Cement and concrete manufacturers should be looking long term at offering cement not as a material but as a sustainable solution and service, and this can be done by adopting circular technologies targeting three areas – energy, carbon dioxide and materials and minerals, according to experts at McKinsey & Company.

A3&Co, a strategic and technical consulting firm focusing on the cement sector, has signed a key partnership with Carbon Upcycling Technologies (CUT), a Canada-based waste and carbon utilisation company, aimed at accelerating cement decarbonisation and circularity.

The world’s first on-site, fully-integrated Direct Air Capture (DAC)-to-concrete commercial production facility is currently being built in the US, leveraging technology from three key stake holders in the concrete production section.

Researchers at Purdue University in the US have developed a scalable, automatable process of incorporating phase change materials (PCMs) into construction materials used in building envelopes for thermal comfort and energy saving.

Vegetal concrete, derived from biomass or agriculture waste, provides high potential for decarbonisation of buildings, due to their attractive performance characteristics.