With many World Oceans Day (June 8) events
cancelled due to the
COVID-19 lockdown, we
can view this as an opportunity to reflect individually on how critical ocean
health is to all of us — and what we can do to restore its resilience.
Coral
reefs,
oyster reefs, mangrove forests and rocky intertidal habitats are more than
amazing, highly productive and diverse coastal ecosystems — they are also
natural barriers that reduce risk and protect vulnerable coastal
communities.
However, with over 50 percent of the world’s population concentrated along
coastal areas, severe stress on natural ecosystems is inevitable with this
accelerated coastal development. Combined with growing threats of sea-level rise
and increased storminess, coastlines around the world require development,
retrofitting and intensive maintenance. Unfortunately, to date, coastal and
marine infrastructure such as breakwaters, seawalls and piers have been designed
and built with little or no consideration for marine life, leading to the poor
ecological status of urban marine environments.
Seeing firsthand the extent of the environmental damage that human activity is
creating along the coastline, Dr. Shimrit
Perkol-Finkel and her
ECOncrete co-founder, Dr. Ido Sella, have made
it their challenge to find a practical, scalable, environmentally sensitive
solution that can reduce the ecological footprint of coastal and marine
infrastructure — and thus, ECOncrete was born.
“We wanted to take our academic expertise and apply it to the real world, at
scale, to really make a change and offset the enormous damages that people are
inflicting on our oceans — but the path from PhD to CEO is not easy,” Perkol-Finkel said. “When I started diving (25 years ago!), I never imagined it
would lead me to co-found a startup and take on some of the world’s greatest
challenges like climate change impacts and loss of
biodiversity.”
The SB Resilience Summit
Join us for the inaugural SB Resilience Summit (October 17) at SB’24 San Diego — where business leaders preparing their organizations for adaptation and resilience in a tumultuous world will share insights on proactive measures organizations can take now to navigate uncertainty, mitigate risk, ensure continuity and future-proof their businesses.
Israeli marine biologists that specialize in ecological engineering and
nature-inspired solutions, Perkol-Finkel and Sella established ECOncrete in 2012
with the launch of a large-scale field experiment that spanned over two years
and crossed three oceans — the Mediterranean and Red Seas and the
Atlantic Ocean. The validation experiment included collaborations with
NOAA’s Marine Sanctuary system, The Georgia Port Authority, NY
Harbour School and New York’s Department of Environmental
Conservation.
Since then, they have developed a unique line of concrete solutions that enhance
the biological and ecological value of urban, coastal and marine infrastructure;
while increasing their strength and durability — including Eco-Armor units
and seawall elements, Tide-Pool Armor (which won the 2018 Biomimicry Global
Design
Challenge),
and Eco-mats that prevent beach erosion and provide scour protection for
offshore applications. All of these solutions are designed to provide shelter,
habitat and even nursing grounds for different fish, oysters, sponges, corals
and canopy-forming algae (depending on the local ecosystem), by mimicking
natural features of intertidal and subtidal reefs. All of these solutions are
combined with high-performance concrete that matches the industry’s standards.
The concept seems simple enough: transforming concrete, one of the world’s most
consumed materials in the world, into a bio-enhancing material. As Sella
explains:
“The idea is to tweak the concrete composition, texture and design, so that
structures like seawalls or armor units that make up ports, marinas and city
waterfront will enhance marine flora and fauna. Currently, such structures are
made of standard Portland Cement-based concrete — which is strong and cost
effective, yet is harmful to marine life. ‘Grey’ concrete structures support
invasive and weedy species. With ECOncrete, we maintain and even increase the
strength of the structure, but also generate a rich and diverse ecosystem.”
The technology harnesses natural processes such as biocalcification for the
benefit of the ecosystem on one hand, and for the benefit of the structure on
the other.
“The skeletons of oysters, tube worms, coralline algae and alike create a
biogenic crust on the concrete that adds strength, and decreases scour and
sensitivity to chemical erosion in a process called bioprotection,”
Perkol-Finkel explains. “These same skeletons also create an active carbon sink,
with every kilogram of calcium carbonate generated offsetting 300 gr of CO2 from
our oceans. A kilometer of seawall on a typical Mediterranean coast will offset
up to 2 tons of CO2 a year, equivalent to the sequestration of 100 adult trees.”
ECOncrete is scaling up; in the middle of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the
company was able to secure over half of their $5M series A investment goal form
Bridges Israel — an independent affiliate of
Bridges Fund Management, one of the world's leading sustainable and impact
investors.
Since being named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 best inventions of
2019,
ECOncrete was recently selected as a finalist in the Ray of Hope
Prize® — a $100,000 prize competition
presented by the Biomimicry Institute. Perkol-Finkel commented:
“Being chosen as one of the Ray of Hope Prize finalists defines us as an
industry leader and winning the competition will help us scale up our impact and
set new standards for ecological engineering of coastal and marine
infrastructure around the world. Ocean health and human health are entwined,
especially today. A healthy, diverse and resilient ocean must be part of the
post-COVID world. This is a historic opportunity to restart nature and really
build resiliency into our communities, cities and oceans.”
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ECOncrete
Published Jun 5, 2020 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST