Photo: Re-Commoning the Coast, CLIMAVORE 2022. Photographer: Jordan Young.

Relearning, regrowing and rebuilding

CLIMAVORE CIC is on a mission to develop sustainable ways of living on and with the coast in response to the climate crisis. They aim to empower coastal communities, who are custodians of their land, cultures and futures while driving a just transition in the wake of climate change and biodiversity loss. CLIMAVORE’s work is focused on three pillars: relearning, regrowing and rebuilding.

Concrete manufacture is the second most consumed product and is responsible for 8% of global emissions and rising. Since 2017, CLIMAVORE has been working with restaurants across the Isle of Skye and Raasay to collect, wash, crush and form shellfish waste from their kitchens into terrazzo tiles.

Part of the community

CLIMAVORE is a Community Interest Company with a social responsibility to the island communities of Skye and Raasay. Together with West Highland College, they have partnered on a Construction Skills Course featuring a new syllabus encouraging learning from historical techniques. The ‘Regenerative Construction Materials’ unit focuses on tabby concrete, seaweed thatching and insulation, and shell composites. Students have taken part in workshops to make roofing materials out of seaweed, floor tiles out of crushed shells and a concrete alternative using hemp to better understand how these materials could be part of a circular economy across the islands.

A work in progress

For millennia, coastal environments have provided natural materials like seashells, shell-lime and seaweeds which have been used in the construction of foundations, floors, walls and roof technologies.

From previous experiments and research developed in New Orleans, Taiwan and Los Angeles, CLIMAVORE has worked with fabricators, chemists and materials scientists to create a prototype material that replaces cement and petrochemical resins with crushed seashells. CLIMAVORE CIC is also one of BE-ST supported start-up businesses in the Materials Accelerator.

CLIMAVORE is working towards developing a waste shell tile that is more durable and can withstand high traffic floor areas through trialling various mixes and production processes before scaling the solution responsibly.