Carbon Recycling with Freya Burton, CSO @ LanzaTech

Today on the show we have Freya Burton. Freya is chief sustainability officer at Lanzitech. And if you somehow have not heard of Lanzitech, I highly suggest you check them out in addition to listening to Freya's uh Frey and Mai's conversation here. Lanzitech has developed a revolutionary technology um that turns industrial pollution into

products that would otherwise come from fossil fuels. uh previously thought to be impossible but they have done the impossible. They're also unique in the sense that they have been around for uh 20 years 25 years uh and have built a company around a revolutionary uh innovation. Freya has additionally been with the company for most of those 20

years. uh she was uh a founding employee and uh in the conversation we talk about her experience her perspective from being not only in the same company for 20 years but in the same space in the same industry for 20 years watching it change and grow over time. Uh we also talk about what sustainability means and

how she's navigated obstacles doing some of the hardest things that are possible out in the industry and advice about building and what it means to be successful uh in such a deep uh deep tech space. All things that I elaborate on uh in my newsletter that you can sign up for in the description or at

earnonward.com. Thank you as always to the partners that make this possible. Clean Techch Growth Lab. If you're looking to grow inside of Clean Tech Climate Tech, they are the experts to work with. And if you're looking to grow in any other sector, it is Craz Friends. No question. The producer of this podcast. And now for

Freya. Freya, welcome. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me on today. I cannot wait to get into it. Uh we're gonna fit a million questions into the into this episode. No pressure. But uh before we do that, if you could give a brief introduction of yourself and what you're building.

Sure. So my name is Freya Burton. I'm the chief sustainability officer of a company called Lanzitech. I've been with Lanzitech for almost 20 years. Um I was clearly a a child hire. um when when I started and what Lanzitech has developed over these years is um what we call a carbon recycling platform. So we have um

essentially we use um biology to capture pollution and turn it into stuff that would otherwise come from um fossil oil, petroleum and so on. And so we've developed this platform. We've been scaling it up for many years. Um and I've been part of that journey. Um it's it's been tiring. Uh but I'm still here

and and it's you know it's been a lot of fun. So that that is me. I'm I'm based in the UK. Um but I was with the company. It was started in New Zealand. Um and then we moved um our team to the US. So I was in Chicago for many years.

Um and came back to the UK a couple of years ago. Wonderful. Well already I mean even location wise I'm curious how your experiences were there. But the I think it is so fascinating and wonderful, amazing, inspiring that um you joined Lans. How big was Lantech when you joined?

Um there were three others. So I was about the fourth um hire um and um I I um actually worked with um the one of the co-founders um Sean Simpson. um he and his his co-founder Richard Foster, they had started the technology um and there was a a little group of them trying to make it work and I used to

work with Shaun's wife um teaching English but I have a biology background and I chatted with Sha who said I've got this idea for a company for this technology um and I was looking for a change of pace and uh so I thought okay I'll I'll chat with this guy Um and and um he

said, "Oh, you want to join? You know, it could be something." And you know that was back in early 2007 before we had um got our series A funding. So at the time we didn't have any assets. We just had kind of um we had like a photocopier on lease.

Um yeah, you know, it was very few people. we we shared um lab space with another um sort of company um and we just kind of got by and I thought um all right I'll join let's you know probably not going to last you know we'll see how long it how long this sticks around for and that was

a long time ago well well congratulations just recognition to uh you know 20-year journey that's that's ended up where you know you guys are at now making incredible impact commercial scale all these things you know 20 years. While it may be tiring, I think is is something that a lot of entrepreneurs dream about.

So, a little bit more context before we get into uh the technology that you guys uh have been building. Can you tell me a little bit more about who you were at the time that you uh decided to because you gave a lot of context to where your headsp space was, how you got started,

but had you always uh imagined or um you know pursued uh entrepreneurship? Uh is it something you thought you were going to do or or startup world ecosystem or was it something that that you fell into like you were saying?

Yeah, I I would largely say I fell into it, but when I look back at what I did prior um you know, I was teaching for a while. Um before that, I I worked for another startup in the UK and so I've always been drawn to, you know, people trying to do something new. Um without

going out there trying to look for it. I think, you know, when I left university, I didn't go, oh, I want to be a chief sustainability officer. I mean, to be honest, back then that kind of role didn't exist. I certainly didn't think I wanted to work in kind of climate tech or or sort of scale up. Um, I hadn't

really thought about it, but I've always um enjoyed a challenge and trying to do new things. And so, I kind of just stumbled into it. Um, so, so when the opportunity at Lanzitech came along, I just thought, hey, why not? this seems like a a kind of cool concept that people think is impossible. I want to

give it a go. And and I also enjoy the idea of, you know, helping create something from nothing. So there was just a small group of people with an idea with no resources. And that doesn't scare me, you know, and and it I felt like I can probably help think about things differently, you know, make

things happen with, you know, few resources, which is pretty important when you're on a startup journey. Um, and and, you know, enjoy enjoy it while it happens. So, I've always thrived in that kind of environment. So, so I think there's um there's probably like, you know, four or five episodes that we could do detailing the the journey of of

Lance Tech over 20 years. And uh that's something I think I would love to do because there's uh there's a lot that um people in the community uh startups in general, but especially clean techch, climate tech, could learn from uh what you've experienced in 20 years growing the company. And so uh you know we can

just start we can we can you know very very surface level go over the arc of of the last 20 years or so. So uh and and you know I'm open to however you want to take it but from that point of when you started and the point that you're at now uh could you just outline whichever you

know it could be one uh it could be five but what are the major milestones that you would say are in Lanzite's journey over the last 20 years? Yeah. So I' I'd say if we we start at the beginning um you know a big milestone was getting our first um closing our first funding round. So

series A that was in 20 uh 2007 wasn't a 20 um and um and that was um an investor called Venode Kosler through a a fund um Kosler Ventures and it was the first um non US investment he had done and we were a kind of you know a small outfit in New

Zealand and it was you know a pretty big deal um to to make that happen and so that allowed us to grow um and we we could actually hire people. You know, I always joked I did everything in the company until we could afford to hire somebody who was qualified, you know, and so clo, you know, when we closed the

funding rounds, that was really important because we could actually bring in, you know, specialists for certain How long was it after you joined that that happened? It wasn't that long. Um but but subsequent funding rounds really for me, uh I still ended up doing quite a lot.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Um hasn't hasn't really changed. Um but I think uh so that was a big milestone. First milestone. I think the second milestone we had we had this idea to that we could um so the company was founded by two biologists who said um they actually worked for a company that tried to make

fuel from um plant resources like biomass and it didn't work. And so they said we need an alternative. Um, we need a source of carbon. Oh, where's a big source of carbon? Oh, pollution. And we're trying to get rid of it. So, let's try and make that work. So, they actually worked out that there was a a

biological pathway that could consume carbon just like yeast eats sugar to, you know, as a sort of um an input, a bio catalyst or bacteria can eat carbon and pollution and make ethanol. So that was another massive milestone that they one discovered that this is possible looking at a sort of biological pathway.

Then you can actually get bacteria from what's called like a bacteria library. Sounds super weird but it it's uh you get like a freeze-dried bacteria. It's very safe. Bearing in mind we worked in New Zealand which has very strict bio sort of security laws but you know we could bring in this this safe bacteria

and then we were able to actually test it using um gases from a working steel mill in New Zealand. So that was a huge milestone to say go from having an idea on paper to actually getting data that showed that you could make ethanol from steel mill emissions.

Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So, yeah. So, that so that was that was then my my followup to that was when you say um you know there there reached a point where this this technology this idea was proven my my question was okay was it statistical significance in the lab? Was it you know patent paperwork that you had

successfully filed for or was it the the success of of the mill that ultimately kind of bookended that milestone for you? I think the big the big thing was seeing that first data. Um, so we would actually um do analysis on the the products that the uh So what happens is I'll just quickly explain. You've got

like you've got like a little reactor. It's like a little vessel and it sounds cool reactor, but it's just like a glass vessel and it swirls around lots of liquid and in the liquid is the we call it the bug, the bacteria and you push in gas. So like pollution comes in, swirls around,

bacteria eats it, and as it eats it, it grows. And when it grows, it makes ethanol as a byproduct, and we take little bits of that liquid out and run it through a machine to check how much ethanol is being made, or if any ethanol is being made. And so the first data

that showed that the idea we had pollution in ethanol out was the data that showed ethanol graphs ethanol being produced. So that was like oh it actually works and it's not just an idea. It was a big deal.

Gotcha. Awesome. So that's that's cool. And then and then you went and and and proved it in a real world uh use case after uh capt. Yeah. So, so scaling, I'd say probably the next one was doing a pilot plant.

Okay. In a steel mill. So, went from like a, you know, a sample of gas in a lab to a pilot plant at a steel mill. And would you would you be able to also give um uh years for that as well?

Yes. So the uh you know 2008 was some of the the initial lab data 2007208 then um the pilot plant was sort of 2008 um then we built a demonstration plant in 2012 and in China. So that was another milestone going to China. Um and we went to China because there was a lot of

steel and a lot of pollution and a lot of interest in doing something with the pollution. and things happened quite quickly there. So it was, you know, it was good. So what was the the the the gap in between 2007 and 2012? Was it just the the funding and the development of that

plan? The funding. Yep. So we closed a series B in 2009 uh which was led by um Chinese investors and then um it was then building um the demonstration plant and then starting to run it. So it was sort of that that combination uh there. So it was sort of lab pilot demo

and then yeah and then we did um commercial plant. So you'd say the sort of I'm going to if I cheat I'd put all of these as a milestone you know the scale up but the uh but the commercial milestone was 2018. So we started operating.

Wow. Um that so that's you know just sort of 10ish years from concept to a commercial plant which for a complete new process is is pretty incredible. Yeah. Seriously. So so there's there's so much to detail there. I think that's um that that we won't get into now, but I'm I'm it's it's really awesome. I'll

just show my my appreciation for that process. So I'm I'm it's really awesome that you guys have done that. So, um, uh, thank you. Thank you for running through that. I think that gives a lot of context into, um, into where you guys are at now. Is there is there anything So, I guess just to cap off this, this

segment, it's it's so 2018 you began commercializing. Has that been basically where what the company's been doing since 2018 has just been expanding into the commercial space? Yeah. So, we so what we have now today we have six plants using the technology.

four in China, one in um India and one in Belgium. We license the technology so we don't have to um build, own and operate, which is a big problem when you're scaling, you know, if you have a cool technology um and then you need to put all your money into building the plant. That's what often limits kind of

the scale up process for many companies. So, we've licensed it. So, what we're doing now, you know, is we're trying to license that to others or looking at creative ways to partner um with kind of people who can finance uh a plant for us.

Sure. Awesome. Oh, man. All right. So, we're getting into uh uh another uh section that I'm really excited to get your your opinion on is uh like you said, you know, your current um your current position as chief sustainability officer. And so my first question for you is in your opinion what does

sustainability mean or at least in your context in so yeah in in my context you know it I think a really important thing is that it means that you're able to keep doing business. I think too often people think sustainability is a kind of happy clappy um hug a tree thing, but it's actually

about your ability to survive either as a planet, people, you know, community or a business. And so that's why we need to think about well, you know, how much does it cost? Are we wasting money by being wasteful? Maybe we should rethink how we buy things, how we supply things.

um do we get more money for a product if it has a lower carbon footprint? So, how do we do that? What about water use? Is it costing us a lot? Is it bad for the environment? What do customers want? So thinking about all of those things, but you know, so for us, sustainability is

the ability to have a company or have a technology that is able to succeed, you know, forever um because it can survive. You know, something that's not sustainable is something that maybe will run out of resources or will be too expensive for customers or or something like that. So, so then so then uh follow

up to that is that the so your so thank you for that. So with the context of what sustainability means, what chief sustainability officer does, do you see uh this role becoming more popular? Um when you see other people being csos, are they approaching it in the same way?

Do you feel like a cso position should be more common? Um anyone? Yeah. So, it's it's I I think I'm not a traditional cso um in that I do a number of things. So, I still haven't lost the uh just um get stuff done, I suppose. Nice way of putting it. Um whatever needs to

get done. Um but I I think it is um it is increasingly important, but I think it's being renamed. So I think you probably get people who are doing the same things but they're now either in finance teams or procurement teams which would be under finance teams rather than a standalone cso um or it's embedded

into other parts of the business. Um, so I think it is um still important and I and I think there is recognition that it does have a an impact on the bottom line rather than um some like a box check for being friendly to the planet.

Yeah, I' I've been I've been seeing that that that narrative. So, I'm glad that you brought it up about this specifically because that this narrative of clean tech or climate tech uh you know several years ago the allure or honestly in a lot of cases the uh value proposition that was being put forward

was like hey it's good for the planet we should just do it and now it's transitioning more and there was a lot of funding that went into companies like that a lot of them did not uh succeed if they weren't able to accomplish what you're saying which is hey yeah it's good for the planet but whether or not

you're thinking that way or you even believe in it like financially it is the better option. Yeah, the the planet benefit is like gravy, you know, it's you know it's got to make economic sense. People aren't going to do business, you know, just because it's warm and fuzzy. They it needs to make sense and and then if it

does these additional things, you know, even better. And that probably feeds into the economics as well. Yeah. So, uh, and again, super unique and incredible, um, that you've been working on this for 20 years. So, I'm curious. I had two very big picture questions because unfortunately you know I think we have time for these big

picture questions but um with the the first one is with your uh with your perspective with the piece of the world that you've been interacting with the piece of climate tech that you've been interacting with through lanzitech how has the world the political environment the uh scientific environment you know whatever environments are relevant to

Lanzitech's success. How have these environments evolved and changed over the 20 years that you've been in this space? So, I would say when I started there wasn't any kind of carbon tech or climate tech. We had just really come out of kind of the clean techch 1.0 which was all the kind of the corn

ethanol um boom and then bust. And so as a company trying to make ethanol, people didn't want to talk to us because they were like, "Oh, we've just gone through all this clean tech 1.0, what a nightmare. Stay away." There was nobody talking about carbon. Nobody was talking about the circular carbon economy, which

is something we talk about a lot. So turning carbon into stuff. A and so what we've seen is we've kind of helped create the narrative around these areas. Um, I personally have spent a lot of the last 20 years working on policy frameworks to support all of these types of technologies, be it kind of tax

credits in the US or fuels legislation in Europe and India. Um, because we've had to be at the forefront showing what you know what technology exists, what is possible and how to frame it in the sense of you know how to make um policies that help scale. So, it didn't exist. We've helped create it. There's

definitely been kind of ups and downs over the years. And I think it's really interesting that even when politically there's more um conversation about kind of eco credentials and things, you sometimes get um more barriers for new technology companies because I think there's been a tendency to be scared of making the wrong

decision as a policy maker. And so you want perfect policy solutions and that means that people trying to do something new have to jump through a lot of hoops and you know and and so you've got this fear from clean techch 1.0 when you know there was a lot of push on corn ethanol

as an example and people went oh no there's you know food versus fuel and other things we hadn't thought about. And so today when you're trying to bring a new technology to market, you have this fear of letting everyone take part and then have an unintended consequence instead of going look we should we

should diversify the energy pool. Let everybody have a go. We'll figure it out as we go. And and the problem is some of the kind of government rationale over the years has been only the perfect solutions can succeed. And and that's very hard if you're trying to do something new. And so I would I'm saying

this because it's not always cut and dry that you know one political era is better for green tech or clean tech than another. It's that, you know, there needs to be this kind of open perspective that we need to let new technologies succeed and fail on their own and not have kind of policies make it tough.

Gotcha. Do you do you feel like this is uh um I mean you mentioned a lot of different uh places because uh Lanzitech has operated in in a number of different places around the world and so from a policy perspective do you feel like there is more uh leniency relative to 20 years ago around letting um technologies

fail on their own? Um there's more um I'd say there's I don't know if it's leniency. I think there's there's a lot of technical issues to overcome. I'd say there's more um willingness to include new technologies today because people are talking about it. So for example in Europe they have categories of fuels that are made from

recycled carbon. Um and in the US there are incentives for making things like ethanol from um wastes and um you know capturing carbon and using it. So there are things that are in place now that didn't exist today. So it is a better better place. Yeah.

Awesome. Hey, that's great to hear. Um so we we we are we are coming up on time. So, I have a couple of uh uh two two of my favorite questions, but but one important question is that as as you know, this episode is part of um uh an an effort to to highlight women in

leadership and um what I'd like to hear from you is bas and I have obviously a lot more questions about your experience as as a woman in this space, especially as a um uh as a as a woman leader, but for a young woman in the audience that is listening and interested in uh

getting into the space, you know, whatever label you want to put on climate tech, clean tech, biology, um you know, any any hard science, what would you uh you know, what would you say to them given your experience?

Yeah, and it and it's a great question and I'm I'm really pleased that you you talk about this as well because it is hard in this space just generally um and traditionally there's not many women in energy or um in the science sort of STEM subjects um and it can be a challenge

and and actually I'm I'm really lucky at Lanzitech that our CEO is um a woman um and we often joke that when she goes to events you see the kind event picture and it's like you can count the women on one hand you know when it's energy be it clean techch or or other

and and that's that's tough but I think you know it goes part you know handinhand with this type of industry what we're trying to do is tough and you know there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to play a part in trying to change the world um you know what I find really interesting is

Jennifer our our CEO, she's always joked that she, you know, anybody who's ever told her that she couldn't do something, her response is, "Watch me." And that's kind of become like a mantra for us. And we have, you know, we have a great mix of um people at Lanzite doing all sorts of things. You know, there's no barriers

there, be it sort of synthetic biology, engineering, you know, business, finance. uh we have a really strong um sort of femaleled board and executive team and so they're these natural role models. So I would say to anyone first of all don't take no for an answer you know just if someone says you shouldn't

be doing that you know think watch me you're going to do it you know but also just keep going because it's a relentless um cycle you just have to you know keep going it is hard especially if you choose to go into kind of this tough tech sector you know changing the world

is tough and you know if it wasn't everyone would be doing it And so I think it's really important to keep that in mind. You know, I don't think I would have necessarily started out um you know, I didn't go into this with my eyes open, shall we say. I didn't think I'd

still be doing this, of course, but I think it's really important as well, first of all, you know, keep going, but also enjoy what you're doing. So don't ever feel pressured to go into something or into a subject because people think you should be doing it. You absolutely should be doing what you love

and what you want to do. Um because this is this has been my life. You know, I I have two kids. They're very much Lanza children. You know, they have grown up with the with the company. Um and and so you you spend a lot of time working and and doing things. So it has to be

something you enjoy. So I don't think enough people talk about enjoying what you do. So I think regardless of who you are, that's key. But the second point is don't take no for an answer. You know, if someone says you shouldn't be working in STEM or toughte or whatever, watch me.

Gotcha. Yes. Thank you, Freya, for for highlighting that. That's awesome. So two two last questions and and in the theme of what you're saying, it's very difficult uh what you're doing. It's very hard work. Uh with all the you know with all this uh uh work to be done, what is the uh the biggest hurdle that

you would say uh you at work or Lanza as a company uh is facing at the moment and how is it also an opportunity? Um I think a hurdle always is cash. So um you know regardless of of what technology you're approaching this from you know and and Lanza is no exception you know cash be it for our partners

looking to get a final investment decision on a project or um getting capital into the company um for scaling be it for for new talent or for um scaling expertise in different areas of the organization that's going that's a continuous challenge again not, you know, it's not for the faint-hearted, but you know, you

can overcome these obstacles and and so turning that to the opportunity. Well, what does that mean? It means you have to really think about why people need to invest in your type of technology. And it helps you think about what you're offering and why it's important. And I suppose that in turn helps you uh you

know if you're working in the organization to go oh that's why I'm doing this you know because you you need to think about this as almost like your own money you know and and why should people be putting money into that and so you need to really believe in it and it helps you frame the right narrative and

really understand why what you're doing is important. Well done. Lastly for you, I'm curious what uh just like many pieces of this conversation for me, what inspires you? Um I I don't know. I mean, I could say, you know, my family and blah blah blah, but actually I'm more stubborn than inspired. So, I've been at this for so

long. What inspires me is the fact that we have to make this work. like I will not leave here until I've done every single thing I can. So I don't know if that's like inspirational. Um but but like for me I've been part of something incredible. Um it's hard but I I thrive

in it and that keeps me going. So that's kind of like my own little sunrise inspo quote or my morning cup of coffee equivalent is waking up going let's do it. There's another challenge. Let's do it. Let's overcome it. So, I think that's that's what it is for me rather than uh having some inspiration.

No, I think I I think what's inspiring about that um is to hear the fact that it is possible to be in your position. It is possible to find something that you enjoy uh as much even if it hasn't been for 20 years straight, but something that you enjoy as much uh as

you do, something that you can dedicate yourself to, and something that has built to the the scale that it has. It is inspiring to uh to hear that. Um I I would I would add a final thought that make sure you have some other outlets or interests because otherwise work will consume you. So whatever it

is, you know, for me it's like my dog and trashy romanty novels and doing puzzles like something that like switches your brain off. Super important. Otherwise, you know, if you don't look after yourself, you can't, you know, achieve what you need to do.

Got it. Well, thank you so much for the conversation. I know uh we're coming up here. Uh if anyone else was inspired to follow along with the journey, what's the best way to do so? Um you can follow us on um social media on X or on LinkedIn. It's lanzitech and we have our website as well where we

post recent news. Um so those would be uh good ways to keep um keep along on the journey. Beautiful. Freya, thank you so much. I'm excited to stay in touch and see you guys go. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.