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10 B C B U S I N E S S . C A J U LY/A U G U S T 2 0 2 5 waters without weighing kites, wings or athletes down. (The company is named after the alula, a free-moving part of a bird's wing; in human anatomy terms, it's similar to a thumb.) What Berrang came up with (and patented) was a poly- ethylene composite textile. Berryman explains that other makers in the industry create textiles by finding materials with the desired properties and then gluing them together. Aluula, meanwhile, completely joins its materials into a single composite textile. "We have no glue as our IP is about the process that enables us to fuse different types of polyethylene together," she explains, adding that the resulting material is "super light and super strong." The manufacturer proved its worth on the waves immedi- ately—the company compares its impact on the watersports industry to the impact that carbon fibre had on the cycling industry. "People were able to do tricks on kites that they weren't able to do before," says Berryman (the legendary double kiteloop completed by kiteboarder Giel Vlugt in 2022, said to be the first in the world, was done on a kite made of GO FIGURE by Michael McCullough GOT GAS? LNG Canada, the country's largest capital project this century, is due to begin shipping liquefied natural gas this summer. We look at some of the mind-boggling numbers around this new industry for B.C. LNG Canada's completed first phase is licensed to export up to 14 million tonnes of LNG annually, and will process up to 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, or 11% of Canada's current daily production of 18.1 billion cubic feet. (Phase 2 of the project, should it be greenlighted, would double that capacity.) Canada is the world's 5th largest natural gas producer. In total there are 7 LNG export projects in B.C. in various stages of development that, should they all be completed, would be capable of producing 50.3 million tonnes of LNG per year. IT TAKES 46 BILLION CUBIC FEET OF NATURAL GAS, OR 8% OF THE GAS CONSUMED PER YEAR BY CANADIAN HOUSEHOLDS, TO CREATE 1 MILLION TONNES OF LNG. CURRENTLY 39.4% OF CANADA'S GAS OUTPUT IS EXPORTED, ALL OF IT BY PIPELINE TO THE U.S. " I'm really passionate about sustainability and working with companies and high- performing teams that are doing something to make the world a better place." —Sage Berryman, president and CEO, Aluula Composites Inc. Aluula material). Berryman was brought on to lead the company in 2024. With her 15 years of C-suite experience, she could afford to be picky about job opportunities, but choosing Aluula was a breeze. "I'm really passion- ate about sustainability and working with companies and high-performing teams that are doing something to make the world a better place," she says. Because the patented textiles don't use glue, they are recyclable. "With Aluula, you have a really high-performance textile where circularity is pos- sible and that's really exciting." In fact, Aluula's sustain- able impact has transcended the world of windsports—and attracted some major players. The company announced a partnership with Arc'teryx in 2023, and the resulting Alpha SL backpack made of Aluula's Graflyte material was just released this spring. Interna- tional brands are getting that bag, too: Aluula has collaborat- ed with Italy's Parbat Designs and with Norwegian brand Db on two separate launches of mountaineering packs. The functional, durable and ex- treme-weather-ready bags are made to be used on expedition after expedition, to be passed down from adventurer to adventurer and, at the end of a very long life, to be recycled into something new. Berryman says that living on the West Coast gives her—and Aluula's 20 employees—the unique op- portunity to "participate in our local environment, love the outdoors and then say, 'How can we do this better?'" The team is intentionally small and nimble, and there are big opportunities on the horizon. Berryman shares that Aluula is in the early testing stages of developing a high-performance kite that will support the decarbonization of cargo ships. "Cargo ships move about 90 percent of goods that are bought and sold around the world, and there's a goal to make them a little bit greener in the way that they operate," she explains. One of the part- ners Aluula is working with on this project is French company Airseas (owned by K Line—a name you'll likely recognize if you've ever seen a cargo ship anywhere), with the goal of reducing the overall fuel use of cargo ships by 20 percent. "The prototype products are

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