With the new sustainable Nexii plant, green jobs take root
By Adrienne Selko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Renowned actor Michael Keaton is joining the growing green movement in Pittsburgh. “Growing up, many of my neighbors worked in Pittsburgh’s famous steel plants; the lore was that a businessman would take an extra white shirt to work because the one he started with would get so dirty from the mills’ polluted air that he’d have to put on a fresh one to come home,” Keaton, who was born and raised in the Pittsburgh area, said in a statement on April 22.
To be part of the effort to ensure a more sustainable future, Keaton is taking an ownership stake in a partnership with Nexii, a Canadian enterprise and Trinity Commercial Development, based in Pittsburgh, that will develop a sustainability-based manufacturing plant. The plant, which will be built by Nexii Building Solutions Inc., is the first plant built entirely from Nexii’s sustainable concrete alternative, Nexiite.
In fact, the company will be producing the material and building the plant at the same time. Nexii’s sister Pennsylvania plant, which will open in Hazleton, will produce the Nexiite panels and other materials used to build the Pittsburgh plant. The lightweight panels, which are both thermally efficient and less carbon-intensive than concrete, will be shipped to Pittsburgh and assembled onsite, which will reduce build time by 75% as well as on-site waste. The plant, which will be on a redeveloped brownfield site, is set to open in 2022.
“Nexii’s new plant will create more than 300 green, healthy job opportunities and help revitalize my hometown in a way that helps folks right now while paving the way for future generations,” said Keaton.
