How Twelve Is Turning CO2 Into The Building Blocks Of Everyday Products
CO2Made®
We live in a world built on carbon. But for too long, that carbon has come from the wrong places—dug up from beneath the Earth in the form of oil, gas, and coal. What if, instead, we could make everything we need from the carbon already in the air?
That’s the radical proposition behind Twelve, a startup rewriting the rules of manufacturing by transforming captured CO₂ into everyday products—from jet fuel to sunglasses, car parts to laundry detergent - and working with partners like P&G, Mercedes-Benz and Alaska Airlines to bring them to market.
Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, Twelve has spent the past decade proving that carbon transformation isn’t just scientifically possible but economically viable and culturally resonant.
From Lab Research to Industrial Reality
Nicholas Flanders, co-founder of Twelve, met his co-founders Etosha Cave and Kendra Kuhl at Stanford, where their PhD research laid the groundwork for the company’s carbon transformation technology. “They were both doing their PhDs in the same lab,” Flanders recalls. “The three of us decided to join forces and turn this idea into an industrially scalable company.”
Twelve’s mission is bold: enable “a world made from air,” where carbon emissions aren’t just avoided but actively used to create high-performance materials consumers already know and trust.
Twelve Co-Founders - from left to right: Nicolas Flanders, Etosha Cave, Kendra Kuhl
The Insight: People Want Better, Not Lesser
Flanders says the company’s approach starts with a simple truth: people want sustainability, but not at the expense of performance. “There’s been so many of these things from the compostable shopping bags to the paper straws,” he explains. “It doesn’t quite work the same way, and so that just doesn’t reach the scale.”
Twelve makes identical materials to those currently derived from oil, simply using captured CO₂ instead. “You’re going to get the exact same performance,” says Flanders. “Brands can use their exact same supply chain but now it will have that carbon-negative on a cradle-to-gate basis aspect, and an exciting story about how it’s made from the air instead of the ground.”
A Consumer Mandate for Change
To mark its anniversary, Twelve commissioned a national survey of 1,000 U.S. adults to assess awareness and demand for CO₂-based products as alternatives to petroleum-derived goods. The findings were striking:
74% of consumers would choose a CO₂-based product over one made from oil if quality stayed the same.
90% said it’s important for brands to eliminate fossil fuels from products.
76% would view brands more positively for offering CO₂-based options.
The survey sample was nationally representative by age, gender, income, and geography, signaling a strong market opportunity for brands willing to innovate.
CO₂-Made, B2B-Focused, Consumer-Driven
While Twelve is primarily a B2B company, its ability to help brands tell a clear, compelling story has become a major driver of adoption. “Our ability to create a message that will resonate with the end consumer has been what’s driven our partners like Procter & Gamble and Mercedes-Benz to work with us,” Flanders says.
He points to the “farm-to-table” movement as inspiration, showing how consumer education and transparency can redefine entire industries.
Twelve Spider Chart
From Tide to Mercedes Car Parts
One example is Procter & Gamble. “We work with them to figure out which materials, which ingredients make the most sense to start with, to start switching over to CO2Made®,” Flanders says.
The partnership with Mercedes-Benz takes it further. “We partnered with them to make the world’s first car parts made from CO₂,” he says, citing a C-pillar cover and seat foam. The components are chemically identical to those made from petroleum, a crucial detail for industries with rigorous safety standards. “By using our solution, which is not actually changing the plastic, it’s just changing the origin of the carbon in it, they can immediately use that without needing to go through years of re-engineering.”
From Jet Fuel to Fashion
Twelve is targeting sectors where consumer visibility is high and petrochemical dependence is significant. According to its survey:
67% of consumers want to see apparel, accessories, and footwear made from CO₂.
57% prioritize technology and personal electronics.
53% are looking for beauty and personal care products.
In aviation, Twelve has partnered with Alaska Airlines, United, and IAG (parent company of British Airways). “Alaska Airlines is the first U.S. airline that will be flying on our fuel,” Flanders says, referring to its sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which cuts lifecycle emissions by up to 90%. Microsoft is also a partner, purchasing the Scope 3 attributes of SAF to decarbonize employee travel. In fashion, Twelve has collaborated with Pangaia to launch sunglasses lenses made from CO₂.
Scaling the Air Economy
Twelve’s ambition extends far beyond pilot projects. Its first commercial-scale production facility—an “Air Plant” in Moses Lake, Washington—is already under construction. Designed to be fully integrated, it will produce 50,000 gallons a year (up to 5bpd) of SAF and chemical feedstocks annually, supplying partners in aviation and manufacturing.
“This plant is a smaller version, but a fully integrated plant,” says Flanders. “The goal is to build dozens of them across the country and then around the world. We use CO₂ and low-cost green power as the key inputs and the outputs are jet fuel and the feedstocks for CO2Made® materials.”
Air Plant 2, an even larger facility, is already in development, reflecting Twelve’s plan to scale globally through modular manufacturing.
A distributed network also offers resilience. “CO₂ and power are things that you can actually contract for really long term, unlike oil,” Flanders says. “We’re enabling domestic production with a much more predictable underlying cost structure.”
Air Plant Render
Labels Matter
Another insight from the survey is the importance of transparency: 72% of consumers say they’d be more likely to purchase CO₂-based products if they were clearly labeled. This has inspired Twelve’s forthcoming CO₂Made™ platform, which will help brands identify opportunities to replace fossil-derived materials and signal those choices to consumers.
“You’re walking down the aisle wherever you buy your groceries or your footwear, and there’s actually products where you see the red dot and that becomes an informed choice for consumers,” says Flanders.
From Petro to Possible
Ultimately, Twelve’s vision is about replacing scarcity with possibility. “Walking down the jet bridge and getting on a flight and knowing that it has a 90% lower footprint—that’s a near-term future that we’re going to make possible,” Flanders says.
In a world full of climate “don’ts”—don’t fly, don’t drive—Twelve offers something rare: a climate “do.” A pathway not of sacrifice but of substitution. Not less—but better.
And that may just be the kind of hope we need right now.
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