Fast Company names Graphyte one of World’s Most Innovative Companies in sustainability

By I.C. Murrell, The Pine Bluff Commercial

A proprietary carbon casting model has helped Pine Bluff-based Graphyte earn a place on Fast Company magazine's list of World's Most Innovative Companies of 2025 in sustainability.

Fast Company released its list Tuesday morning on its website, placing Graphyte at No. 2 out of 10 companies. The magazine said it recognized Graphyte "for making large-scale carbon removal commercially viable." The company, founded by Barclay Rogers, opened at the Jefferson Industrial Park last year.

Graphyte, Fast Company said, takes a different approach to removing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, adding it's "a key part of fighting climate change, but most technology is still too expensive to scale up quickly." Graphyte leverages readily available and otherwise unused residues from agriculture and timber such as sawdust and rice hulls, according to a news release. These products naturally store carbon through photosynthesis, according to Graphyte.

Graphyte then dries and condenses the biomass into carbon blocks and stores it underground in what it calls state-of-the-art monitoring. This, Graphyte says, preserves nearly all the carbon captured and consumes very little energy.

"Today's recognition underscores how sometimes the most innovative ideas are also the simplest," Graphyte CEO Barclay Rogers said in a news release. "Because Carbon Casting can work with nearly any biomass, doesn't require complicated technology or permitting, and doesn't take much energy to execute, Graphyte has been able to capture tens of thousands of tonnes (metric ton, or 1,000 kilograms) of carbon and is on track to become the largest carbon removal company in the world."

Read more in the Pine Bluff Commercial.