Photo credit: Solid Carbon.
Additional Contributors: Sal Brzozowski, Ali Rotatori, Heather House, Lindsay Rasmussen, Ben Skinner, Mackenzie Cool, and Kelly Wu
Concrete is everywhere; from buildings and bridges to roads and sidewalks, it is the most widely used human-made material on Earth. The world produces more than 4.1 billion metric tons of cement each year, with China alone producing over half of the global output, followed by India, Vietnam, and the United States. Demand for cement and concrete continues to grow. Global construction is projected to add 2.6 trillion square feet (240 billion square meters) of new floor area by 2060, which is equivalent to building another New York City every month for the next 40 years, driven largely by rapid urbanization in the Global South.
The cement and concrete sector accounts for nearly 8 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, the vast majority of which come from producing clinker, the precursor to cement and the key ingredient that gives concrete its strength. To make clinker, limestone is heated in kilns to approximately 1450 degrees Celsius, typically by burning coal, natural gas, or petroleum coke. This process releases carbon dioxide both from the combustion of fossil fuels and from the chemical reaction that breaks down limestone, creating a dual emissions challenge that is responsible for about 88 percent of concrete's carbon footprint.
The clinker is then ground into cement using electricity, transported, and mixed with aggregates (typically sand, gravel, and crushed stone) and water to create concrete. Think of it like a cake, where aggregate is the flour that gives structure and bulk, cement is the egg that binds everything together, and water is the milk that activates the mix and gives it the right consistency.
Concrete’s global scale and the highly local nature of its production both shape the decarbonization challenge. While cement is often exported internationally, concrete is made close to where it will be used. Concrete is heavy and starts to harden as soon as it is mixed, making it impractical to transport over long distances. Production and consumption are therefore closely tied to local demand, available materials, and policy environments, creating highly regionalized markets that require locally tailored solutions.
Despite its outsized climate impact and the challenges associated with decarbonization, concrete is indispensable. Its strength, versatility, and widespread availability have made it the go-to building material for centuries. It is also a climate-resilient material, enabling durable, fire-resistant, and adaptive infrastructure that can withstand rising temperatures and extreme weather. As populations grow across the Global South and climate resilience becomes increasingly important, concrete will remain the cornerstone of the built environment. Decarbonizing its production is essential to minimize environmental harm and reduce pollution, which improves air quality, protects public health, and safeguards people and ecosystems from the worst impacts of climate change.
Addressing the climate impacts of concrete will not be simple. Adoption of low-carbon technologies and practices can be slowed by fragmented markets, outdated standards, and the high cost of new technologies, yet growing policy momentum, voluntary corporate commitments, and expanding market opportunities for low-carbon materials are creating powerful incentives for change. Emissions will rise if traditional production methods persist, but many rapidly urbanizing regions can leapfrog directly to low-carbon production. With innovations across the cement and concrete value chain ready to scale, this presents a window for early investors and adopters to shape a fully decarbonized future.
Even with cement’s enormous scale and significant share of global emissions, investment in decarbonizing this sector remains far below what is needed to stay on track for global net-zero targets. According to the World Economic Forum’s Net-Zero Industry Tracker 2024, near-zero emission cement currently accounts for less than 1 percent of the market, and the sector will require an estimated $1.4 trillion in cumulative investment through 2050 to reach net-zero. Yet over the past five years, cement and concrete have attracted less than 1 percent of climate tech venture capital — about $1.4 billion of the $205 billion invested across all sectors — highlighting a stark gap between current funding and what is required to decarbonize the industry.
Reaching net-zero emissions in the cement and concrete sector requires innovation across the value chain. This year, Third Derivative and RMI launched two industrial initiatives: the Industrial Innovation Cohorts (IIC), focused on supporting groundbreaking startups in the cement, steel, and chemicals sectors, and the Future Industries Partnership, which builds on the foundations of IIC with a specific focus on deploying solutions in Asia and the Middle East, where industrial growth and rapid urbanization are driving urgent demand for scalable, low carbon technologies. Through the process of developing robust technical investment theses, the team categorized three types of innovation that are needed to reach net-zero emissions across heavy industry:
Reducing demand for clinker, cement, and concrete through smarter design and material use could achieve about 22 percent of the emissions reductions needed to reach net-zero by 2050. Achieving these savings requires interventions across the value chain, from building design to on-site execution.
Practices such as using more efficient concrete mixes, optimizing structural design to use less concrete, and extending building lifetimes can reduce the volume of concrete required without compromising safety or durability. Retrofitting existing structures rather than building new ones, incorporating modular or prefabricated components (including precast concrete forms), and setting clear project performance targets can further limit demand. Even small specification adjustments early in a project, such as allowing concrete to reach its required strength over 56 days rather than 28, enable producers to use less cement while maintaining performance.
On-site monitoring provides additional opportunities to cut emissions. By generating real-time data on curing, strength, and material performance, innovators like Sensytec can help reduce emissions by enabling more efficient use of cement and validating new, lower-carbon mix designs. Sensors provide quality control personnel with live feedback when using alternative materials or novel formulations, helping de-risk their adoption and accelerate broader deployment.
Other innovations focused on reducing virgin material use and waste build on this approach. AI-driven systems like concrete.ai can identify the most efficient mix designs and optimize material use across projects, while concrete recycling startups advance the circular economy by repurposing demolition and construction waste. Everox (formerly C2CA Technology) upcycles concrete into high-quality aggregates and cement-like materials; ReCO₂ver by Sika recovers aggregates while storing CO₂.
Key levers for improving existing processes and materials include reducing clinker content by using supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), which is one of the most immediately scalable pathways, along with increasing energy efficiency in kilns and grinding, and switching to lower-carbon fuels.
Traditional SCMs such as fly ash (a byproduct of coal combustion) and ground granulated blast furnace slag (a byproduct of steel production) are already widely used, while newer materials such as calcined clays, natural pozzolans, and engineered or recovered mineral wastes are emerging in the market. By partially replacing ordinary portland cement (OPC), the most common form of cement used globally, with industrial byproducts or novel materials, SCMs can lower the embodied carbon of concrete while enhancing properties such as durability, strength, and workability. In some cases, they even improve concrete, extending its service life and improving reflectivity to mitigate urban heat.
Innovators across the sector are developing new SCM feedstocks and activation processes that improve performance and cut emissions. Upcycling industrial waste offers dual benefits, enhancing concrete properties and creating value for the industries that generate these byproducts. Cocoon transforms electric arc furnace slag from steelmaking into a high-reactivity SCM by rapidly cooling, atomizing, and grinding it to prevent crystal formation. Urban Mining Industries produces Pozzotive, a proprietary ground glass pozzolan that reacts with cement to create additional binding compounds, making concrete stronger and more durable while replacing up to half the cement. This material also increases the concrete’s surface brightness and reflectivity, reducing the urban heat island effect. EnviCore converts mine tailings and industrial by-products into SCMs using a low-temperature activation process that is up to 85 percent less emissions-intensive than OPC.
Concrete is also emerging as a practical and scalable way to store carbon permanently. Solid Carbon integrates biochar-based additives and aggregates that permanently store biogenic carbon within the concrete, turning built infrastructure into a long-term carbon sink. Carbon Negative Solutions uses industrial waste feedstocks to create a carbon-negative SCM that both replaces a portion of cement and sequesters carbon dioxide during production. By combining waste upcycling with carbon storage, companies like Solid Carbon and Carbon Negative Solutions illustrate how circular innovation can both reduce industrial emissions and embed long-term carbon removal within the built environment.
A new wave of innovators is rethinking the ingredients of concrete altogether, developing materials and processes that bypass traditional, emissions-intensive production pathways. These breakthroughs come in the form of new chemistries, alternative feedstocks, and electrified production systems designed to eliminate fossil fuel dependence.
At the materials level, GreenJams produces its Agrocrete blocks using agricultural residues and industrial by-products. BINDR, a proprietary low-carbon, zero-clinker binder, makes these blocks carbon-negative, thermally insulative, and cost-effective building materials. Theseus Development manufactures geopolymer blocks using upcycled aluminosilicate waste from quarries and mines. Its blocks use an inorganic polymerization process and feature a unique interlocking design, reducing the need for mortar, lowering construction costs, and achieving up to 80 percent lower embodied carbon. Both innovations represent a fundamental shift in concrete block chemistry, highlighting the potential of fully cement-free solutions to redefine the future of sustainable construction.
At the production level, Reclinker, formerly Cambridge Electric Cement, is taking a novel approach to cement recycling. By capturing cement paste from demolition industrial residues and feeding it into electric arc furnaces, it creates a reactive clinker that performs like traditional OPC but with a much smaller carbon footprint. SaltX Technology is also pushing the envelope with a plasma-based electric arc calciner that combines ultra-high temperature plasma heat with built-in carbon dioxide capture. Unlike traditional kilns, this process doesn’t rely on fossil fuels and can produce low-carbon lime and cement while directly removing carbon dioxide released from calcination.
Other innovators such as Sublime Systems and Brimstone are reimagining cement by developing new processes using non-carbonate feedstocks, resulting in low-carbon cements that can entirely replace traditional OPC. Brimstone uses calcium-silicate rocks instead of limestone and incorporates magnesium-based compounds that absorb carbon dioxide during processing, making the product not just lower-carbon but potentially carbon-negative. Sublime Systems has developed a fully electric, ambient-temperature electrochemical process that transforms calcium silicates or industrial wastes into a cementitious binder.
Innovations across the “make less,” “make better,” and “make new” categories are already being deployed today, but scaling these technologies is critical to reducing emissions long-term. According to the Making Net-Zero Concrete and Cement Possible report, carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) will also be required to achieve net-zero emissions in the sector, with the potential to capture roughly 39 percent of cement sector emissions by 2050, but only if the necessary supporting infrastructure is developed. While CCUS is a critical component for fully decarbonizing cement, it is not a silver bullet: high capital and operational costs, along with logistical challenges such as carbon dioxide transport and storage, make large-scale deployment difficult today. By combining these innovations with technologies such as CCUS, the sector can take a holistic approach to decarbonization, addressing emissions across the value chain and contributing to a fully decarbonized built environment.
Through the process of sourcing, conducting diligence on, and working with startups in the Industrial Innovation Cohorts, Third Derivative identified several common themes and emerging insights that illustrate how innovators are advancing deployment of low-carbon cement and concrete solutions.
Innovation is outpacing standards, pushing startups to adapt and lead: A major challenge for early-stage cement and concrete technologies is that innovation often moves faster than existing standards and procurement frameworks. While many startups can meet regulatory requirements (the legal and safety rules governing materials in construction), their products do not always fit neatly within the technical specifications used to qualify materials for business-as-usual projects. These specifications, such as ASTM standards, are often prescriptive, defining allowable ingredients and mix proportions rather than focusing on material performance. As a result, novel binders and production methods can fall outside of the established categories.
Performance specifications and standards (PSS) offer a more inclusive pathway by evaluating the materials based on how they perform rather than chemical composition. PSS adoption in mainstream construction remains limited due to the time-intensive testing and risk-averse procurement practices. Startups producing materials that align with existing, widely used specifications, such as Brimstone’s ASTM C150 OPC equivalent, have a clearer path to market. Other startups are helping shape new standards by serving on ASTM committees and partnering with testing agencies to define performance metrics for next-generation materials. In Africa, many countries still use outdated European or UC codes, but there is growing potential to leapfrog to PSS suited to local conditions and reduce unnecessary cement use. This underscores the need for sustained investor and ecosystem support to ensure that standards, certification processes, and real-world deployment can catch up to the pace of innovation.
Solutions must be tailored to local demand, available material feedstocks, and policy environments: In a highly fragmented and regionalized industry, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Regions with growing demand have the opportunity to leapfrog traditional production and invest in cleaner methods from the start. In India, for example, pilots of limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) are reducing emissions by up to 40 percent while meeting growing construction demand.
In both India and Africa, the adoption of low-carbon cement and concrete is being driven by a combination of rapid construction-sector growth, regulatory measures, and market dynamics. With an estimated 80 percent of the 2050 building stock in Africa yet to be constructed, the high cost of cement in certain regions, due largely to limited domestic limestone supply, makes economic room for alternative feedstocks. Solutions like Theseus Development's geopolymer blocks can be cost-competitive or even cheaper than traditional options.
Europe demonstrates how robust policy mechanisms can accelerate decarbonization in established markets. The Emissions Trading System (ETS), the Clean Industrial Deal, and Germany’s recently announced $7 billion Industrial Decarbonization Program incentivize lower-carbon production and drive early adoption of new technologies.
Co-locating facilities with feedstocks and offtake can accelerate deployment: Locating near key feedstocks like industrial waste facilities or downstream partners like ready-mix plants lowers logistical costs, enables smaller modular investments, and accelerates learning through feedback loops. EMSTEEL Group’s partnership with Magsort in the United Arab Emirates is a useful example, where steel production and cement manufacturing are integrated to process steel-slag feedstock onsite, reducing transport costs and demonstrating the operational benefits. Similarly, Heidelberg Materials’ partnership with EnviCore includes piloting an SCM facility near one of Heidelberg's recycling hubs to validate the technology, reduce logistical risk, and speed scale-up. Such co-location models are especially promising in the Global South, where new facilities and supply chains are emerging and governments are promoting industrial clusters to facilitate low-carbon production. For investors, supporting co-location strategies can be a high-impact way to accelerate deployment and build durable value chains.
Scaling from pilots to commercial volumes requires more strategic support: Many startups in the sector feel trapped in a cycle of pilots and demonstrations, while reaching commercial production proves to be a critical bottleneck. Large cement and concrete producers often need substantial quantities before committing, while startups need those commitments to justify scaling. Strategic collaboration between major producers and startups can help break this cycle to accelerate commercialization. These partnerships also appeal to established producers seeking to meet sustainability targets, diversify supply chains, and de-risk innovation without taking on full-scale development costs. For example, Reclinker has scaled its technology through the Cement 2 Zero project, a consortium of industry and academic partners that demonstrated industrial-scale production. Smaller cement and concrete firms may be especially well positioned to lead in this space, as their closer management structures often allow for faster, bolder decision-making and a longer-term outlook than larger firms.
Even with financing in place, scaling introduces new hurdles. Founders must navigate permitting and site selection, secure an EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) partner, and manage the complexities of delivering a first-of-a-kind project. Without specialized support, these challenges can slow deployment and increase execution risk.
Mark1, a developer-as-a-service spun out by RMI, Third Derivative, and Deep Science Ventures, was created to address the gap between technology development and project deployment by helping startups co-develop their first commercial-scale projects. This model provides structured support across engineering design, offtake contracting, capital strategy, and regulatory pathways. For investors, supporting companies at this critical stage, which requires additional capital to expand project development capacity, can ensure promising technologies move beyond pilots and into larger pours and meaningful volumes, multiplying both impact and returns.
Connections are as powerful as capital: Capital alone is not enough to scale innovative technologies. Relationships, market coordination, and trust across the value chain are just as important. Access to cement and concrete producers, contractors, developers, and public and private buyers can determine whether a startup successfully commercializes. Experienced mentors help founders navigate operational, regulatory, and market challenges that can only be learned in the field. Strategic introductions and coordinated engagement shorten time to market, accelerate adoption, and encourage sector-wide innovation.
Initiatives such as RMI’s Clean Concrete Pledge or RMI and Green Market Activation’s (GMA) recently announced Sustainable Concrete Buyers Alliance (SCoBA), launched with founding members including Amazon, Meta, and Prologis, demonstrate how aggregating offtake across multiple buyers can create predictable demand and de-risk investment for technologies with the greatest decarbonization potential. Similarly, Microsoft’s agreement with Sublime Systems shows how early procurement can de-risk emerging technologies by signaling credible, investable demand. Investors and corporates can help sustain this momentum by supporting efforts that connect emerging producers with early buyers, demonstration opportunities, and coordinated demand platforms that turn innovation into market reality.
Decarbonizing cement and concrete will not come from a single technology or company. It will require a portfolio of approaches deployed across a deeply local and complex value chain. The sector’s transformation is already underway; what it needs now is patient, strategic investment and early collaboration to shape the next generation of low-carbon materials and redefine what is possible in building a sustainable world.
Acknowledgements: The authors wish to thank The Lemelson Foundation, HSBC, and CBRE for their generous support of Third Derivative & their partnership in supporting startups decarbonizing heavy industry & the built environment. Learn more about the Industrial Innovation Cohorts and Future Industries Partnership on our website.
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