Construction material companies working with White House on decarbonisation

A concrete pouring demonstration at the 2024 World of Concrete show in Las Vegas, Nevada, US. (Image: Mitchell Keller)

The plan was facilitated through the Federal Buy Clean Initiative; a programme launched in 2021 to “leverage the buying power of the federal government to catalyse markets for cleaner construction materials.”

Also supporting the mission for the private sector is the Industrial Demonstrations Program, which supports advancement of technologies to decarbonise the industrial sector.

Conducted by the presidential administration and two non-profit organisations – RMI and the Natural Resources Defense Council – a series of ‘regional convenings’ concluded with corporate commitments from some of the industry’s largest cement, materials and aggregates producers and suppliers.

“Start-up companies and incumbents have responded to the [programme] and other incentives to pioneer new formulations and new ways of manufacturing cement that can dramatically reduce emissions and improve the performance of buildings, with better durability, aesthetics, or cost,” said the White House.

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The companies working with the White House on cutting emissions

• Heidelberg Materials North America: one of the largest concrete, cement, and aggregate producers, pledged that – by 2030 – it would reduce company-wide emissions by 25%, reduce emissions from a single US-based plant by more than 50% from 2020 levels, and announced that it will carry out a suite of commercial-scale decarbonisation demonstration projects using ultra-low-carbon concrete solutions.
• Cemex: a leading producer of cement and concrete in the US, the company pledged to supply concrete with a reduction in global warming potential of at least 40% for a suite of innovative demonstration projects.
• National Ready Mixed Concrete Company: one of Southern California’s largest ready-mixed concrete companies committed to piloting five innovative demonstration projects of near-zero emissions concrete by 2027. The company also announced the first placement of limestone calcined clay cement in California, which represents an opportunity to slash emissions by 40-50% using a new market-ready technology.
• Ozinga: one of the largest suppliers of ready-mixed concrete in the US Midwest, the company committed to leading demonstration projects of cleaner concrete, including at least five demonstrations of concrete with 50% lower emissions.
• Sublime Systems: a low-carbon cement producer, the company announced it received $75 million in funding for its first commercial facility, as well as a pre-paid reservation for the cement produced at that plant, which will ensure deployment of its product once it starts full-scale production

Emerging concrete and cement technology startups also made pledges to help users adopt cleaner concrete solutions, the White House said. C-Crete, Pozzotive, and Sublime Systems each pledged to conduct five demonstration projects using materials with 50% reductions in emissions and to share performance results, while Queens Carbon committed to new transparency and data disclosure standards.

Additionally, the initiative announced plans with Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google and the Open Compute Project Foundation to test lower-emission concrete solutions for data centre builds.

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