Cement is a big problem for the environment. Here’s how to make it more sustainable

Global cement manufacturing is responsible for about 8% of the world’s total CO2 emissions.

And the current trajectory would see emissions from the sector soar to 3.8 billion tonnes per year.

A new report from the World Economic Forum outlines four main decarbonization pathways for the cement and concrete industry.

It’s been said that if the cement industry were a country, it would be the world’s third or fourth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2). Global cement manufacturing produced 1.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 in 2022, the latest year for which there are figures – that’s about 8% of the world’s total CO2 emissions.

Reducing the amount of carbon emitted by cement production is critical to achieving global climate targets. Cement is, of course, a key ingredient of concrete – so an obvious solution would be to reduce the amount of concrete the world needs. But concrete is the second most widely used material after water, and its global annual production is forecast to grow from 14 billion m³ toda
y to 20 billion m³ by mid-century, as human societies urbanize and demand for infrastructure grows.

This trajectory would see CO2 emissions from the sector soar to 3.8 billion tonnes per year, based on current practice.

Unlike other sectors, where the largest share of emissions is energy-related, in cement and concrete production, more than half are process emissions, outlines a newly launched insight report from the World Economic Forum’s First Movers Coalition, in collaboration with Deloitte. The industry, therefore, requires either novel solutions to a millennia-old sector or a strong reliance on carbon capture.

Here are four main decarbonization pathways in the cement and concrete industry and the innovative solutions contributing to each of these streams:

Source: World Economic Forum