Under a new memorandum of understanding, Sublime Systems and Microsoft aim to negotiate a contract for the purchase of environmental attribute certificates (EAC) generated from the former company’s first commercial production facilities.
A charter plant in Massachusetts, set for start-up as soon as 2026, will be equipped to validate prospects for commercial scale Sublime Cement production. The ASTM C1157-grade binder has been processed in a laboratory setting at a significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions factor than portland cement.
Sublime Systems and Microsoft officials intend their collaboration to inform development of a book and claim market and demonstrate how it could serve as a model supporting cement and concrete sector decarbonization. Book and claim models decouple the environmental attributes from the product itself and enable low-carbon materials producers to access a customer base well beyond their immediate geographic area.
“Low-carbon cement is a critical climate solution not only for our work to become carbon negative by 2030, but also for the world as we look to transition to a net-zero economy,” said Microsoft Fuel and Materials Decarbonization Lead Julia Fidler. “We look forward to collaborating with Sublime and an ecosystem of industry partners to develop systems that are verifiable and held to the highest standards of integrity.”
Microsoft’s use of innovative contracting structures, including purchase of environmental benefits attending Sublime Cement, she added, heralds a faster transition to decarbonized construction.
“This partnership enables us to tap Microsoft’s enthusiasm for low-carbon cement as a tool for lowering their Scope 3 emissions in regions where our production is not yet scaled,” observed Sublime Systems Co-Founder and CEO Dr. Leah Ellis. “The collaboration unleashes powerful signals to the broader market that there is bankable demand for our low-carbon cement and that we must scale to meet that demand. We look forward to a future where there is a Sublime Cement plant in every region, a future that [the Microsoft] partnership enables us to swiftly build towards.”
