STANDARD BANK: Conjuring Food, Jobs and Elegant Shelter from the Humble Mushroom

“We have lived by our purpose of driving South Africa’s growth while providing world-class financial services to our customers for 159 years,” opens Standard Bank. “Each day is powered by our passion for finding new ways to make dreams possible.”

To date, this has entailed pushing economic growth across the African continent and beyond through the multiple divisions which make up the all-encompassing, steadfast and secure Standard Bank Group. “Our differentiator is our long-term commitment to Africa, our home, underpinned by a heritage of over 10 years on the continent.”

A proudly African integrated financial services group, Standard Bank provides banking, insurance, investment as well as non-financial complementary solutions that drive the financial wellbeing of clients at every stage of their financial journey.

CSR AT THE FOREFRONT

The massive corporate social responsibility (CSR) that Standard Bank holds has long informed its operations as a whole. “Standard Bank is committed to driving sustainable and inclusive economic growth, as reflected in our purpose,” asserts Carolyn Kirksmith, Strategic Development Executive at Standard Bank Group. “Africa is our home, and we drive her growth.”

“As Africa’s largest banking group by assets, we recognise the impact of our business activities on the societies, economies and environments in which we operate. We have embedded social, economic and environmental (SEE) considerations into our corporate strategy and day-to-day decisions.” Whether labelled CSR, SEE, CSI or anything else, the concept remains universal: striving to attain a balance between the quest for financial return and social good.

THE MYCELIUM MIRACLE

“Standard Bank firmly believes that co-creation is the key to acceleration,” the group makes clear, “and the fast-growing sustainable finance market provides Africa with an opportunity to identify and fund projects that deliver positive social, economic and environmental outcomes.”

That Standard Bank has co-adopted a litany of laudable causes in this space across the years is undeniable; none have been as unexpected or, arguably, as uniquely brilliant as its most recent. It comes as a result of a partnership between Standard Bank and the MIT, alongside US-based architecture firm redhouse studio.

A seminal social upliftment project, the BioHAB initiative has the crucial aim of creating a sustainable economic and social ecosystem in Namibia, leveraging fungal material from mushrooms to develop housing and food products.

BioHAB will harness the mycelium – the root system that produces mushrooms – to grow housing completely from the ground up, as well as food products for consumption that immediately generate income. It may appear to have come completely out of left field but, while certainly ground-breaking, mycelium and its associated applications collectively known as mycotecture has been quietly and steadily gaining popularity as a construction material for as much as a decade.

“The mushroom farm is operating out of shipping containers in undeveloped land, the cultivators turn waste biomass into delicious mushrooms that easily outcompete beef on nutritional value per unit land, energy and time spent. The waste from this cultivation is immediately converted into strong, carbon-sequestering block bricks suitable for building,” said redhouse founder Christopher Maurer.

“We have developed new formwork from next generation inflatable technologies inspired by Mars exploration missions that can be used over and over again eliminating the need for costly and unsustainable formwork.”

BioHAB starts with the blackthorn ‘encroacher bush’ – Acacia millifera – that is choking Namibia’s water supply, harvested to create substrate, or food, for mycelium to grow through generating mushrooms and building, insulation and packaging materials replacing conventional, expensive, dirty processes. Once harvested, the remaining material is compacted, on-site with in-house-developed, field-appropriate technologies into sustainable eco-friendly building materials. “By pressing and baking the waste,” Kirksmith continues, “the materials can be made stronger than concrete.  BioHAB is the world’s first building made with this sustainable technology,” she adds.

Work on BioHAB started in May 2019, shortly after Standard Bank Group became a sponsor of Dr Mershin’s Label Free Research Group at the MIT CBA and is an extension of the Standard Bank Namibia’s ‘Buy a Brick’ initiative, which in addition to removing carbon from the atmosphere, cleaning up farmland and creating new skillsets and jobs, aims to assist 500,000 no-to-low-income Namibians living in informal settlements.

STRATOSPHERIC INNOVATIONS

At its experimental site on the outskirts of Windhoek already in place, BioHAB is employing methods pioneered by architect Maurer for NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts programme. Geared towards creating a habitat on Mars, such methods require very little water and no additional nutrients, and these gourmet mushrooms use the least water, land and energy per pound of protein of many commonly grown crops.

“Standard Bank and MIT are partnering to leverage mycelium technology from NASA’s Mars program to develop an innovative way of building houses,” Kirksmith summarises. 

“We are using the indigenous encroacher bush, a major ecological and environmental problem in Namibia, as food for the mushroom mycelium. Good progress has been made to date in Namibia, our pilot country.”

The Namibian context lends even further importance to this campaign and its success, Kirksmith continues. “This beautiful, arid country in the southwest of Africa is experiencing record drought, homelessness and unemployment, exacerbated by malnutrition and Covid-19,” she outlines. “This new way of building is designed to create food security, agricultural jobs and dignified low-cost housing all at once.”

With standard building materials like concrete and steel such significant contributors to the building industry’s sizeable environmental impact the sector is compelled to explore cutting-edge technologies that may influence future construction standards. BioHAB’s materials are multi-functional. They can be used structurally, for insulation, for fire-resistance, and sound attenuation, and First Lady Monica Geingos agreed that they fulfil the brief exceptionally.

“This project opens up so many applications, and most importantly, challenges the building industry and society to think differently about how we can solve problems by being creative in promoting the lives of every member of society.

“It’s important to always dream big,” she added. “Problems unique to the informal settlements cannot be resolved by using conventional ideas, processes, regulations or laws.”

Having stepped far outside the conventional in pursuit of a solution, Carolyn Kirksmith feels strongly that this venture responds to this pressing need in a revolutionary way. “We are embarking on a journey into new territory,” she declares. “We need to find innovative solutions that make the best use of scarce resources in new and sustainable ways that enrich and benefit local communities wherever possible.

“While we still have much to do, we are excited and cautiously optimistic about BioHAB going forward,” she concludes. “Standard Bank, the CBA and redhouse are committed to furthering this technology to reach millions of people with healthy food, good jobs and comfortable, dignified shelter. In doing so, we hope to inspire the building industry to look more closely at sustainable low-carbon materials for building and regenerative practices for growing food.

“In a world after Covid-19, BioHAB is not just a building. It is an ecosystem, a circular and clean economy and a community. We firmly believe that it is the future.”