Seafoam Materials is a Canadian cleantech biomaterials company founded by architects Amy Yang and Chloe Doesburg. The company develops carbon-storing building materials made from seaweed and upcycled waste, beginning with bio-based insulation designed as a direct replacement for conventional products. Seafoam is helping decarbonize construction through practical, scalable material innovation.
Building materials account for 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As regulation drives the construction industry toward net-zero buildings, demand for low carbon building materials continues to grow.
Insulation is one of the largest opportunities to reduce embodied carbon. It accounts for 26% of material emissions in Canadian residential construction—second only to concrete—and manufacturing insulation for new Canadian homes generates an estimated 5.2 million tonnes of CO₂e each year.
Yet builders still lack viable low carbon insulation that matches conventional products in cost, performance, and installation. Products that add cost, require specialized installation, or disrupt construction workflow have not seen widespread adoption.
Removing the biggest barrier to decarbonizing construction by making low carbon materials easy for builders to adopt.
Seafoam Materials is developing carbon-storing insulation made from a proprietary seaweed-based binder combined with recycled cardboard and forestry by-products. Designed as a direct replacement for fibreglass and mineral wool, Seafoam targets comparable cost, performance, and installation, removing the friction that prevents builders from switching to low carbon, sustainable materials.
With support from NorthX, Seafoam will advance its cavity batt insulation from lab-scale validation to pilot-scale manufacturing by establishing a repeatable pilot manufacturing process and validating full-size product performance. At scale, replacing 5% of North America’s board and batt insulation market—approximately 150 million ft² annually—could abate an estimated 278,000 tonnes of CO₂e each year by 2035, based on third-party preliminary life-cycle assessment.
