion of the traditional Portland cement. And now this is allowed under the existing regulations and it's different country by country what what amount is allowed but, but that allows us with a partner to do a blend with our material under the existing regulations so that they can put it to market now and have start having an impact on CO2. We also have the ability to eventually go to 100% our product and 100% our product.
It's now really gives a pathway all the way to get to a net zero CO2 cement. And while we can fit under the existing performance based regulations, that's not what's typically adopted and utilized in all regions of the world. And so that's going to take time for people to get comfortable with the 100% product to adopt it from an actual performance perspective. That's where we're fair bit of differences come in as well. When we do it as a blend we have always purposely, and this is one of our core values of the company is think customer. And so we've done a lot of work both testing customers material with our product as a blend, but also sharing our product for them to test. And what's very clear in the space is actually having improved characteristics or performance isn't necessarily a benefit. And the reason for that is you know, in a traditional cement plant, these are, these are very large installations, million plus tons a year. That cement then goes to a concrete or ready mix, which are much smaller installations, and then from there it goes to the contractor. And so what you don't want to have to do is bring a new material to the market, even if it is improved performance, but then have to retrain every contractor how to use it. So when it comes to blends, we've always been focused on really making sure we match, at least at a minimum, the same strength development, the same set time and the same workability as traditional Portland cement would be in a concrete mix. And that's really the minimum that we go after. So that to some extent, unless the contractor knew it was a different material, they shouldn't be able to see that in actually working with it.
[00:11:09] Jackie De Burca: When it gets, that's, that's obviously, you know, obviously from the product's perspective, that's a really big selling point.
[00:11:15] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah, and I think that that's again, that's from learning from the customers what they're really looking for. When we do 100% our product, we have the ability to get to strength much faster. And so we, we can tailor for, I think, specialty products that would have a lot of interest. And that's going to be a journey that we're going to have to go through with the customers.
[00:11:33] Jackie De Burca: So. Yeah, that's a really interesting answer. And I'm just wondering about cost as well. Of course, whether we like it or not, that's important factor that, that is.
[00:11:43] Ryan Gilliam: By far and away the most important factor. So, so I should have started there in your question.
When it comes to cost, I think generally speaking, you know, there's a lot of different ideas out there in cleantech that you can get different incentives to help to help drive adoption. You can get green premiums. Fundamentally, our view at Forterra is that while green premiums or, or incentives will help with early adoption, just like with wind and solar energy and electric vehicles, unless you have competitive economics standalone, without those green premiums, we believe it's going to be very difficult for companies to adopt a million plus ton a year of product. So the benefit we have is that in running our process, because we capture that 44% of that weight of CO2 that's typically lost back in as product, we're actually able to produce our material cost competitively with traditional Portland cement. So our goal is to go to the market at the same cost as traditional cement.
[00:12:45] Jackie De Burca: Okay. Obviously that's, that's excellent and often for a new, more green material or former power. That's unusual also.
[00:12:53] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah, absolutely. And I should say, I mean we have seen cases where there's an opportunity for grain premiums, obviously there's an opportunity to sell CO2 on the voluntary offset market. Those are things that are going to help make it attractive to the customer to adopt early. And so I think those things are needed. And it's great that, that there's avenues like that put in place to help with early adoption. But again, once you get past, you know, a few commercial plants, the volumes of CO2, the volumes of material are so significant that you're, you're well beyond a premium, a premium market. And so that's why again for us has been focused on having cost competitiveness with traditional cement.
[00:13:33] Jackie De Burca: Okay, fantastic. So cement production as most people know is a huge contributor to the global carbon emissions. How much of an impact can for terrorist technology have in reducing these emissions?
[00:13:46] Ryan Gilliam: I mean the mission for, for our company, and it's actually written across the full wall outside my office to, to make sure I'm aligned every day is paving the way to zero CO2 cement. And so when we get to 100% our product, it's about 80% lower CO2 emissions per ton, even when you're still using the hydrocarbon fuels at the kiln. And then once green energy becomes prevalent enough, cost effective enough, we can then integrate green energy into our process and be a0CO2 emission cement. So our goal is to, is to roll this technology out obviously as broadly as, as possible. I think that the different regions of the world and how cements produce and the cost of producing cement presents different challenges as we look to these different markets. But we're already actively working with partners in North America, in Europe, in Asia. And so it really is about figuring out the right thesis to bring the business to bring the technology into, to every region.
[00:14:44] Jackie De Burca: You mentioned Europe. Obviously we've got a lot of listeners in Europe as well as in the States. What countries are you engaging with at the moment?
[00:14:52] Ryan Gilliam: So we maybe saw almost a couple of years ago now we opened up an office in France and we now have some employees specifically in France, really geared towards looking at different opportunities across Europe. I'd say, you know, most mostly Western Western European countries so far that have been, have been engaged and a lot of the cement majors are based there. So when you look at, you know, really the, the multinationals, a lot of them are based out of, out of Europe. So we're actively engaged across a number of places. We have An MOU for. With a, with a partner for first adopter of. Of pure product out of Belgium. And so we have quite a few different, different regions we're looking at there.
[00:15:33] Jackie De Burca: What about the uk? I know that's non, non EU obviously, but are you engaging with the UK at the moment?
[00:15:40] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah, I mean, so again, when we say think customer, our goal has always been to put our material out as broadly as possible to understand how people are going to look at. So. So there are multiple companies out of. Out of the UK now that have either sent us material for testing or we've sent material and so we're in those discussions.
[00:15:57] Jackie De Burca: Fantastic. Okay, that's really interesting because again, there's a fair percentage of our audience are based in the uk, so that's really relevant. What role do you see Ryan, for Terra playing in the broader movement towards sustainable construction and green building?
[00:16:13] Ryan Gilliam: I think that what's been interesting for me is that, you know, there's a lot of people that think that these industries don't want to change.
I don't know if that's actually necessarily the case. We've had great engagement from cement companies, from ready mix companies and I think it's really more that they are open to change provided it can economically work for them and allow them to continue to do business. And so I would say that for us, the fact that we have an economic pathway resonates well. The fact that we are bolt on, which means we can place our plants adjacent to their existing plant. It doesn't require them to shut down their plant for us to integrate so they can still keep operating, still keep putting material to the market, still keep serving their customers that they have commitments to. We can then build out our plant beside them and then blend in our material as it goes out. And so because of all that, we've seen really a desire to roll out the technology and we've also seen on the ready mix side and the architect side a desire to test a range of different blends of our product to trying to get to higher CO2 reduction. I mean, a lot of the learnings we've had as of late have come actually from the partners testing our material and showing us different mix designs that they think would be beneficial to their customers. So I think, you know, as we, as we continue to commercialize and build more plants, that feedback loop, working with the, working with the concrete ready mix groups, working with the architects is just going to continue to show more opportunities of where the material can be used, which will obviously help with, with further.
[00:17:43] Jackie De Burca: Adoption do you have any interesting anecdotes about this process and some of the people you've been engaging with? You must have some interesting stories.
[00:17:51] Ryan Gilliam: There's, there's always interesting stories as, as you go out to the market. You know, I, I, I said at the beginning comically that we're taking limestone and turning it into limestone. So you could probably imagine that it's sometimes a heavy lift for people to really see and understand what we're doing and why it's, why it's differentiated. You know, this is a, this is an old industry where the Portland traditional, Portland cement is being done for, for hundreds of years. And so the idea of really bringing something new that they haven't seen can, can sometimes leave people scratching their heads. And so you know, the best way that we, we get around that is, is we'll take 100 product during the meeting, we'll mix it, we'll show them that it sets up as, as cement during the meeting which, which normally gets, gets everyone over that, that hurdle. But yes, it's, it's, it's not an easy, it's not an easy sell to, to tech people, you know, from the very get go.
[00:18:47] Jackie De Burca: Okay, I can understand that now. How much of an impact do you feel environmentally that your products will have over their life cycle? Now I know you're talking about blends and 100% products, so I know there's quite a range in there, but generally what were you, what, what would your predictions be?
[00:19:03] Ryan Gilliam: I mean, so the goal really for us is to get to our 100% product out to the market. And that again even with hydrocarbon feedstock, which I think is a reality for the foreseeable future just because of cost competitiveness and, and the fact that renewables aren't 24,7 and you need that for these large scale plants to justify economics.
So that, that puts us at an 80% lower CO2, 70 to 80% lower CO2 per ton. And so that's really the goal we have. I mean we have now more than 25 commercial plants under mouse and we're working towards definitive agreements on them. So for us it's about getting to as many of these plants as we can to, to reduce that, that CO2 in the space. The hard part is, is that cement is just such a large industry. When you're Talking right now 45 billion tons a year, there's projection that's going to get to 7 billion tonnes by 2050. This is just such a huge, huge challenge to go after and it's probably worth pointing out that, you know, there's a lot of people that say, well, why don't we just replace cement, concrete with other building materials that are greener? When you look at, on a ton per ton basis, while concrete is, you know, really CO2 intensive, it's actually one of the lowest CO2 products per ton. The reason why it's just 8% of the world's CO2 emissions is because of just how much of it is actually produced. So, so the reality of concrete is actually on a comparative with other building materials is one of the greener building materials. And it stands up over time, long periods of time. I mean, you can see the whole built environment, built world around you is made up of cement and concrete. So, you know, we don't see that changing. We think that concrete is what creates our civilization. And so we're just hoping that in going through our pathway we can reduce a significant amount of CO2.
[00:20:52] Jackie De Burca: Some of the recent interviews that I've been doing, some of which, some of which have aired and some of which will be aired during November, are very much about like our role with nature and how urban and sort of peri. Urban areas now need to have some element of rewilding. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:21:12] Ryan Gilliam: That's a, I mean, it's a really interesting, interesting question. I think, you know, from just from a personal perspective. Yes, I, I think that, you know, having having nature around you is always, always a good thing. So, so I mean, I think that that from, from a personal side that completely makes sense. I'd like to believe that the way that we're going about making cement concrete because it is better for the environment, because it actually requires less quarrying for every ton of product going out there, that it also has meaningful impacts in those ways as well. But yeah, I mean, I don't live in a city center for, for that reason because of, of wanting some, some nature around me.
[00:21:51] Jackie De Burca: Yeah, absolutely. Fascinating conversations with a Dutch Canadian author who's quite well known, Nadine Khora. And there's even an app that you, you could have heard of yourself called Nature Dose. But if you're like myself, when you live already by choice in a place where there is a lot of nature, you probably don't need to use that. But you, you know, I guess from a business perspective, you're trying to marry the two things and what the future looks like, you know.
[00:22:17] Ryan Gilliam: Absolutely. I mean, I think in, in all cases it's, it's trying to do these, you know, bringing, when you're bringing A new business, there's two competing focuses always right? There's, there's trying to make it profitable so that you can keep scaling, scaling the business. But at the same time, you know, our mandate at the end of the day is really around sustainability, so we need to do that the right way.
[00:22:38] Jackie De Burca: Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of challenges in the times that we're living in, and that can make everything very interesting at the same time. Has been challenging, obviously. Like going back, Ryan, to the response. I mean, I loved your story about the cement pouring during the meeting time, you know, for, for 100% of your product.
What kind of response? I mean, you're in different countries, you're dealing with different types of, you know, entities, architects, as well as ready mixes and so on. What has the response been like from your potential partners in general?
[00:23:11] Ryan Gilliam: So, so I say it's really positive from people wanting to test it. Interested in talking through next steps? I'd say the hard part with a new technology always is, and you know, what I say is everyone wants to be first, to be second. These companies right now are not mandated to, for the most part are not mandated to make a change. Now they've all made commitments by 2050 that they want to get to net zero CO2. So that's why they're obviously interested in looking. But that extra push to get them from looking and being interested in working with it to being an early adopter is always a tough leap for companies to make. And so that's what a lot of the customer discovery we've done is really figuring out how do we solve specific technical pain points or other issues for them or do it in regions where we can leverage enough incentives to give them an economic compelling story of why they should be an early adopter. And this is why with new technologies, they call it the first of a kind valley of death. But it's that getting through that first, those first plants, when you're going from, you know, smaller funding to do research and development to really needing to unlock, you know, tens, hundreds of millions of dollars to build plants, that's really where there's, there's, you know, a lot of these technologies unfortunately end up failing is because you have to be creative in how you get the business solution there to get the first adopters to act.
[00:24:40] Jackie De Burca: Yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely a tricky one being, being, you know, a new, a new to market product or service or technology. With all of that, have you had like, particular markets or areas where you've Seen the greatest potential from your experience so far?
[00:24:57] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah, I mean definitely the United States and Canada because of the, the environmental incentives that are in place between the tax incentives around CO2 and the voluntary offset market and the ability to get money towards capital costs. So even though our, again our technology works and the economics can be competitive without green, having those incentives in place makes it attractive enough on economics that you're willing, that companies are willing to do first of a kind development where there is, there is obviously more risk. And so we've been focused on those regions because of those incentives and because it's, it's a clear path, path forward with, with companies. And that's why we've, we've signed a considerable number of MOUs and are now in definitive agreements with, for a number of plants. The Europe I think has really interesting opportunities and there's a lot of money available on sustainability. To be quite honest, it's figuring out exactly how to unlock that to get the first adopters is still a work in progress. And then when it comes to north and Southeast Asia account for 60% of world's cement production. So obviously if you want to have a meaningful impact on CO2, you eventually as a company have to be there. The, the incentive side piece from the government is not there. But it's been interesting in working with those companies. I think they have different drivers, different ways of looking at the business, different ways of trying to reduce capital costs to be more competitive. That has led them to be, to be really interested in being early adopters as well. So again, a lot of this comes always back to, it's really trying to understand from the customer point of view what is really going to be their driver to be, to be an early adopter of it. And I think again, it's different region by region based off of either the incentives or how the business models work in those regions.
[00:26:41] Jackie De Burca: Sure, yeah. It sounds again like quite a challenging situation for you and your team because you know all of those three geographical areas that you've just described are quite different, aren't they?
[00:26:54] Ryan Gilliam: Absolutely. I mean it's different from, from business. It's different from how you do scale up and economics is different regulations on the product. So I mean it's a great, it's a great challenge to figure out but it's definitely, it definitely presents its challenges by looking at multiple regions. And that's why we're, you know, we focused in on North America for some of these first plants because we found a clear pathway that works. But we're actively working in these other regions as well, to navigate that path as well.
[00:27:28] Jackie De Burca: Fantastic. Now what kind of strategic partnerships have you formed to accelerate your mission?
[00:27:35] Ryan Gilliam: So it's interesting, I mean, so we have strategic partnerships on the product side and looking at things like admixtures. So it's public announced that San Gobain, so European company did an investment in us and they're one of the world's leading admixtures for cement concrete. So basically additives that can help give certain performance characteristics. So we have great strategic partnerships like that where it's really looking at getting, getting additives and things like that tailored for our product to give better performance or give different types of performance for the customer. But then when it comes to the actual plants itself, I'd say that this has been an interesting discovery journey as well. We started off really looking in for the most part at what would be more traditionally a project finance model, where you know, we were telling the partners and this was, this was from what we had heard from them, that they're not looking to outlay capital costs, but we would, we would build the plant, we would put the capital in place and they would get more capacity at their plant, lower CO2 per ton coming out of the plant. They still make margin on it. And the way we could do this is by leveraging a long term offtake agreement from them to secure the project financing. Now the challenge with that is offtake agreements are not actually a common thing in the cement concrete world at all. So it's getting people comfortable, getting people comfortable with that. But as, as the time has passed, as people have tested our material, as they've got more comfortable with it, we now have a blend of models where there's still that project finance model where we're bringing capital to the table, but we also have cement partners now that are comfortable with the product, comfortable with the opportunity, that are looking to put the capital in themselves. So it's really more of a licensing type, type model and, and everything in between. We have one partner that's looking to put half the capital in for each plant. And so it's pretty big spread of, of different business models of how to get customers to, to adopt and use the material. And I think that's maybe the, the benefit of, of how we're, we're structured is really we can make all of those models work because again, for us, at the end of the day, it's about rolling out the technology as broadly as possible and having as big of a CO2 impact as we possibly can.
[00:29:47] Jackie De Burca: Excellent. Now look, looking ahead, Ryan, what do you see as the next big steps for Forterra in the coming years?
[00:29:53] Ryan Gilliam: It's all about execution. Now we, with our first plant online, with product going to market, with a pipeline of customers, projects, you know, in the works, it really is about execution. And I think, you know, when you go from a tech focused company that's really developing a new technology, heavy on R and D engineering, you know, that leap then to getting to more project management and capital raising, it's another core group of people that need to be brought on and integrated in. And so we've done a good job of really building out those teams and now it's about really making sure we can hit the schedules and budgets to move projects forward.
[00:30:40] Jackie De Burca: Yeah, I mean, I think there's so much going on. It's really exciting. Obviously, I guess as a leader in a company that's at the forefront of sustainable technology, there must be aspects of your work that really inspire you. What are they?
[00:30:55] Ryan Gilliam: I mean, I, I think that again, I kind of talked about this at the, at the beginning, but the hardest part when you're trying to bring in new technology to market is just the incredible. Every day there's something else that comes up that, you know, you don't necessarily, didn't necessarily anticipate. And for me, you know, building a team and being part of a team that, that looks all those really those challenges that come up and rallies around them and figures out how to solve them, I mean, it's pretty incredible. One of our, one of our other core values is optimism wins. And so to have, have a challenge come up and instead of getting down on it, having people rally around it, figure it out and keep moving the ball forward. You know, I'm always inspired by, by the team we have and the fact that we, we can make these things, we can make these things happen. I mean, Fortira is a pretty, pretty young company. I mean we really again, the week before COVID when we opened our first lab. And so the fact that we have a small commercial plant actually running now, we're putting product to market. Market. Still a small team in the grand scheme of things, we're about 70 people. So that to me is what inspires me. And then knowing that our, our message is actually resonating, having that inbound from the cement concrete world, having people test our material and, and being interested in the material, I think that that's just an extra win that helps keep that motivation going.
[00:32:14] Jackie De Burca: Sure. It must be really exciting getting the feedback in different, different places in the world and different, you know, different projects and so on.
[00:32:22] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's one of those things too. It's this whole point of putting your head down and executing. It's always trying to weigh that out and time spent on that versus obviously the inbound and continue to grow the business and meeting with, meeting with customers everywhere. So it's, it's, it's balancing those out in the right way. But, but that's, that's the fun of the job for sure.
[00:32:44] Jackie De Burca: Now you're quite seasoned yourself at this stage as an entrepreneur. What advice would you be giving Ryan to other entrepreneurs or startups who wish to make some significant impact in the sustainability space?
[00:32:58] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah, you know, I think being in clean tech for, you know, I've been in cleantech Since Clean Tech 1.0. I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs leave the space.
You know, fortunately, I've seen a lot of the same mistakes made many times now. And because it really does, so much comes down to economics and you know, I don't think necessarily everything's always grounded that way. But my big thing is that I think with every startup company or every new technology, I say that there's kind of a perception bubble and there's a reality bubble. And I think a lot of, you know, when you're starting to get interest from reporters, from investors, there can be a tendency to start sliding more towards the perception bubble and building up how great a company is as opposed to really focusing on the reality bubble of execution scale and solving your technical, technical problems. And, you know, I think if there's any advice that I have, it's just that, you know, make sure, you know, you stay true to your values, you're honest with yourself about where the technology is at. You put the people, time and effort into solving the tech issues and the business issues as they come up. And the more you focus on that, that's what will build the credibility within the industry and get people to look at and adopt your, adopt your technology. So I think it's, for me, it's been just a, put your head down and focus on, on making it work.
[00:34:19] Jackie De Burca: So how can our listeners learn more about Forterra and get involved with you guys and your mission?
[00:34:26] Ryan Gilliam: I mean, I think in a few different ways. One is, you know, we are now actively building out plants. And so I think one is if you, when you see, when you see a bag of cement at some point along the way that has that, you know, kind of equivalent to like the intel inside a Fortiera Fortified stamp on it that shows as green, you know, be, be willing to buy. Because I think, I think market poll is going to be needed to really get broader adoption. There's going to need to be customers that, that, that want greener materials. And I think that that trend is already happening. But, but I mean that's a trend that I think is important to keep going to, to get people to want to, to these, these cement companies to want to adopt a new technology. But, but in terms of the, the company itself, I mean, we try and be pretty open on all the stuff that we're doing.
You know, on our website. I, I think we, we are active at most cement and concrete conferences talking about what we're doing. So you know, we're, we're, we're just continuing to try and get the word out there and, and the more that the, you know, society kind of creates that pull, that's just going to be a help.
[00:35:31] Jackie De Burca: Fantastic. So I mean we've covered a lot of ground obviously, Ryan, but are there any other thoughts or advice that you would like to share with the audience today?
[00:35:40] Ryan Gilliam: No, I think we've covered a lot in the time here already.
I just think that it's. My main thing maybe for the audience is that I do think that there's good reason to be optimistic and hopeful on the space. I think solving stuff in the green space, solving stuff in sustainability, reducing hydrocarbon emissions or emissions from energy, steel and cement. I think there are real opportunities. There are companies that are really trying to solve these problems that are moving forward in commercialization. So more than anything, I think that there's good reason to be optimistic in this space. It's still going to take time. You know, these are big industries, so nothing's going to happen overnight. But I've seen from the, from the interest I've seen from the cement world, from the interest I've seen from the concrete world, from the interest I've seen from architects, from the interest we've seen from investors looking at putting money into sustainable projects. There's just really good reason to be optimistic on being able to solve this big problem.
[00:36:38] Jackie De Burca: I do agree with you. I have to say in the various conversations that I've had with other experts and with yourself today, there's a lot of room for optimism. And you know, the question is now people embracing your, you know, what you're doing in Forterra and various other technologies and ideas that move us quickly towards a greener future that we so, you know, we so badly need. But, but there's so much room for optimism. Ryan, I do agree wholeheartedly with you on that.
[00:37:05] Ryan Gilliam: Yeah. And maybe that's one thing just to say as well with this optimism is that, you know, I think a lot of times we get asked like, who are our competitors in the space? And I think this is what's interesting is really all the different companies looking at different approaches to green cement. We all know each other, actually. We work together on kind of combined legislation to really help push the industry. And so, you know, it's such a big space that really, for all the different potential ideas and solutions that are out there, there are going to be plants where some may work better than others, or there some markets where some may work better than others. And so the reality is, when people ask me, what are our competitors, I don't really view it as a competitive space. I think that there's opportunity for all of us to learn from each other and the business approach to help again roll out broadly enough to have an impact on Siva, too.
[00:37:53] Jackie De Burca: Yes, I think that's also very correct, having spoken to a guest way earlier this year on a similar. On a similar topic. So I think that's it. I think we should say be optimistic, embrace, you know, the technologies, including Forterra, and move towards a greener future that we need.
[00:38:12] Ryan Gilliam: Completely agree.
[00:38:13] Jackie De Burca: Thank you so much for your time, Ryan.
[00:38:14] Ryan Gilliam: Great. Thanks so much, Jackie.
[00:38:15] Jackie De Burca: This is constructive voices.
