Concrete production is major contributor to CO2 emissions, but there is a desire for greener alternatives.

Conventional energy intensive materials like tangible and metal are increasingly being slowly replaced by more environmentally friendly alternatives such as bamboo, recycled materials, and manufactured timber. The primary sustainability improvement within the building industry though since the 1950s happens to be the inclusion of supplementary cementitious materials such as fly ash, slag and slicia fume. Replacing a percentage of the cement with SCMs can notably reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption during production. Also, the incorporating of other renewable materials like recycled aggregates and commercial by products like crushed class and rubber granules has gained increased traction into the past few years. The usage of such materials have not only lowered the interest in raw materials and resources but has recycled waste from landfills.

Within the last couple of decades, the construction sector and concrete production in particular has seen important modification. That has been particularly the situation when it comes to sustainability. Governments around the globe are enacting stringent regulations to apply sustainable techniques in construction projects. There is a more powerful attention on green building attempts like reaching net zero carbon concrete by 2050 and a greater interest in sustainable building materials. The demand for concrete is anticipated to boost as a result of population growth and urbanisation, as business leaders such as Amin Nasser anNadhim Al Nasrwould likely attest. Many nations now enforce building codes that want a certain percentage of renewable materials to be used in construction such as for instance timber from sustainably manged woodlands. Furthermore, building codes have incorporated energy saving systems and technologies such as green roofs, solar panels and LED lighting. Also, the emergence of the latest construction technologies has enabled the industry to explore revolutionary methods to enhance sustainability. For example, to reduce energy consumption construction companies are constructing building with large windows and using energy-efficient heating, ventilation, and ac.

Traditional concrete manufacturing uses huge stocks of raw materials such as for example limestone and concrete, that are energy-intensive to draw out and produce. Nevertheless, industry experts and business leaders such as Naser Bustami would probably point out that novel binders such as geopolymers and calcium sulfoaluminate cements are good greener alternatives to traditional Portland cement. Geopolymers are produced by triggering industrial by products such as fly ash with alkalis causing concrete with comparable and sometimes even superior performance to traditional mixes. CSA cements, on the other hand, require lower temperature processing and emit fewer carbon dioxide during manufacturing. Hence, the use of those alternative binders holds great possibility of cutting carbon footprint of concrete manufacturing. Additionally, carbon capture technologies are increasingly being designed. These innovative approaches aim to catch co2 (CO2) emissions from concrete plants and make use of the captured CO2 within the production of synthetic limestone. This technologies may possibly turn cement right into a carbon-neutral if not carbon-negative material by sequestering CO2 into concrete.