This episode is all about case study in circularity and a group of people turning waste into useful materials for the built environment.
Daniel Dinizo and
Charmaine Cu-Unjieng of
NaturLoop are bringing a new bio-based product to market that transforms waste coconut husk into a material that's something between MDF and a particle board.
For us, this presented a chance to talk about how sustainable materials are developed, the challenges of bringing them to market and how responsible businesses can approach supply chain development (the big challenge now).
As professionals who work with LCAs, EPDs, and carbon calcs all the time it was refreshing to get into a product that will have an impact that can be accounted for in human terms, as well as the usual economic and environmental terms.
They're also fundraising right now, so here's the pitch from Charmaine.
NaturLoop at the Final Stage of Pre-Seed Funding"NaturLoop, the Swiss–Philippine climate-tech startup behind Cocoboard, is at the final stage of its pre-seed round. Cocoboard is the first industry-ready fibreboard made entirely from coconut husk waste and natural adhesives—a truly biocircular material. Featured at Interzum Cologne 2025, Cocoboard embodies the shift in construction and furniture toward biocircularity—no longer a trend but the future of materials. Europe’s sustainable furniture market is set to more than double to $42.6 bn by 2032, with consumers paying around 10% more for sustainable products. NaturLoop is closing its round soon, inviting strategic investors to co-build a climate-positive business that reduces deforestation and uplifts poor coconut farmers—making the industry more future-proof."
Notes from the show
**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
We don't actually earn anything from this podcast, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.
- Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)
- Jeff and Dan about Zero Ambitions Partners (the consultancy) for help with positioning and communications strategy, customer/user research and engagement strategy, carbon calculations and EPDs – we're up to all sorts
- Subscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)
- Check Lloyd Alter's Substack: Carbon Upfront
- Join ACAN
- Join the AECB
- Join the IGBC
- Check out Her Retrofit Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women
**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**
What is Zero Ambitions Podcast?
Zero Ambitions is a consultancy and weekly podcast about sustainability and the built environment.
We find interesting and experienced guests who know what they're talking about, usually to discuss how we navigate the complexity of decarbonisation and sustainability in the built environment and its many related sectors.
Hosted by Jeff Colley and Dan Hyde, publishers of Passive House Plus magazine (UK and Ireland), the podcast has now grow into a consultancy, Zero Ambitions Partners.
The consultancy specialises in defensible sustainability communications. We create the strategy that makes built environment leaders stand out, enabling them to occupy positions that are distinct and defensible.
As with the podcast itself, we help organisations to communicate about what they do and the value that they offer. Usually, this means strategies to change a conversation from price to value and how to futureproof an offer with evidence that makes its claims watertight.
If you're a leader, or want to become one, we help you to make sense of where you stand in your sector, how to improve your positioning, how to communicate this to the market you operate in, and how to highlight the difference between you and your peer group.
If you can engage your value chain by speaking about what matters to them, you can educate your key stakeholders and turn them into evangelists for your cause.
Book a ‘ZAP Defensibility Audit’, but brace yourself
- Uncover value and opportunities that you may
not have recognised
- Find out if your sustainability claims are defensible
- Find out if your claims are too meek
- Change the conversation from price to value