A consortium of construction firms, property developers and building engineers plans to use their collective heft to drive down the carbon emissions of one of the world’s most ubiquitous building materials. As part of the new ConcreteZero initiative, 17 companies have pledged to bring the proportion of ​“low-emissions” concrete they use to 30 percent by 2025 and 50 percent by 2030. The companies — which include major European construction firms such as Laing O’Rourke, Mace, Skanska UK and Willmott Dixon; property owners and developers such as Canary Wharf Group and Grosvenor; and engineering firms such as Buro Happold and Thornton Tomasetti — say they’ll use only zero-carbon concrete by 2050. 

That 2050 goal is a bold one that will be hard to achieve. Production of cement, the raw material in concrete, accounts for between 7 and 8 percent of global carbon emissions today, due both to the fossil fuels used in its high-heat production and the chemical composition of the raw materials and processes that make it. These emissions have been rising, not only because of the ever-increasing demand for concrete for buildings, roads and bridges but also because the carbon-intensity of global cement production is increasing, according to recent research.

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