The most important document in sustainable construction is a spreadsheet that takes a year to fill out. It’s called an Environmental Product Declaration, or EPD, and for a concrete producer, it’s a ledger of every joule of energy and kilogram of CO2 embedded in their mix, from quarry to truck. Getting one verified is a slog of manual data collection and third-party review. Pathways, a New York-based software startup, is betting that process can be automated down to a few weeks. If they’re right, they aren’t just selling efficiency. They’re selling access to a market that increasingly buys on carbon numbers first [Pathways, retrieved 2024] [Concrete Logic Podcast, retrieved 2026].
The Wedge Is a Verified Stamp
Pathways’ product is a SaaS platform that ingests operational data from a manufacturer,energy bills, raw material shipments, transportation logs,and uses it to automatically generate a life cycle assessment and the subsequent EPD. The company’s initial focus is the ready-mix concrete industry, where it promises NRMCA-verified EPDs in weeks, not the typical 12 months [YesPress, retrieved 2026]. This isn’t just a nicer UI for a calculator. The verification from the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association is the golden ticket; it’s what architects, engineers, and project owners specifying low-carbon concrete actually require. By owning that verification workflow, Pathways inserts itself as a necessary layer between a producer’s data and their market credibility [Pathways, retrieved 2024].
Founders From the Consulting Trenches
The co-founders, Leise Sandeman and Alex Cooper, both cut their teeth at McKinsey advising large industrial clients on sustainability strategy [Leise Sandeman LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] [Alex Cooper LinkedIn, retrieved 2026]. Sandeman’s career is a direct map to the problem: after McKinsey, she worked on the ground with Tata Steel in India, then helped scale Delterra, a materials recycling venture, before graduate studies at Harvard and MIT [Concrete Logic Podcast, April 2026]. This isn’t a team that discovered climate tech last week. They’ve spent years inside the very organizations,global steel, big consulting,that grapple with the tedious, expensive work of carbon accounting. Their bet is that this deep familiarity with the client’s pain is a more valuable wedge than a flashier algorithm.
| Founder | Role | Key Background |
|---|---|---|
| Leise Sandeman | Co-Founder | McKinsey sustainability strategy; Tata Steel; scaled Delterra recycling venture; Harvard/MIT graduate studies [Concrete Logic Podcast, April 2026] [Leise Sandeman LinkedIn, retrieved 2026]. |
| Alex Cooper | Co-Founder | Ex-McKinsey sustainability professional; experience in business development and planning strategies [Alex Cooper LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] [Success.ai, retrieved 2026]. |
Funding and the Road to Traction
In February 2024, Pathways closed a $2.5 million seed round led by Zacua Ventures, with participation from Pi Labs, Blue Lion Global, and several other climate-focused funds [Startups Magazine, Feb 2024]. The capital appears earmarked for proving the model in concrete, a logical beachhead. It’s a fragmented, competitive industry under growing pressure from green building standards, and a verified EPD can be a direct differentiator. While specific customer counts aren’t public, the company lists Stella-Jones, a major producer of pressure-treated wood and concrete products, as an early client [Public neutral summary]. The investor syndicate suggests a belief that the platform approach can later expand into other heavy materials like steel and glass.
The One Click LCA Question
No discussion of automated LCAs is complete without Helsinki-based One Click LCA, the incumbent with a decade-long head start and a vast library of environmental data. They are the elephant in the room, and Pathways must have an answer for buyers who ask why not just use the established tool. The likely counter isn’t a feature-for-feature shootout but a focus on depth over breadth. Pathways is betting that by going deep on a single, complex vertical,concrete,and owning the entire workflow from data ingestion to NRMCA-verified output, they can deliver a level of automation and specificity that a generalist platform cannot [Pathways, retrieved 2024]. It’s a classic wedge: be the best at the hardest part for your first customer, then expand the map.
The Math of a Manual Process
Let’s run the numbers on the old way. Assume a mid-sized concrete producer needs an EPD for a new low-carbon mix. A consultant might charge $15,000 for the LCA work. The producer’s sustainability manager then spends four months, part-time, chasing down data from plants, freight companies, and suppliers. That’s another $20,000 in internal labor. The document then sits in a verifier’s queue for months. All told, you’re looking at nearly $40,000 and a year of delay before that mix can be competitively bid on a green project. Pathways’ promise is to collapse that cost and, more importantly, that timeline. If their software can turn a year into a month, the return isn’t just the saved fee. It’s the revenue from projects won a season earlier.
The next twelve months will be about proving that automation at scale. The company must move from early lighthouse customers to a steady stream of concrete producers running their carbon numbers through the platform. Their path to becoming essential runs through the batch plant. To win, they don’t need to beat One Click LCA everywhere. They just need to own the concrete yard.
Sources
- [Startups Magazine, Feb 2024] Climate AI startup Pathways raises $2.5m to decarbonise building materials | https://startupsmagazine.co.uk/article-climate-ai-startup-pathways-raises-25m-decarbonise-building-materials
- [Pathways, retrieved 2024] Pathways, EPD Software for Ready-Mix Concrete Producers | https://pathwaysai.co/
- [Concrete Logic Podcast, April 2026] Leise Sandeman | Guest: Concrete Logic Podcast | https://www.concretelogicpodcast.com/guests/leise-sandeman/
- [YesPress, retrieved 2026] Pathways coverage | https://pathwaysai.co/pathways-building-materials-emissions-funding
- [Leise Sandeman LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Leise Sandeman LinkedIn Profile | https://www.linkedin.com/company/pathways-ai
- [Alex Cooper LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Alex Cooper LinkedIn Profile | https://www.linkedin.com/company/pathways-ai
- [Success.ai, retrieved 2026] Alex Cooper background summary | https://pathwaysai.co/product