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Featuring Gene Eidelman, Cofounder, Azure Printed Homes; Kate McLeod, Cofounder and Formulator, Kate McLeod and Nicole Richards, CEO, Allonnia. Moderated by Rebecca Barker, Editorial Event Producer, Fast Company. It’s not enough for companies to declare their commitment to the environment. As the federal government rolls back environmental programs and policies at a head-spinning pace, businesses are on their own to maintain momentum in the push toward sustainability. Hear from leaders who are spearheading climate-positive practices by tackling forever chemicals, reimagining what’s possible with recycled plastic and packaging, and more.
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E-Commerce
As Americans struggle under backbreaking rental prices, builders are turning to innovative ways to churn out more housing, from 3D printing to assembling homes in an indoor factory to using hempyes, the marijuana cousinto make building blocks for walls.It’s a response to the country’s shortfall of millions of homes that has led to skyrocketing prices, plunging millions into poverty.“There’s not enough homes to purchase and there’s not enough places to rent. Period,” said Adrianne Todman, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under former President Joe Biden.One way to quickly build more is embrace these types of innovations, Todman said. “I can only imagine what our housing situation would be like now if we could have made a decision to be more aggressive in adopting this type of housing.”So what are these new ways of building homes? And can they help reduce the cost of new housing, leading to lower rents? Factory-built housing put together in a week In a cavernous, metal hall, Eric Schaefer stood in front of a long row of modular homes that moved through the plant, similar to a car on an assembly line.At a series of stations, workers lay flooring, erected framing, added roofs and screwed on drywall. Everything from electrical wiring to plumbing to kitchen countertops were in place before the homes were shrink-wrapped and ready to be shipped.The business in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Fading West, has pumped out more than 500 homes in its just over three years of operation, each taking just five to seven days to build, even in the coldest winter months, Schaefer said.Once assembled in the plant, the narrow townhouse-style homes with white trim, balconies and front porches, are about 90% done. At their final destination they are move-in ready within six weeks, Schaefer said.The company works with towns, counties and housing nonprofits to help address the shortage of affordable homes, mostly for workers who’ve been squeezed out by sky-high prices in ritzy mountain towns.That includes Eagle, Colorado, not far from the Vail ski resort, where Fading West worked with Habitat for Humanity to install modular homes at affordable rents for teachers and other school district employees. The homes tend to be on the smaller side, but can be multifamily or single family.“You can build faster. The faster you buildeven at a high qualitymeans the lower the price,” Schaefer said. “We see this as one of the pieces to the puzzle in helping solve the affordable housing crisis.”There’s a hefty upfront cost to build the factory, and part of the challenge is a lack of state and federal investment, he said. A patchwork of building codes governing how a structure can be built also makes it difficult, requiring changes to the construction depending on the town or county it is being sent to.Manufactured housing is similar to modular housing, but the units are constructed on a chassislike a trailerand they aren’t subject to the same local building codes. That’s part of the reason they are used more broadly across the U.S.Roughly 100,000 manufactured homes were shipped to states in 2024, up from some 60,000 a decade earlier, according to Census Bureau data. Estimates of modular homes built annually often put them below 20,000. 3D printing is innovative but still ‘a long game’ Yes, there’s technology to 3D print homes.A computer-controlled robotic arm equipped with a hose and nozzle moves back and forth, oozing lines of concrete, one on top of the other, as it builds up the wall of a home. It can go relatively quickly and form curved walls unlike concrete blocks.Grant Hamel, CEO and co-founder of VeroTouch, stood inside one of the homes his company built, the wall behind him made out of rolling layers of concrete, distinct to a 3D printer. The technology could eventually reduce labor costs and the time it takes to build an abode, but is farther off than manufactured or modular methods from making a dent in the housing crisis.It’s “a long game, to start chipping away at those prices at every step of the construction process,” Hamel said.The 3D printers are expensive, and so are the engineers and other skilled employees needed to run them, said Ali Memari, director of the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center, whose work has partly focused on 3D printing. It’s also not recognized by international building codes, which puts up more red tape.The technology is also generally restricted to single-story structures, unless traditional building methods are used as well, Memari saidIt’s “a technology at its beginning, it has room to grow, especially when it is recognized in code,” Memari said. “The challenges that I mentioned exist, and they have to be addressed by the research community.” A hemp-and-lime mixture called hempcrete has ‘a bright future’ Hempthe plant related to marijuanais being used more and more in the construction of walls.The hemp is mixed with other materials, most importantly the mineral lime, forming “hempcrete,” a natural insulation that’s mold- and fire-resistant and can act as outer wall, insulation and inner wall.Hempcrete still requires wood studs to frame the walls, but it replaces three wall-building components with just one, said Memari, also a professor at Penn State University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Memari is now helping oversee research into making hempcrete that doesn’t need the wood studs.As much as a million hemp plants to be used for hempcrete can grow on one acre in a matter of months as opposed to trees, which can take years or decades to grow.The plant is part of the cannabis family but has far less of the psychoactive component, THC, found in marijuana. In 2018, Congress legalized the production of certain types of hemp. Last year, the International Code Council, which develops international building codes used by all 50 states, adopted hempcrete as an insulation.Confusion over the legality of growing hemp and the price tag of the machine required to process the plant, called a decorticator, are barriers to hempcrete becoming more widespread in housing construction, Memari said.Still, he said, “hempcrete has a bright future.” Associated Press video journalist Thomas Peipert contributed to this report from Buena Vista, Colorado. Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Jesse Bedayn, Associated Press/Report for America
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E-Commerce
After years of struggling with the complexities of a merger that saw the combination of two major discount retailers a decade ago, Dollar Tree has decided to cut ties with Family Dollar. The company has announced an agreement to divest its Family Dollar business to private equity firms Brigade Capital Management and Macellum Capital Management for $1 billion, a strategic move that aims to streamline operations and enhance focus on its core Dollar Tree segment. Following the announcement, Dollar Tree’s shares surged nearly 7% in premarket trading on Wednesday. The deal is part of the companys ongoing efforts to improve performance, with CEO Rick Dreiling emphasizing that the divestiture “enables us to better allocate capital and resources to support our long-term growth strategy.” The transaction is expected to be completed later this year. Writing on the wall The 2015 merger of Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, initially viewed as a strategic move to expand market reach, ultimately highlighted the complexities of integrating large retail operations. The decision to divest Family Dollar reflects a reassessment of strategic priorities and a focus on core business operations. During Q4 of fiscal 2023, the company�announced that it had�initiated a “comprehensive store portfolio optimization review.” This review focused on, among other things, identifying underperforming stores for closure. Following Dollar Trees Q1 results for 2024, there were hints that the company might spin off Family Dollar to focus on its core business after it announced it would close about 600 Family Dollar stores in the first half of fiscal year 2024 and 370 more over a period of a few years as their lease terms expire. Dollar Tree said in its earnings report on Wednesday that it closed 695 stores in fiscal 2024 as part of its review. Dollar Tree has not yet responded to Fast Company‘s inquiry regarding whether additional store closures are now anticipated. A new chapter With Brigade and Macellum’s backing, Family Dollar is poised for future success, according to Mike Creedon, CEO of Dollar Tree, as the discount retailer transitions into a new phase of growth. Under the experienced, dynamic leadership of Family Dollar President Jason Nordin, and with the financial support of Brigade and Macellum, Family Dollar will be well-positioned for growth as a private company, said�Creedon in a statement. With the support of a dedicated team, Family Dollar will be able to strengthen its commitment to providing affordable and essential goods to customers so they can do more with less. Fast Company also reached out to Brigade Capital Management to ask if it planned to make any additional reductions to Family Dollar’s physical footprint
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E-Commerce
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