Dr Sean Simpson

Dr Sean Simpson is a New Zealand scientist, entrepreneur, and co-founder of LanzaTech, a carbon recycling company built on a deceptively simple idea: that waste carbon can become a useful resource rather than a pollutant.

Founded in 2005, LanzaTech began with a bold scientific question. Simpson and his late co-founder, Dr Richard Forster, had been working on biofuels in New Zealand when their employer closed. Rather than abandon the field, they asked whether industrial emissions could be transformed into valuable products instead of being released as waste — at a time when using waste gases as a feedstock for fuels and chemicals was far from obvious.

Working out of borrowed lab space, the pair developed a platform that uses biology — specially engineered microbes — to ferment the carbon-rich waste gases from sources such as steel mills into ethanol and other useful materials. That work placed LanzaTech at the intersection of climate technology, industrial innovation, and advanced biotechnology.

The company grew from its New Zealand origins into a global carbon capture and transformation business, relocating its headquarters to the United States and bringing in chemist and aviation-fuel veteran Dr Jennifer Holmgren as chief executive to drive commercialisation. LanzaTech later listed on the Nasdaq, and its recycled-carbon technology has been used by global brands to make everything from fragrances to clothing.

Simpson’s work has helped position New Zealand as a serious contributor to climate-tech innovation. Rather than focusing on consumer behaviour, LanzaTech tackles emissions at an industrial scale, where the size of the problem — and the potential impact — is far larger.

His career reflects the power of deep technical insight matched with commercial ambition. Simpson helped build a company around an idea many considered unlikely, and in doing so contributed one of New Zealand’s most important science-led business stories.

Sources: LanzaTech · CNBC · Callaghan Innovation