Despite being in business only since December 2022, Scotland-based cleantech company CCU International has quickly gained a reputation for its innovative carbon capture technologies.
These technologies aim to help businesses achieve their carbon reduction goals, and the company’s efforts have already been recognized with several prestigious awards.
Earlier this month, CCU International was named the best small company in the UK at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) Celebrating Small Business Awards, marking the fourth time in five years that a Scottish firm has won this title.
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Additionally, the Aberdeen-based start-up excelled in the innovation category. CEO Beena Sharma expressed her delight that she and her fellow executives, Francis Doherty, Professor Peter Styring, and Dr. George Dowson, were able to accept the awards in person.
The company’s trophy cabinet is getting crowded, as this month alone, CCU was also named Global StartUp of the Year and Green StartUp of the Year at the 2024 Scotland StartUp Awards. Last year, they won the environment prize at the AccelerateHER Awards. Sharma attributes this success to the company’s rapid progress and its potential to outpace peers as net-zero targets become more critical.
CCU International, a spin-out from the University of Sheffield and registered in Edinburgh, has developed technology that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from industrial chimneys and exhaust stacks at facilities like paper mills and waste-to-energy plants. This CO2 is then purified and either reused in industry or converted into valuable commodities such as aggregates for building materials and ingredients for household products like shampoo and toothpaste.
Sharma emphasizes that their technology is designed to be more energy-efficient, cost-effective, and eco-friendly than existing CO2 capture solutions, playing a crucial role in bridging the gap until fossil fuels are no longer needed. The UN supports this view, stating that carbon capture, use, and storage are essential for reducing carbon emissions and decarbonizing the energy sector long-term.
In March, CCU announced a partnership with the £5 million Flue2Chem project, supported by the UK Government through Innovate UK, to help achieve net-zero goals in manufacturing chemistry-based products. The project partners include major industry players like BASF, Johnson Matthey, Tata Steel, and Unilever.
The first critical stage involved capturing biogenic carbon from the flue gas emissions at the Holmen Iggesund Paperboard Mill in Cumbria. Sharma highlighted the importance of collaboration and expressed anticipation for deploying the technology to a second emitter site in Scotland in the coming months.
Sharma’s journey to co-founding and leading CCU International can be traced back to her childhood in London. Her father, who emigrated from Bangladesh, established businesses in the rag trade, but after his death when Sharma was young, her family faced financial challenges.
Growing up with several siblings in a modest household, she developed the resilience and drive that would eventually lead her to her current role at the forefront of carbon capture innovation.