Building a Resilient Future: The Move Toward Disaster-Resistant Construction Practices

The rising occurrence of natural disasters, such as California's wildfires and Florida's hurricanes, highlights the need for more resilient construction practices. In January, Los Angeles faced wildfires that caused 29 deaths, destroyed over 16,000 structures, and led to financial losses estimated between $28 billion and $275 billion, potentially making it the costliest disaster in U.S. history.

In response, the building industry is adopting innovative strategies to strengthen structures against such events. For example, homes with advanced insulation and airtight designs have shown increased resistance to wildfires by preventing embers and smoke from entering.

Retrofitting existing buildings is also becoming more common to enhance resilience. The global energy retrofit systems market was valued at approximately $202.56 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.4% from 2024 to 2030, driven by the need to upgrade aging infrastructure to withstand extreme weather events and comply with stricter building regulations.

One approach involves using alternative construction materials like magnesium-based cements. These cements replace the calcium oxide in traditional Portland cement with magnesium oxide, offering a lower-carbon alternative. However, challenges such as limited raw material availability and higher costs have limited their widespread use.

Additionally, the changing political climate in the U.S. has introduced tariffs on construction materials sourced from China, leading to increased costs for builders.

Despite challenges like high upfront costs, labor shortages, and tariffs on Chinese construction materials, the construction industry must adopt resilient practices. ZS2 Technologies leads this shift with its North American-made magnesium oxide cement, offering durable, fire-resistant, low-carbon solutions. Their precise manufacturing enhances efficiency and safety, protecting construction investments.

Please contact Mitchell Hauser or Tony Coretto for further information or to arrange a meeting with Scott Jenkins, ZS2's CEO.

ReCarbon moves forward with biogas-to-methanol projects

ReCarbon is a leading greenhouse gas (GHG) utilization company; the company converts GHG into carbon-negative syngas, hydrogen, methanol, and other clean fuels safely and efficiently.

New updates include:

• Capwatt has decided to move forward with a biogas-to-methanol project at a landfill site in Seia, Portugal, with ReCarbon as a leading potential vendor 

• ReCarbon is finalizing the binding agreement with LA County Sanitation Districts for approval by the Board of Supervisors in the next two months. Under this agreement, ReCarbon will provide clean hydrogen to the City of Lancaster

• H2Renewables is moving forward with a biogas-to-hydrogen unit at a site adjacent to their new RNG facility in Tennessee, with ReCarbon's engineers on-site later this year

  
  

Please contact Mitchell Hauser or Soojin Choung for further information or to arrange a meeting with Jay Kim, PhD, ReCarbon's Founder & CEO.

First installations at the University of Waterloo

CircuitMeter continues to win partners and clients with its advanced energy metering and analytics platform. Customer feedback confirms CircuitMeter's platform to be unique in the market with technology-driven features, user functionality, and value proposition.

Recent business progress includes:

• First installations at the University of Waterloo with potential to reach 70 buildings.

• Initial contracts to supply two head office buildings for PepsiCo Canada, with additional facilities nationally to follow upon completion.

• Strategic supplier agreement with Hyperview, the leading cloud-based data center infrastructure management platform.

  
  

Please contact Mitchell Hauser for more information or to arrange a meeting with Paul Mertes, CircuitMeter's CEO. 

Closes $1MM bridge round and begins new site development

Splash, the leader in sustainable automated carwashes in China (the world’s largest market), has made significant progress toward its expansion goals for 2025:

• Closed a $1MM bridge round

• In January, posted their best-ever revenue day

• Opened the first new development site covered by their $4.1MM financing facility

• In discussions for several new major Hydrocycle orders in Europe, and launching a $250k investment round for that subsidiary by the beginning of March

  
  

Splash is now raising a final $1MM through Seed Round 4 and then will focus on a Series A round in 2026. For further information or to set up time to speak with Splash's CEO, Rob Shesol, please contact Tony Coretto. 

WAVE reaches 140 deployments

WAVE Drowning Prevention Systems builds momentum:

• WAVE has reached 140 systems in the field

• Chris Barton joined as President/COO. Chris founded, built, and sold five telecom companies and has deep experience in hardware, software and services businesses. Read more about his background here.

  
  

Please contact Mitchell Hauser for more information or to arrange a meeting with Mark Caron, WAVE's CEO.

AKOS schedules first well intervention job 

AKOS has reached a major milestone with the arrival of its 3rd generation base tool in Red Deer, Alberta and performed a successful function test. AKOS now has scheduled their first well intervention job this month with day rates of $25K CAD. After running the base tool in a few wells, AKOS will mobilize its Multilateral Navigation tool to Canada and begin intervention work on the multilateral wells (under the agreements already in place) with local well operating companies.

Please contact Mitchell Hauser for more information or to arrange a meeting with Kent Kalar, AKOS' CEO. 

Tony takes a break to hit the slopes with family at Utah's Brighton in early February.