Like many in the construction industry, you’d probably love it if net-zero-carbon concrete were available right now. After all, it’s touted as a way to help satisfy the demand for better sustainability and fewer CO₂ emissions from construction. While it’s only a future possibility at the moment, there are many organizations out there working hard to make it a reality.

In fact, just last year, the Cement Association of Canada (CAC) partnered with the Government of Canada to create and support a plan to reach net-zero-carbon concrete by 2050. Not long after, the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA), consisting of 23 affiliated associations and over 35 members, followed suit. They partnered with World Economic Forum to launch the Concrete Action for Climate initiative to globally promote net-zero-carbon concrete by 2050.

Of course, such actions are only a natural evolution for the construction industry. The interest in green practices is higher than ever, and there are several trends that are expected to push that interest further. Some of which include pressure from local governments, rising expectations from the public, and the need to diminish the impact of ongoing climate change.

But why have these trends created an industry focus on net-zero-carbon concrete? What exactly does it mean to have such concrete? And is net-zero-carbon concrete even possible?

Join us as we explore all these questions and more.

To start, we need a more solid idea on what net-zero-carbon concrete even is. There is a lot of eco-friendly terminology out there, and it’s not always clear what each term should mean.

Take carbon positive,  for instance. That sounds suspiciously like someone is all for using carbon instead of reducing it, doesn’t it? But it actually has the same meaning as the following two terms:  carbon negative and climate positive. What they all refer to is simply the action of surpassing net-zero carbon emissions by removing extra CO₂ from the atmosphere.

And there is that net-zero term again, right in the definition of all those three terms. What does it actually represent?

The term net-zero carbon (or net-zero carbon emissions) defines what happens when people balance the amount of greenhouse gases (GHG) they emit with the amount they remove. Essentially, it’s a way to avoid adding more carbon into the atmosphere while still being able to use it at the same time.

That allows us to continue necessary carbon-heavy practices like construction without harming the environment further. And it will likely act as a way for us to continue those practices while gradually transitioning to more environmentally friendly methods.

Keep in mind that this isn’t the only perception of the term net-zero carbon. For instance, the Government of Canada views the term in two ways. It can either be a term to define a balancing of emissions or as a way to emit no emissions whatsoever.

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