Construction workers pour wet concrete into the roads.
John Getty
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According to the World Economic Forum, concrete manufacturing, particularly cement production, accounts for 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. This is roughly the same as annual production volume in the world’s third or fourth largest country.
And that’s why large users of concrete, some of the biggest names in real estate, are joining forces to support low-carbon concrete. Amazon, Meta and prologis Participating in a sustainable, concrete buyer alliance or other organizations that establish Scoba. The group is led by nonprofit RMI, formerly known as the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Green Market Revitalization Center.
“We’ve seen a lot of effort and we’ve seen it,” said Benskinner, manager of the Cement and Concrete Team at RMI.
The idea is to use their collective purchasing power for low-carbon concrete, thereby financially supporting sustainable concrete production. It could also help fund capital-intensive decarbonization projects. This improves the market conditions for low-carbon concrete producers to grow their technology and business.
“Low carbon cement and concrete are essential to decarbonizing the built environment, and this alliance will help scale next-generation solutions for the benefit of our customers,” said Keara Fanning, director of Net Zero and Sustainability at Progis, the world’s largest warehouse REIT or real estate investment trust.
The problem an organization is trying to tackle is one of the scale. Large cement suppliers with net zero commitments run large plants, so creating the retrofits needed to decarbonize their products is very expensive. They need to see legitimate demand in the market before they are willing to invest.
On the other side of the coin, cement buyers who may want to cut their emissions are struggling to find low-carbon cement because they don’t think their suppliers have enough demand. Scoba connects its members with major producers of clean cement.
“What we do is collectively bring all of these buyers together. They have enough purchasing power to actually move around the market, show their suppliers and allow suppliers to actually invest in these decarbonisation technologies,” Skinner said.
They do this through what is called books and claims. This is a more innovative demand side mechanism that will help expand the market. This is the same system used in the renewable energy market where consumers buy certificates for the environmental benefits of sustainable products, but in reality they have not physically acquired the product itself.
“It makes no logical sense for an ambitious New York buyer to ship cement that is far less carbon from California for the project. So what we are making possible is a transaction in which they buy an environmental attribute certificate that gives them the rights to that low carbon product, but in reality the physical products are sourced locally,” explained Skinner.
The goal is to break down the geographic boundaries found in the cement and concrete industries with extremely long and complex supply chains. It also supports innovators in the space, including California-based startup Brimstone.
“It’s a big win when some of the world’s biggest companies work together to build a sustainable concrete market,” said Cody Finke, CEO of Brimstone. “Companies like Brimstone offer a faster path to the market. They enter cement into buildings, data centers and infrastructure quickly.”
