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Earlier this year, Volkswagen Canada commissioned an artist named Ronaldo to paint a mural on the wall of a building at 114 Ossington Avenue in Toronto. The artwork depicts one of VW’s sleek new electric minivans, and the ad campaign will eventually include two other murals. One, by muralist Margaret Cresswell, will be at the trendy Drake Hotel in downtown Toronto, and the other, by Jamaican-Canadian artist AJA Loden, at a Day’s Inn in Edmonton. The point of the mural initiative is to promote the European carmaker’s zero-emission vehicles and commitment to environmental sustainability.
The murals are colourful and eye-catching, but what’s most notable about them is not the imagery but the paint used to create them: it’s specially formulated to absorb carbon dioxide and contribute to the fight against climate change. The total area of the three Volkswagen murals is 5650 square feet, so their CO2 uptake will be mostly symbolic, a few grams at most. But all the walls of the world have an incalculably larger surface area and thus have the potential to make a far larger impact. If such paints were the global standard, people could, from a CO2-sequestration standpoint, turn buildings into trees and cities into forests.
These eco-friendly paints, referred to as “carbon capture coatings” by the paint industry, have different formulations and work in different ways. One experimental paint developed at the University of Texas incorporates a species of lichen that sucks carbon dioxide from the air through a process that mimics photosynthesis. Researchers at the University of Surrey in the UK have also created an algae-based paint. Similarly, Cyanoskin — which brands itself as the “World’s Most CO2-Absorbing Paint” — developed by an all-female team at the University of London, incorporates algae that, once a couple of layers of the paint are applied to walls, continue growing by sucking CO2 from the air. A wall painted with Cyanoskin is a “living” or “green” wall (a wall built to allow plants to grow on it) except Cyanoskin typically costs less than a wall adorned with, say, ferns and other vegetation. Of course, since these paints incorporate living organisms that breathe in carbon dioxide, they also “exhale” oxygen, which improves a room’s air quality.
The walls of the world have an incalculably huge surface area — if such paints were the global standard, people could, from a CO2-sequestration standpoint, turn buildings into trees and cities into forests.
There are also alternatives on the market made from limestone-based substances. The prime example is AmbientPro+, the premier paint manufactured by a Spain-based company called Graphenstone. (Ronaldo used it to paint the Volkswagen murals.) It incorporates lime, clay, chalk, and other carbonate minerals as well as graphene, a derivative of carbon that’s light, strong, extremely fine, and allows the paint to be spread thinly without losing its durability, cracking, or blistering. Another ingredient in the paint is titanium dioxide, which when exposed to light reacts with and decomposes airborne contaminants, a property that eliminates odors.
Graphenstone’s biggest market is Europe, where green manufacturing standards and environmental building codes tend to be more stringent than North America’s. Graphenstone Canada’s director of sales and marketing, Dylan McAteer, says that on this side of the Atlantic, the company’s paints are slowly growing in popularity among two primary customer groups. The first is do-it-yourself homeowners, including young families who want to do their bit for the environment and improve their homes’ indoor air quality. The other is commercial builders erecting eco-friendly homes, institutional structures, or office buildings custom-designed to meet stringent environmental and sustainability standards.
McAteer says that, over a year, three 15-litre buckets of AmbientPro+ can absorb as much carbon as a 250-kg adult tree, or about 10 kilograms. Most of this absorption happens during the first three days after the paint is applied; the uptake rate is much slower once the paint dries. But once it’s absorbed, the CO2 is permanently sequestered.
Are there downsides to these paints? Sure. They’re twice as expensive as other environmentally friendly paints — for example, Benjamin Moore’s Eco-Spec paint, an eco-friendly acrylic latex paint that contains no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) but doesn’t absorb CO2, costs $69.99 CDN per gallon; four litres of Graphenstone’s AmbientPro+ goes for $134. Also, because of their complex composition, Graphenstone’s CO2-absorbent paint doesn’t come in a wide spectrum of colours. But for homeowners who want to do their bit for the environment and breathe fresh, uncontaminated air, the sticker shock might be worth it.
