Sustainable Practices in Cement and Concrete Industries

The cement and concrete sector is under intense scrutiny for its contribution to global greenhouse-gas emissions, driven by the chemical release of CO₂ during limestone calcination and the energy consumed in high-temperature kilns. Sustainable practices encompass both supply-side innovations—such as novel low-carbon binders, carbon capture and utilisation, and electric recycling of cementitious materials—and demand-side strategies, including efficient structural design, extended service life, and material circularity. The integration of secondary cementitious materials, the reuse of demolished concrete, and the optimisation of mix proportions are transforming conventional production toward a circular economy. Advances in digital design, self-healing and photocatalytic concretes, and 3D printing further promise to reduce resource consumption while enhancing performance. Life-cycle assessment and policy frameworks are becoming essential to evaluate environmental impacts, guide regional mix optimisation and support equitable deployment of low-carbon solutions in diverse markets. Collectively, these approaches aim to align the industry with net-zero targets without compromising the functional benefits that make concrete indispensable to modern infrastructure.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent work has demonstrated that used cement paste can be reclaimed as a flux substitute in steel recycling and reclinkered into a material meeting clinker specifications, enabling electric recycling pathways that, when coupled with zero-carbon electricity, could achieve net-zero emissions cement production. Parallel studies have quantified how combined improvements in manufacturing efficiency, structural design and reduced cement demand could curtail over 76 % of sectoral CO₂ emissions by 2100, largely by leveraging design flexibility and avoiding heavy capital investments in alternative processes. Investigations into secondary cementitious materials have mapped global generation rates of industrial by-products, showing that maximally substituting Portland clinker with locally sourced materials could replace up to 50 % of clinker content and avoid more than one gigatonne of CO₂ annually, underscoring the importance of regionally optimised mix designs.

Sustainable Practices in Cement and Concrete Industries publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in sustainable practices in cement and concrete industries across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Clinker: The nodular product of cement kilns formed by the sintering of limestone and clay, which after grinding yields Portland cement.

Supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs): Materials such as fly ash, slag or calcined clays used to partially replace clinker, reducing CO₂ emissions and often enhancing durability.

Carbonation: The gradual uptake of atmospheric CO₂ by hydrated cement phases in concrete over its service life, partially offsetting initial emissions.

Decarbonation: The release of CO₂ during the thermal decomposition of calcium carbonate in the cement‐making process, accounting for a major share of process emissions.

Life-cycle assessment (LCA): A systematic methodology for evaluating the environmental impacts of a product or process from raw-material extraction through end of life.

References

1. Electric recycling of Portland cement at scale. Nature (2024).
2. Near-term pathways for decarbonizing global concrete production. Nature Communications (2023).
3. Cement substitution with secondary materials can reduce annual global CO2 emissions by up to 1.3 gigatons. Nature Communications (2022).
4. Smart materials and technologies for sustainable concrete construction. Developments in the Built Environment (2023).
5. Effects of Using Green Concrete Materials on the CO2 Emissions of the Residential Building Sector in Egypt. Sustainability (2022).
6. Environmental impacts and environmental justice implications of supplementary cementitious materials for use in concrete. Environmental Research Infrastructure and Sustainability (2021).