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Green Shoots & Big Shifts is hosted by Reetu Gupta, who started the show to have open, hopeful conversations about what it really takes to make sustainability part of how we live, lead, and work.
Each week, she talks with people doing innovative, meaningful work, turning ideas into action. From startup founders and corporate change-makers to community leaders - reimagining how business, society, and the planet can thrive together.
These are stories about innovation, collaboration, possibility, and the everyday shifts that move us toward a more abundant and resilient future.
you're listening to Green Shoots and Big Shifts
the show that spotlights the people and ideas
transforming our world for the better
I'm your host Reetu Gupta
in every episode
I'll be talking with innovators and trailblazers
who are reimagining our relationship with our planet
earth whether it's a small spark of innovation
or a sweeping shift in how we live and work
we'll explore the stories that give us hope
and the actions making a difference
together we are planting seeds of change
and driving big shifts for a healthier
abundant sustainable future
hi everyone
welcome to the Green Shoots and Big Shifts podcast
this is your host Reeta Gupta
I'm really
really excited to have Aaron Fitzgerald with me today
he is the founder of Mars Materials
welcome Aaron
thanks for having me and happy
I think it's Wednesday today
happy Wednesday happy Wednesday
yeah well
I'm so excited to have you and on the podcast
I think I've known you for maybe two years roughly
and really admire
and inspired by what you're doing at your company
Mars Materials so yeah
let's just start there
tell us more about what you're doing
how did you get started what was your motivation
yeah well
first and foremost so grateful to be here
as you mentioned we have known each other for
I think almost two years now
if not more and it's been really
it's always a joy to be able to
give updates to folks who have
followed us along and and see our progress
so and now to share it with your audience
so a little bit about Mars Materials
we are a Houston
Texas based startup and we are we have a new pathway
a new validated pathway of making carbon fiber
and water treatment chemicals
instead of making these materials from oil
or gas or coal we can make them from waste seal too
effectively turning these really impactful
long live products into carbon sinks
so think of it as an alternate way to sequester
capture CO2 rather than using natural solutions
or geological solutions
you asked a little bit about my motivation for
getting the company started and
and how we got here there's three of us co founders
we all have backgrounds that combine expertise
and chemical processing
scale up operations and commercialization
and we all met through a group called Air Miners
which is a
largest carbon dioxide removal group in the world
it's a mostly virtual group
but they also do in person meet UPS
and my two co founders are chemical engineers
Christian Gupsch Trey Sheridan
and I myself am a carbon dioxide removal entrepreneur
three time founder
we all met through air miners originally
I started the company and the spark there was really
after overseeing commercialization for a company
that could detect large super emitting
methane gas leaks over oil and gas fields
and there I was able to see the scope of the problem
you don't really
and when you can finally see an invisible enemy um
and it right invisible enemies visible
you wanna do something more
yeah yeah
yeah that that that makes a lot of sense
you know for for folks like
you know who are not technical and yeah
tell us more about like
like what's what's your technology
obviously don't share anything that's proprietary
but you know it just seems like magic to me
so tell me more trust me
it is not magic
there are easier ways to make money and to do things
but if you want to have an impact
and I think and really create breakthrough science and
and and
and really I think change the world in a materials way
it nothing magical about it
it's a lot of technical troubleshooting problem solving
but at the core of what we have is a
alternate pathway to make a these
you know multi billion dollar market materials
like carbon fiber
and polyacrylamide for water soluble polymers
and at the core of those two markets are one feedstock
or one raw material that both use and are derived from
and this is a chemical
it's a chemical with a really gnarly name
we call it an for short
but you can also work to say it 10 times fast
acrylonitrile
and this and this acrylonitrile is just in use
it's a 14 billion dollar market
and we all use it every day in our lives
particularly if you exist
in modern society is
anticipated that every person on the planet
consumes about a kilogram of this material
per day hmm
and this material is used yeah
to make everything from our carpets
to our keyboard keys to like Lego blocks and
and other materials but it's also used in some cases
where it's the sole ingredient
and for our particular markets
carbon fiber and water soluble polymers
it's the sole material uh
uh feet sock for those two materials
so today got it
the world makes all of its acrylic nitrile
you know
so we all consume about a kilogram of it per year
so that kilogram per year that you use
is made wholly from oil gas
or coal through a legacy chemical process
that's about 70 years old
and this legacy chemical process is really
like environmentally harmful
it produces toxic byproducts
you have to cite these so to
in order to actually build the commercial plants
that you need to produce the material
they need to be sighted in certain
in certain areas for hazardous waste disposal
and that has created a bunch of problems
it's create incentives for the market to move elsewhere
outside of the US and other geographies
where there's rigid environmental controls
um and what we're seeing is
there's a demand now
growing for alternate pathways to produce this monomer
for these multi
billion dollar markets that use and rely on it
but are looking now to reduce their carbon intensity
or just increase their supply chain stability
yeah thank you so much for sharing that
and I can imagine if it's such an old process
and creates all this toxic waste
it potentially
and that's why they've taken it out of the US
because potentially
it has harmful impact on human health as well
if it's not just the process yeah yeah
yeah and just to clarify
taken out of the US
there's still production capacity here in the States
but it's declining
so we're not seeing as new production capacity
as demand is rising got it
and why is the why is the demand rising
it's rising in specific applications
the ones that we're really looking to target
we're we're seeing the demand for materials
like carbon fiber increase
in the US it's considered a critical material
and it's because of the specific applications
that carbon fiber is used for
over the last few years
we've seen huge growth and carbon fiber demand
and like wind energy for example
the turbines for blades
that growth itself is a bit truncated
as you know with the changing political climate
but we are seeing other areas of carbon fiber's growth
now the adoption of AI requires huge infrastructure
as we all are aware
and that infrastructure needs additional grid energy uh
capacity excuse me
and that capacity is hard to get
it's hard to do interconnection
so a cheap way to increase capacity
and bring on these new facilities
are replacing the
transmission lines
the steel conductors in the transmission lines
with carbon fiber
and that leads to performance advantages
it leads to increasing the grid
without having to go through these years of
regulatory challenges to get
you know new generation on the on the grid
so those are the areas that we're seeing growth in
carbon fiber but we're also seeing growth
and traditional carbon fiber
as a replacement for some
for other types of carbon fiber
that we may not be able to produce here in the States
or uh huh
or we're just productions going offline
and in that particular case
there's not to get too technical
there's a few different types of carbon fiber
most of the carbon fiber we've been talking about
all of it is something called polyacrylonitrile
based carbon fiber
there's another one called Rayon Base
and that's used for like space systems
for example
and our production capacity for that has also been
significantly hindered
as those facilities have gone offline around the world
yeah so it seems like it's
as you're saying it's a critical
critical material and it's supply
it's not like this supply has gone down
at least in the US and and while the demand is going up
so definitely I would imagine there's a huge gap
supply demand gap
and what you are producing is filling that gap
absolutely we're scaling up to meet
you know what is that growing demand gap
and you know
eventually when we hit scale
we anticipate being able to solve
a significant piece of that
for us significance is
you know 10 15
20% of of the market demand
yeah so
I wanted to switch subjects a little bit
and talk about your journey as
as a founder and I know
you know
we've talked about this also from your personal journey
you've had many moments of pivoting resilience
so would love to hear you know
just as an inspiration to other founders
or people trying to create a new technology
which is cutting edge as you said complex
just building a company I would love to hear about your
your journey and like what keeps you
you know what were those critical
pivotal moments and what keeps you going
yeah so a little bit about my journey
I am a carbon removal entrepreneur
I've been running Mars Materials since 2019
when we originally founded
and prior to Mars Materials
I had also started two other startup companies
not in deep tech high capex industries
software and professional
journey really starts after college
I worked on Capital Hill and I worked in the US Senate
and enjoyed my time there
I was there for a couple of years
they call it Capital Hill Training School for a reason
you learn so much
particularly about how the US really operates um
as a society as a government
and uh
what I found from my time there
I think one of the biggest lessons
and takeaways was that you can solve
really an infinite number of problems
here in the States we really favor
and the way the market works
really favors market based solutions
so when I was thinking about me as a person
I've always been very mission driven
I don't think you work in politics
if you're not mission driven
and then realizing that I had the entrepreneur bug
I was thinking about like how can I align that
align those insights so my first company
I was really designed to help people like me
get more scholarship money
I had gotten a full ride to my Alma mater
and took this idea and I had also worked on campaigns
so I just applied these two concepts
and started selling a platform to hire at institutions
it didn't work out still was like I had Learned a lot
had done that for two years
you get so far and you're like
I don't want this to go to waste
there's a lot I can do here
and I didn't know anything about startups at the time
we were just building a small business
so
we'd Learned throughout that two years about startups
and raising funds and things from investors
and so
we found out a new company and started that business
and it was a pivot a market pivot
we took a lot of our insights and our know how
but completely new technology
and did that for a couple years
had some success doing enterprise sales
so I Learned how to do not just long collegic sales
but then I could do enterprise sales
and I realized I really liked that particular area of
a business development team building
learn to do team building
and leadership and fundraising
and I feel like it gave me a good core
for what you need as a founder
in addition to having that maybe chip off my shoulder
cause I had already had a start
that didn't go exactly how I intended it
so that then LED me to shutting that company down
after a couple years
the market conditions got really bad for us and we were
I was looking for my next opportunity
I grew up in poverty
I went to 17 grade schools up until college
it was you know
very kind of chaotic life
but we were always had love and support
and I was really focused as a kid on
a lot of those three R's if you recall the reduce
reuse recycle
uh that was like our motto and I applied them
but it was in college
when I did an alternate spring break trip
I went to Rhodes College in Memphis
Tennessee and I went to New Orleans
a year after Hurricane Katrina
and we helped someone
kind of repair their house to a more livable state
and it was then that I saw
like the devastating impact of climate change
and I after then took a very rigid
hardline
stance on how I would not impact the environment
but after shutting down my second company
since now a decade later I was thinking
what more can I do particularly
after taking this life changing trip to Lake Tahoe
where I was 27 I realized I had escaped poverty
I wasn't rich by any means
but I had opportunities in front of me
and I was thinking like what can be done
I read something from a guy named Noah Dietz
who was then the head of the center for Carbon Removal
and the article was pretty interesting because it said
we have all the technologies
we need in the world to solve climate change
and but what we don't have is
we need more people to
bring these technologies to market right
and these technologies take a long time
so it takes a while
and often times the incentives aren't
instructions aren't there for like entrepreneurs
and I was like that's pretty interesting
I would love to move into climate
shortly after then I moved into climate
joined this company
where we could detect methane gas leaks
and I started to learn the ins and outs of the space
and what was necessary to
you know I think uh
you know
create opportunities that can solve externalities
and these opportunities can create a lot of value
uh huh yeah
thank you for sharing that
and you know
for me like I was
as I was listening to you
the key takeaways were you know
there will be pivots there will be changes
but I see like the resilience in your journey
and also I see that I don't know
you didn't say this
but it almost was like this knowledge of like yeah
I have I'll use the word
I have overcome I have arrived
and now I wanna give back
I I want to like you
the previous work you were doing
was also mission oriented
are very you were like in the politics etcetera
but I think
so many of us do not realize that we have arrived like
like the kids we were like at 10
12 and what we dreamt of
we have achieved and now we can pause and say
how do I give back how do I pursue my passion
how do I pursue something
that I feel is good for the society
and I think a lot of us don't pause to do that
so you know
I just wanted to highlight that you did that
and it's it's amazing
appreciate that yeah
and I think I think to that point
it's because
we compare ourselves all the time to everyone else
right and I think at that moment
I was not
I was comparing myself exactly to what you said
I think
I just achieved the dreams that I set out as a child
right I was able to break free from poverty
and I didn't know what that meant
cause I don't think I had a definition for it
other than what that comparison was
which was like oh
you need to be a billionaire
well actually
it's not that's not what it was
it was being able to have opportunities come my way
that never existed
or that I couldn't even have imagined
and folks like considering me not just as a number
but as as the serious candidate
or the serious person
that can actually drive something forward
and I think we missed that right
it's it has
but it has to come from within
yeah that
that resonates with me so much because
you know I will admit I
I get into that like comparison
but then I have to like
pull back and I just think to myself
like what I was dreaming at
at twenty
yeah I got that at 40
I'm now aging myself and telling my age to everyone
but yeah
so it it
you know the next decade or the next
I don't know how many ever decades
it's already like
whatever I wanted to achieve has been done
so now I'm free in a way I love that
yeah I love that
thank you thank you for
for sharing that you know
this is really inspirational
and I I know you were
your company was selected by Breakthrough Energy and
you know it's
it's that's very prestigious
so you've achieved a lot already with Mars materials
you know when we were talking
I think we were talking about
there are some exciting projects that are coming up
that you're working on
you couldn't share all the details because it was
you know obviously not public
but what are you excited about for this next year
or years
for Mars Materials yeah
as you mentioned
Mars Materials is not just a team of three
we are a growing community
and I think that's been an exciting
maybe the most rewarding part of building a business
and a company is that community
that you're bringing together to execute
and for folks who believe in your views and your values
and that's not just your funders
like as you mentioned Breakthrough Energy
which is Bill Gates's climate arm
Breakthrough Energy Fellows program
backed us through Cohort 2
they helped to fund our design
fabrication and commissioning of our pilot facility
where we can produce up to kilogram per day of our
material we have other funders
including shell
we have funding through their Game Changers program
this is designed to help us with
continuity in our production
so giving us additional access to other feedstocks
that we can use that are also sustainable
and allows us to not just
just be geologically restricted
to places that are using captured CO2
but places that might be using bio based sugars
for example
we have funding from the New York State Energy
Research and Development Authority
NYSERDA and Columbia University to help us build
our first own in house IP
so we license
technology from the National Laboratory of the Rockies
we've have an exclusive field
limited exclusive license to that technology
and it's a global patent
and we've been managing that for four years now
and we're now through this funding able to you know
bring in our own IP portfolio
and that's all that is very exciting
and as we are now
building more of these supporters and funders
we're now moving into commercial phases
and these commercial phases
look a lot like validating our product
which we've been able to do over the last couple years
since I've met you I believe we went from hey Ritu
we're bringing our plant online to a year ago
oh my god we just became the first company
to demonstrate in an industry first
that in wow
overcoming decades of skepticism right
that our product
makes all 15 versions of polyacrylamide
um so that was something we did early last year
and we unlocked our first revenue
this is polyacrylamide it's it's a polymer
so and it used if you put it into water
it becomes like this viscous solution
we have a video online that we
we made demonstrating how it works and it you um
and it works in industrial water treatment
so once think like rain runoff
you get all that like muddy water
you wanna right capture that water
you need to separate the MUD
it helps to capture those particulates
so you can get fresh water
purified water and so
we're working to advance our commercial activities
there we've unlocked revenue in that market
and then on the carbon fiber side
About 12 months ahead of schedule we are
we've been working with North Carolina State University
through a grant through the Textile
North Carolina's Textile Engine
and that enabled us to demonstrate that our material
was a complete drop in for
or carbon fiber
uh specifically for the precursor for carbon fiber
something called polyacrylonitrile
and that's uh this material here
if you were to put this through a solution
and then spin it into a fiber
and then bake it at very high temperatures
you would then get carbon fiber
so with these markets unlocked
we're now talking to commercial off takers
and specifically to date focused on motorsports
we found that there is a huge interest
uh
an interest in having a more consolidated supply chain
and sustainability so that's exciting for us
on the polyacrylamide side
we're also looking in the paper and packaging space
there are these laws that are very complex
so if I tried to explain them right now
I think I would confuse myself and others
they're called extended producer responsibility laws
and these laws are really forcing manufacturers to
move from plastic base paper
as you mean packaging to paper based packaging
but paper itself
the binding agent for it is polyacrylamide
so it's not fully paper right
so right we can
make it so that it's no longer from coal or from oil
from gas but these Paul
these pellets these polymers come now from the air
so is a very exciting spot to be in where we are today
yeah that's amazing
amazing traction and it looks like it's
your customer base is so diverse
and there's so many diverse applications
of the products that you are producing really
really exciting
you know I've had great fun talking and learning more
every time I talk to you I learn something more
and then last time I met Aaron
I was able to play with the product
and put it in the water so it was super cool
anything else you would like to share with the audience
yeah I mean
I think you know
we're we're based in Houston Texas
so I think what's fascinating about being in Texas and
and we have this uh
exciting view
because we started the company in California
I think it was really great for our narrative
and ensuring that we were positioned
strongly as a climate company
and then we moved to Texas to help with scale
and it has all of the infrastructure that you need
to cheaply scale up
a very expensive you know
high capex business and
you know
we've been able to get strategic collaborations
with shell who's
helped to accelerate our piloting by about three years
and I think the point that I'm trying to make here is
that these climate tech companies are
I think
global in scope and they require different communities
different levels of expertise
to really achieve what is a pretty interdisciplinary
you know kind of project area
and one thing I would love to see
as we're moving forward in our development
just more coordination
between these different geographies
I we're starting to see more bridges being built
and that's exciting and I love the fact that
you know we're having this conversation today
you know I'm sure a lot of your audience
is probably in the Bay Area
so they'll get to see uh
what innovation in Texas looks like and
and how we can move forward
but I think if we are able to uh
you know make these bridges be a lot smaller
we'll start to see more uh
innovation in the manufacturing space
and that's a big goal of mine
and that's a uh
the work that we're trying to do at Mars Materials
is to make ourselves more visible
so that it does become obvious that
you know I think
you know the powerhouse investors in
in the Bay Area start looking at Texas a lot more
yeah yeah
I agree with you about the fact of geographic
collaboration because it's
it's not a local problem it is a universal problem
the other thing I also
I know we've talked about it in the past
is a lot of new innovation
when it first comes out is either you know
it's either it's Catholic funding
or it is subsidized by the government
and so any I just want to say
any narrative which says
subsidy for climate solutions is not a good thing
is probably there are two sides to it right
there is subsidy with proper KPIs and proper goals
that would make sense to provide
because a lot of industry
when they first came on board
was subsidized
either through philanthropic or government funding
so that is something and still are I yeah
and still are yes
so that's something you know
I think about is financing yeah
yeah same here
I would say we've brought in through our funders
who I've mentioned over 7 million in capital today
85% has come from non dilutive sources for us
and what that means is that we're able to
you know build to spec effectively
every time you write a grant
you're you know
you're pitching a technology project
that you're building and and
and we've been able to come in on time and under budget
in most cases and that's been really exciting
and doing so with the pragmatic eye of of
of Texas and with that visionary focus that we got from
um from California
as a really good mix to kind of build for today and
you know and solve problems for today while you're also
you know working to uh
unlock that value and a huge opportunity for the future
and then when it comes
to the product itself because as you mentioned
it's hard to compete more generally in the market
but when you're an alternate product
that has a sustainability narrative
and for us sustainability is two components
it's being able to deliver your product on time right
the supply chain stability
because at the end of the day
the manufacturers
need to deliver their products on time right
their
their contracts have certain clauses in them that
you know penalize them and their
and it impacts their revenue model
but then there's also the environmental side to it too
we don't want to be focusing on making a monomer
and it's gonna cause cancer right
that's just not something right
we're trying to do so you have to mix that too and
and really find that balance between those two
definitions of sustainability
but what we're finding you know
around that
is that there are some subsidies you can tap into
depending on what those are
and depending on your geographies
there are some opportunities
but one thing that I Learned about subsidies
that was new for me
and it might you're probably aware of this
but I was just kind of dumbfounded you know
subsidies expire right
so you have to tap into them at a certain time
by a certain time
and then you get them and you have them forever right
they say after they sunset
then you have them and sometimes they're renewed
sometimes they're not but often times
once they're locked in
they're locked in and you can stack
so imagine so when I when I hear folks say
you know talk about your price target
you know we have a slight premium and and they're like
you have a premium over oil and gas
but do we really
because they have over a century of subsidies
that they're able to tap into
to reduce their cost of operations
and a lot of operational history
so like where are we if we were to compare ourselves
and I think that's something that is just really
important to remember
when it does feel like there's just like
so many forces and and just headwinds kind of
just kind of coming your way in the space
because
there's no shortage of reasons for us to not want
to support climate
because of the long time it takes to scale up
you know this is not AI right
we're there isn't a uncap market here
we know what the market is
you know
we know there's a 14 billion dollar chlorine market
but it's also a pretty gnarly market
so we have to clean it up
that changes you know
I think when you're the behaviors of your stakeholders
so you have to figure out how do you
how do you message that so you get them comfortable
yeah that's a really important
important point and I wanna go back to like
another thing you mentioned was some
you said monomer I think you said monomer
oh yeah
no
that causes that causes cancer
so we're not even measuring all the externalities right
we're not even
measuring the cost of other externalities
to society at large when we compare like say
a green product to a fossil fuel based product
so that's another great point that
that you you mentioned
well this has been really great
I'm so thankful you came on the podcast
I'd like to ask my guest one last question
if there was a word today
that you wanted to leave the audience with
what would that be optimistic
mm hmm and why
I think for
if you're in the climate space over the last year
I think we're all where it's been hard
uh huh challenge
yes we've had to change our narrative
you know we've had to
you know speak more to the customer than to
maybe the values of the company
but that for us has been a good boon for us
because it's meant
that we're now focusing on the customer
and we did everything that we needed to ensure
that our impact would not be impacted
so we're able so
now
we have this really exciting position that we're in
where our success our our
our monetary success
also is intricately tied to our impact success
so for every um
our product Hoygen C
we call it Hoygen C and Mars Materials itself
is an atmosphere
chemistry reference to the fact that the Martian
atmosphere is 95% co2 eventually
we want to automate it to plants on Mars and uh
you're gonna need structural materials and water
polymers right
but when you think about why we're optimistic
being able to now communicate that value in our product
for every unit of HGCI that we sell
two units of CO2 are sequestered
you know we can make
we work with the Navy for example
the defense industry
is the largest emitter in the world
so you know
whatever your views are on defense activities
if we can make that industry more sustainable
we've done a big uh
important role
in reducing a major lever of carbon intensity
so I'm optimistic because we're now starting to see the
the commercial drivers
are also now leading the impact forward
and uh
that's exciting spot to be in
when you're thinking about market based
solutions to climate change
yeah I love that
I love that like
you know I love the angle of looking at the customer
and understanding how it meets their needs
and making it commercially viable
like if it is commercially viable and successful
that means it'll be widely adopted
that means the impact will be bigger
so I I love that and I love the optimism
on that note really
thank you Aaron
for being on the podcast
thanks for having me alright
and thanks to the audience for being here