Author Archives: David Evans

Jan. 2, 2022 10:57 am ET

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—When a new building-size machine cranks up this month, it will begin turning mountains of recycled cardboard into paperboard suitable for greener forms of packaging. The $600-million project, the first new paperboard production line built in the U.S. in decades, represents an enormous bet by owner

Graphic Packaging Holding Co.

GPK 2.33%

on a future without foam cups, plastic clamshell containers or six-pack rings.

Graphic wants to be able to offer more environmentally friendly packaging so that the consumer-goods companies that buy its products can tout a cleaner supply chain to their own investors and consumers. Once Graphic shuts down four smaller and less-efficient machines, including one at its Kalamazoo complex that is 100 years old, it will use a lot less water and electricity, it says, and emit 20% less greenhouse gases. ESG investing has put trillions of dollars into the control of funds that promise to invest it with environmental, social and governance goals in mind, as the abbreviation implies. That, in turn, has companies striving to operate with less waste and greenhouse-gas emissions. Graphic says green investing has opened up a market worth more than $6 billion a year for replacing plastic with paper on store shelves, even if that might result in consumers seeing slightly higher prices. Graphic’s gamble is a big test of whether the flood of ESG capital can transform supply chains. Plastic packaging is frequently less expensive than paper, is more effective in many applications, and sometimes even has a smaller carbon footprint. Consumer-goods companies will have to be persuaded that their customers will pay more and that paper packaging really is greener.

Graphic CEO Michael Doss, right, and finance chief Stephen Scherger say their customers are seeking cleaner supply chains.

Photo:

Kendrick Brinson for The Wall Street Journal

Graphic executives contend their customers have little chance of meeting emissions and waste targets without substantially cleaner supply chains. “A lot of those goals flow through us,” said finance chief

Stephen Scherger.

Plastic makers, for their part, say that they are investing in recycling and waste-collection technologies, and that their products compare favorably with paper once factors such as shipping weight and avoided food waste are considered.

Graphic, based in Sandy Springs, Ga., sells packaging material to the nation’s biggest food, beverage and consumer-products companies:

Coca-Cola Co.

and

PepsiCo Inc.,

Kellogg Co.

and

General Mills Inc.,

Nestlé SA and Mars Inc.,

Kimberly-Clark Corp.

and

Procter & Gamble Co.

Its beer-box business generates about $1 billion annually. It sells some 13 billion cups a year. Graphic and other producers of paperboard, a single-sheet cardboard used mainly in packaging, are working to introduce newfangled products such as fiber yokes for six-packs and microwavable meal trays molded from cardboard. Graphic has announced plans for a line of cups with a water-based coating to replace the polyethylene lining, one step closer to the holy grail of a compostable cup. When Graphic announced plans for the new paperboard plant in 2019, investors initially questioned the cost and necessity. Green investing has since gained momentum, though, and new investors have lined up behind the project.

A conveyor belt carries bales of recycled cardboard at the Kalamazoo plant.

Photo:

Emily Elconin for The Wall Street Journal

In September, Graphic sold $100 million of so-called green bonds to help pay for it. The green designation, earned through a Michigan state program to promote recycling facilities, allowed it to sell debt with interest payments not subject to federal and state taxes. Demand for the bonds outstripped supply by a factor of 20, Mr. Scherger said. Elsewhere, the company is adding $100 million of equipment to its Texarkana, Texas, mill so it can pulp more loblolly pine trees into extra-strong paperboard for cups and beer cartons. In July, Graphic paid $280 million for seven converting facilities, which fold paperboard into packaging, bringing its total to 80. In November, it gained even more when it purchased a $1.45-billion rival in Europe, where trends in sustainable packaging often start. It has spent about $180 million moving several Louisiana facilities under one roof to eliminate millions of miles driven between them each year. It installed a boiler that burns tree tops and other organic waste from its Macon, Ga., pine-pulp operations to power its mill there. Energy consumption and emissions at both Southern facilities factor into the carbon footprints for the paperboard yokes that Graphic is selling in Europe to replace shrink wrap. In July, hedge-fund manager

David Einhorn

disclosed that his Greenlight Capital had taken a $15-million stake in Graphic. Greenlight predicts paperboard is set for sustained price gains because too little has been invested in production. “The U.S. has added so little paperboard capacity that the average mill in this country is over 30 years old,” Mr. Einhorn wrote to investors. He said demand should rise with consumption and the ESG-driven push to remove plastic from supply chains. Plastic became ubiquitous after World War II, when shortages of natural materials touched off a race for synthetic replacements, including nylon and plexiglass. Extracting fossil fuels and turning them into plastic produces a lot of greenhouse gases. Only 14% of plastic packaging is collected for recycling and just a portion of that winds up in new products, while about one-third isn’t collected at all, according to a 2016 report by the World Economic Forum, Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey & Co. Research published in 2019 by

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

said only 12% of plastic is recycled, while 28% is incinerated and 60% remains in the environment. The 2016 study, which is cited regularly, depicted oceans in crisis, fouled by soda bottles, shopping bags and clothing fibers, with a garbage truck worth of plastic winding up in the water every minute. By 2050, the study said, there would be more plastic in the sea, by weight, than fish. With governmental authorities from California to China cracking down, stock analysts list plastic use as one the biggest threats to packaged-goods firms. Companies including Coca-Cola and

Anheuser-Busch InBev SA

have mentioned plastic-to-paper moves in the sustainability reports they produce for investors and outside firms that calculate corporate ESG scores. “It takes us a full year to use as much plastic as a leading beverage company uses in just two weeks,” cereal maker Kellogg’s chief sustainability officer boasted at an investment conference earlier last year, as beverage-company executives waited to pitch the same audience.

Tape and other materials rejected during the cardboard recycling process.

Photo:

Emily Elconin for The Wall Street Journal

In 2019, Graphic’s executives unveiled plans to take market share from plastic and build the state-of-the-art recycled-board machine in Kalamazoo. “You’re not going to see islands of paper floating around the ocean,” said

Joe Yost,

Graphic’s head of Americas, at a meeting with stock analysts. Yet even with a rush of companies promising to cut emissions and reduce waste, the new mill was a hard sell. It was a huge expense that would take two years before it was operational and earning money. In an era in which the average holding time for stocks is measured in months, two years is a long time for investors. Graphic Chief Executive

Michael Doss

prepared the board of directors for blowback. “Not everyone is going to like this,” he recalled telling them. “Our industry has a track record of overexpanding and making poor capital allocations.” Graphic began as a unit of Colorado’s Coors Brewing Co. that manufactured boxes that wouldn’t get soggy in refrigerated trucks. Coors spun off the box business as a separate public company in the early 1990s. Acquisitions followed, giving Graphic its big presence in the Southern pine belt, where its mills make paperboard from sawmill scraps and trees unfit for lumber. Graphic holds about 2,400 patents and has more than 500 applications pending, which protect its package designs and machines installed on customers’ manufacturing lines to fill and fold cartons.

A wall of patents in a hallway at Graphic’s office outside Atlanta.

Photo:

Kendrick Brinson for The Wall Street Journal

Its executives say research and development is focused these days on expanding the use of paperboard from grocery shelves to deli, produce and beer coolers. “We are attacking anything that is plastic,” said

Matt Kearns,

a packaging designer for Graphic. Plastic, though, is less expensive than paperboard. Advancements in paper packaging, such as compostable cups, will likely add to costs. Paperboard producers have increased prices several times over the past year to cover their own rising expenses. Some buyers are exploring less expensive alternatives to paperboard, said

Adam Josephson,

a paper and packaging analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets. “Can companies such as Graphic sell more products when the cost is considerably higher than the products they’re already selling?” Mr. Josephson asked. “That is very much in question.”

Share Your ThoughtsWhat can other companies learn from this plant’s environmental efforts? Join the conversation below.

For some companies, going green means using more plastic. Plastic wrap is lighter than boxes, which means less fuel burned in transit. Plastic has relatively low recycling rates, but so do cups and takeout containers that are made of paper but also fused to polyethylene. It takes an industrial process to peel away the reusable tree pulp.

Wendy’s Co.

said its restaurants will dump plastic-lined paper cups next year and replace them with clear plastic, which it said more consumers will be able to recycle. “This demonstrates how plastic can be viewed as an environmental opportunity instead of a liability,” said

Tom Salmon,

chief executive of

Berry Global Group Inc.,

BERY 1.03%

which is making the cups.

A reject chute for baling wire and plastic separated during the recycling process.

Photo:

Emily Elconin for The Wall Street Journal

Paper doesn’t always have a smaller carbon footprint, either. Making paperboard consumes power and water, and it generates greenhouse gases. One of Graphic’s most promising new products is the KeelClip. The paperboard yoke folds over the top of cans and has finger holes. It is fast replacing plastic wrap and six-pack rings in Europe’s beverage aisles. KeelClips are as easy to recycle as cereal boxes, and Graphic says they can have about half the carbon footprint of shrink wrap, a common way to bundle beers in Europe. Graphic is bringing the KeelClip to America, where it must contend with the ubiquitous plastic six-pack ring. Dirt cheap and light-as-a-feather, the six-pack ring endures despite decades as a symbol of humanity’s abuse of nature. Generations of American school children have been shown photos of ensnared wildlife.

The KeelClip, a paperboard yoke for carrying cans, is tested in a company lab.

Photo:

Kendrick Brinson for The Wall Street Journal

The KeelClip eliminates the need for a lot of plastic wrap in transit, and it is much less likely to muzzle a dolphin. However, Graphic says KeelClip’s carbon footprint—the emissions generated by every step of its manufacture and distribution—is slightly higher than a six-pack ring. Each KeelClip generates the equivalent of 19.32 grams of carbon dioxide, compared with plastic rings’ 18.96 grams, according to Sphera, an ESG-consulting firm that Graphic hired to analyze the packages. Graphic says it is working on that. The DiamondClip, aka the EnviroClip, is under development. It will be strong enough to hold six sweaty beers, the company says, but skimpy enough to have half the carbon footprint of the plastic rings.

The new paperboard production line under construction in November.

Photo:

Emily Elconin for The Wall Street Journal

Write to Ryan Dezember at ryan.dezember@wsj.com

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the January 3, 2022, print edition as ‘Packaging Giant Bets on Paper.’

The U.S. District Court and post office building on West Street in Rutland in 2016. File photo by Andrew Kutches/VTDigger
Updated Dec. 30 at 12:16 p.m.
Residents who complained of water and soil contamination from two shuttered Bennington factories are one step closer to receiving compensation in a class-action suit.
On Dec. 17, the federal court preliminarily approved a $34 million settlement in the lawsuit against factory owner Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation.
Under the November settlement agreement, the French multinational company would pay $26.2 million to eligible property owners affected by PFOA contamination.
The company also would spend up to $6 million to monitor certain diseases among residents adversely exposed to the chemical, used to coat fiberglass fabrics at its defunct factories in North Bennington and Bennington. The rest of the money would cover a portion of the attorneys’ fees.
Area residents allege that the industrial plants emitted PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, which contaminated their drinking water, groundwater and soil. Saint-Gobain denies the accusation and any wrongdoing under the settlement.
The preliminary approval, given by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Geoffrey Crawford, includes a timeline of actions leading up to the final approval hearing April 18.
The notice of settlement will be mailed to potential claimants starting Jan. 3. They can begin submitting claims Jan. 18, and claim approvals will be done after the final approval hearing.
If the rest of the process goes smoothly, plaintiff attorney Emily Joselson said, approved claims can start to be paid around the end of May.
That would be six years since the lawsuit was filed in May 2016.
The PFOA contamination affected an estimated 2,700 properties and 9,000 residents in the towns of Bennington and Shaftsbury and the village of North Bennington, according to attorneys for the complainants. 
Jim Sullivan, a North Bennington resident who has been working to organize other residents affected by the contamination, said they are glad the civil case has reached this juncture. 
“It’s been a long road,” he said.
Sullivan said the complainants are particularly eager to start the medical-monitoring process called for in the settlement.
This free monitoring service will be available to residents who ingested PFOA-contaminated water and who have more than 2.1 parts per billion of PFOA in their blood. The PFOA background level for the U.S. general population is 2.08 parts per billion.
Property owners within the “zone of concern” also would be eligible to claim compensation if they meet the qualifications: They either owned residential real estate within the zone as of March 14, 2016, or after that date bought property that was later added to the zone.
The preliminary approval also lays out February deadlines for potential claimants to opt out of the class-action suit and to file objections to the settlement.
Joselson, a partner at one of the three law firms representing the plaintiffs, describes the agreement as “an extraordinarily good settlement.” She said she hopes potential claimants will recognize its benefits and that there won’t be a significant number of objections.
Another plaintiff attorney, David Silver, said the only reason he can think of for people deciding to opt out is if they want to file their own lawsuit against the French plastics company.
“To go against Saint-Gobain on your own would be, to put it mildly, cost-prohibitive,” he said. “The firms, we’ve spent over a million dollars in expenses to get this far.”
Their expenses over the past five and a half years include payments for expert witnesses, deposition fees and filing fees with the court, Joselson said.
Forms are available through benningtonvtclassaction.com.
When asked for comment, Saint-Gobain said in a statement it is “pleased that Chief Judge Crawford has given preliminary approval to the settlement agreement, allowing the process to move on to the next phase.”
The final approval hearing before Crawford is scheduled to take place April 18 at the federal courthouse in Rutland.

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A West Coast cleanup project wrapped up operations in time for Christmas after removing 50 tonnes of marine debris from the shores of B.C.’s Discovery Islands. The amount of garbage collected by a small but determined team from 357 kilometres of shoreline on Quadra, Cortes, Read, Maurelle, and Marina islands from October to late December was staggering, said project co-ordinator Breanne Quesnel. “We’re really proud we were able to help get that volume of material off the beaches,” said Quesnel, co-owner of Spirit of the West Adventures, the wilderness tourism company that secured the provincial funds to do the cleanup. Get top stories in your inbox.Our award-winning journalists bring you the news that impacts you, Canada, and the world. Don’t miss out.“But we’re really disheartened that it’s there in the first place.”Plastic waste from shellfish farms and other aquaculture operations, as well as commercial fishing ropes and nets, made up the bulk of the garbage collected, Quesnel said. Other ubiquitous offenders were large blocks of Styrofoam and tires typically used to float docks or for mooring devices, she said. The Styrofoam, or polystyrene plastic, is particularly bad because as it degrades and crumbles, the small, lightweight bits are easily and widely dispersed by wind and waves, Quesnel said. And they are almost impossible to collect, she added. What people are reading A team funded by B.C.’s Clean Coast, Clean Waters initiative works to loosen a massive tire lodged on the beach at Rebecca Spit Park on Quadra Island. Photo courtesy of Spirit of the West Adventures The cleanup crews also found a number of partially filled and leaking oil drums that needed to be carefully disposed of. The focus of the operation was to get the largest, most difficult to remove items from more remote beaches, which required specialized transport on land and water, she said. “And we need to be smarter about what (plastics) we’re using, how we’re using it, what its life cycle is,” says Breanne Quesnel, co-ordinator of the B.C. coastal cleanup in the Discovery Islands. The largest item by far was a massive 6,000-pound tire, most likely from a mining vehicle, that required two cranes to lift onto the dock and a specialized vehicle to take it away.The goal was also to collect items that would degrade into microplastics and cause havoc in the marine food web, Quesnel said. Though much of the bigger debris items on island shores came from marine industries, a lot of consumer items are finding their way into the ocean, too. “We found more than 200 shoes,” she said. Quesnel’s pet peeves are all the plastic tampon applicators, straws, plastic dental floss picks, shotgun shell casings, plastic bags and Starbucks stir sticks littering island beaches.“Anyone who has ever used a plastic tampon applicator should have to spend a day or a week cleaning up a beach … because those are just plentiful.” The fact so much plastic debris is still being found on the shores of Quadra demonstrates how pervasive the problem of plastic marine debris is, Quesnel said. The recent intensive shore sweep follows years of dedicated effort by Quadra residents who conduct an annual community beach cleanup, except the past two years because of the pandemic. And island volunteers constantly walk the beaches and pick up plastic. But the waves of detritus continue, even on the most recently cleaned beaches, Quesnel said. While beach cleanups are important and need to continue beyond being a COVID-19 relief measure, any real resolution involves choking off plastic use, she said. There needs to be much stricter policy from all levels of government around plastic production and use, and more responsibility from industries that use them, Quesnel said. “There needs to be better systems in place for tracking those materials and accountability for where they’re coming from,” she said. “And we need to be smarter about what we’re using, how we’re using it, what its life cycle is.” Styrofoam blocks used to float docks are some of the worst forms of plastic pollution on B.C.’s beaches, says Discovery Islands coastal cleanup co-ordinator Breanne Quesnel. Photo courtesy of Spirit of the West AdventuresThe problem of ocean plastics is rising Plastic pollution in aquatic ecosystems across the globe has grown sharply in recent years and is anticipated to more than double by 2030, according to a recent report by the UN Environmental Program.Plastic accounts for 85 per cent of marine debris, and 23 million metric tonnes to 37 million metric tonnes of plastic will pollute the ocean per year by 2040 — which translates to 50 kilograms of plastic per metre of coastline worldwide with dire implications for human health, biodiversity, and the climate and global economy, the report said. Canada spearheaded an international effort to reduce plastics in marine ecosystems with the 2018 Oceans Plastic Charter. But the accord is voluntary and not enough to meet the severity of the problem plastics pose, experts suggest. Ottawa has said it is supportive of current negotiations for a global treaty to mandate change for the entire life cycle of plastic, including its production, use, and disposal. The initiative is slated for discussion at a UN environmental assembly in February, but the federal government hasn’t clarified support for any specific measures or whether it would support a legally binding agreement. Quesnel said that one of the most positive aspects of the Discovery Islands beach cleanup was that 50 per cent of the garbage collected was diverted from landfills through recycling or reuse. “That’s why it was so labour-intensive,” she said. “Every piece that we picked up off of a beach came back to our yard and was dumped onto a tarp and sorted into one of 16 categories for recycling.” The cleanup was funded by the province’s $18-million Clean Coast, Clean Waters initiative, and is one of nine similar projects across much of the coast. More than 550 tonnes of garbage has been removed from coastal shores and created employment during the pandemic, according to the B.C. Ministry of Environment.Aside from protecting marine ecosystems, Quesnel said the coastal cleanup initiative is important given much of the local economy, her marine tourism business included, relies on keeping plastics out of the ocean. The islands, sandwiched between the B.C. mainland and eastern Vancouver Island, are known for their beauty and are a popular wilderness destination for kayakers, boaters and fishing enthusiasts, she said. “We really appreciated working with the local youth, community and First Nations,” Quesnel said. “But I’d rather not be cleaning up beaches, (I’d) rather be helping find better solutions for plastics and debris before they become a problem.” Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer

Let’s take a look back at media coverage in 2021 on sustainable healthcare.We promise, in 2022, to get more sophisticated in these analyses. But even a rough cut at the data yields some pleasant surprises.For starters, our search of the LexisNexis database found 53,000 articles touching on sustainability and healthcare. The database picks up a lot of press releases and trade articles, so the number of “mainstream” reported articles that, say, our researchers at EHN.org would aggregate is considerably smaller.

Healthcare coverage, 2021 edition

Still, within that pile we can find some insight. Our system sorted those articles into different clusters, based on an AI scan of the article text and coded by color, then plotted on a timeline.That colorful graph is shown above. The x-axis shows the months of the year, while the y-axis shows the number of stories published. Several trends are apparent.

Healthcare manufacturing & materials

The teal blocks at the base of each bar show stories focused on sustainable manufacturing and materials – about 15 percent of the coverage. That coverage was fairly consistent over the year.

Covid-19 waves

That’s not the case for stories about healthcare systems getting swamped by Covid-19, right above the teal, in red blocks. Note, of course, that this is just the fraction of the stories published about Covid overrunning our health system; what’s pictured above are just those stories that that also mention sustainability or plastics or recycling.Whether even these belong in this analysis is debatable, but what’s sobering is that we saw just a brief, one-month ebb in the tsunami of coverage this issue generated – in June, when vaccines were rolling out and we all thought we had this pandemic licked.Sigh.These stories represent about 14 percent of all the sustainability coverage.

Healthcare climate emissions

Far more positive are the purple blocks, showing stories about healthcare’s carbon footprint, and – two blocks above those – the peach ones showing efforts to reduce healthcare’s carbon emissions.Note the big spike in coverage in November, when nations gathered in Glasgow for the UN climate talks (You may recall that some 50 nations – but not the United States! – pledged to reduce healthcare emissions). Together these two blocks are about 20 percent of total sustainable healthcare coverage in 2021.

Healthcare waste & recycling

Two final nodes deserve mention: The light green and yellow blocks between the two climate-related ones. They show stories focused on healthcare waste and recycling, respectively, and together they represent almost a quarter of the coverage – a number we at EHN.org found surprising.We’ll be out in 2022 with reports and analyses breaking apart the myth of recycling. But the attention the sector is giving to waste – and the attention that focus is getting in the media – is worth noting.That’s a quick look at the media landscape, and an imprecise one; again, our goal is to get you more detail over this next year and to do what we can to increase the volume and depth of coverage – so we have more stories to analyze when we do this again at the end of 2022!Happy New Year!

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Luke Haverhals wants to change how yoga pants are made. Most performance fabrics used in athletic clothing, like Spandex, are made from synthetic fibers—plastic, essentially. Those plastics are problematic for humans and the environment. Haverhals’ company, Natural Fiber Welding, offers an alternative to synthetic fabrics.NFW makes a performance cotton textile called Clarus that can be used for clothing. The fabric is made from cotton that has been treated to partially break down the organic material and leave it stronger and denser. The result is cotton yarn that behaves more like synthetic fibers.When asked if his company is a tech company or a textiles company, Haverhals responds without hesitation. “We’re a tech company … but our first focus is textiles.”Haverhals has a PhD in chemistry and began his career teaching at the Naval Academy in 2008. While there, he worked with a team of chemists and materials scientists researching ionic liquids, which are essentially melted salts. These salts usually remain liquid at room temperature and can be used as solvents for breaking down biomass, things like cotton and cellulose. In 2009, with funding from the Air Force’s Office of Scientific Research, the team realized a significant breakthrough in strengthening natural fibers using ionic liquids.The team asked what might happen if they partially broke down natural fibers and then welded or fused them together. The result is a kind of monofilament cotton. While the original fibers might be only a few centimeters long, the partially dissolved and fused fibers can be made much longer. This creates a stronger yarn that mimics the performance characteristics of synthetic fibers.In 2016, Haverhals left the Naval Academy and founded NFW with a grant from the Department of Defense and a license from the Air Force to produce yarns and textiles using the process that had come to be known as “fiber welding.” The company has been issued eight patents globally, and has 90 pending.Haverhals and NFW win praise from critics of plastics—and of marketing campaigns claiming to have eliminated them. There’s growing concern about the plastic microfibers synthetic materials like polyester shed with each turn of the washing machine. “I think he (Luke) is the real deal, and I think there are very few people out there that are the real deal,” says Sian Sutherland, founder of A Plastic Planet, a nonprofit that aims to eliminate the use of plastics. “This is not just about eradicating fossil fuels within the textile industry, but above and beyond that, it’s also about toxins.”NFW has attracted a handful of big-name investors, including Ralph Lauren, BMW’s iVentures, and Allbirds. In July, the company said it had raised $15 million from private investors, bringing its total to $45 million. Some of that money went to expand its factory in Peoria, Illinois, where it’s now working to scale up production to hundreds of thousands of square feet of Clarus per month. In September, NFW announced a partnership with Patagonia to bring Clarus fibers into some of the brand’s new products. Haverhals says hundreds of brands are in line to buy the company’s textiles for their own products. He says NFW will provide standardized products to manufacturers and work with brands hoping to develop specialized textiles.“I think he (Luke) is the real deal and I think there are very few people out there that are the real deal.”Sian Sutherland, founder, A Plastic PlanetMirum, NFW’s other product line, is a plant-based alternative to leather. It’s made from things like coconut husk, natural rubber, or cork and is cured, or enhanced for durability, using a patented chemistry with no petrochemical additives. This differentiates Mirum from other synthetics that rely on harsh chemical treatments to achieve a desired consistency or feel. The company pitches it as a substitute for leather in products such as auto interiors and shoes. Allbirds plans to start selling shoes made with Mirum soon.Kasper Sage, managing partner at BMW’s iVentures venture capital arm, says NFW is promising because its products are high quality and sustainable, and the technology is scalable, which is important to automakers. “This is the only company we have found … trying to tackle this problem, that has the potential to really make it in serious automotive production,” says Sage.