Volcanic Rock as a Carbon Sink, with Anastasia Pavlovic of Eion

05/21/25 • 41 min

Anastasia Pavlovic is the co-founder of Eion, a carbon removal company that accelerates Earth's natural rock weathering process to lock away CO2—permanently. Eion works with farmers to deploy enhanced rock weathering (ERW) in agricultural fields, creating a carbon sink disguised as soil amendment, with benefits to landowners and climate alike. Anastasia joined the podcast from Detroit to talk about carbon, kids, and the importance of remembering to eat.

In this episode we talked about:

🪨 How volcanic rock dust turns farms into carbon capture sites (and why the best rocks might be in Norway)
🌽 How Eion aligns climate goals with farm economics
🚢 The surprising math that makes ocean shipping rock across the Atlantic more carbon-efficient than it sounds
💰 Why climate tech founders need to think like infrastructure financiers and not just software bros
📉 How Anastasia regulates the highs and lows of startup life—with a side of mac & cheese

#Climatetech #CarbonRemoval #Agtech

🪸 Transform your company's milestones into impact, like trees planted and coral reef restored: impacthero.com/podcast

🧑‍💼 Growing across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

📈 B2B content to create and capture leads: book 30 minutes with Tom for free at grizzle.io/climate

In this episode we talked about:

#Climatetech #CarbonRemoval #Agtech

🪸 Transform your company's milestones into impact, like trees planted and coral reef restored: impacthero.com/podcast

🧑‍💼 Growing across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

📈 B2B content to create and capture leads: book 30 minutes with Tom for free at grizzle.io/climate

Previous Episode

The Scully Effect is Alive and Fermenting, with Nemailla Bonturi of ÄIO

Nemailla Bonturi is the co-founder of ÄIO, an Estonian startup fermenting fats and oils from yeast instead of palm oil or animal products. A Brazilian scientist-turned-founder, Nemailla now works at the intersection of synthetic biology, circular economy, and baked goods—with an in-house chef, of course.

In this episode we talked about:

🧫 How a “very special yeast” turns sawdust and stale bread into palm oil alternatives
🌍 Why Estonia is a unicorn factory
🥐 A plant-based butter that could make your croissant carbon neutral
🧴 Turning leftover dairy and tea leaves into moisturizers and lip balms
🧠 Mental health, therapy, and the importance of shutting your laptop at 6pm
📺 Why The X-Files may be the most pro-climate tech show of the 1990s

#fermentationtech #climatetech #circularbioeconomy

🪸 Transform your company's milestones into impact, like trees planted and coral reef restored: impacthero.com/podcast

🧑‍💼 Growing across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

Next Episode

Sticking with the Software Side of Energy Transition, with Veronique Hördemann of Future Energy Ventures

Veronique Hördemann is Managing Partner and CFO at Future Energy Ventures, a climatetech VC firm investing in the software layer of the energy transition. From her base in Essen (with a side of Berlin), Veronique talked about going from corporate VC to a fully independent impact fund and why they’ve made a deliberate choice to stay clear of hardware.

In this episode we talked about:
🏙️ How they segment their investments across “future energy”, “future cities”, and “future technology”
📉 The real reason they avoid hardware investments (spoiler: it involves capital, time, and regret)
👩‍💼 The diversity problem in VC and why she wants more female-led startups in her pipeline
🔁 What it’s like going from corporate-backed VC to managing a regulated, independent impact fund
🏫 Why she thinks the school system is stifling innovation—and how that’s become personal

#climatetech #impactinvesting #venturecapital #VC

🪸 Transform your company's milestones into impact, like trees planted and coral reef restored: impacthero.com/podcast

🧑‍💼 Growing across Europe? Grab a free consultation and hire without hassle: parakar.eu/climate

Another ClimateTech Podcast - Volcanic Rock as a Carbon Sink, with Anastasia Pavlovic of Eion

Transcript

Anastasia Pavlovic00:00:38.063

We use a technology called Enhanced Rock Leathering ERW , as it's known to people in the field . It uses a natural process that rocks many special rocks on Earth go through to regulate our Earth's climate . But we speed up that process and we work with farmers and landowners to incorporate this into their existing agricultural practices , so it slides right into something tha