Corporate giants join forces to boost sustainable concrete industry

Amazon, Prologis, Meta and others are the founding members of the Sustainable Concrete Buyers Alliance (SCoBA), a new initiative to accelerate low-carbon concrete and cement development.

This is the first buyers group formed to collectively procure environmental attribute certificates (EACs) for low-carbon concrete, with the goal of sending a strong enough demand signal for producers to invest at scale in this emerging climate solution.

The cement and concrete sector accounts for around 8% of global carbon emissions and is expected to grow significantly by 2050 based on demand growth from factories, warehouses, data centres and offices. 

Innovations exist to lower the carbon intensity of cement and concrete, including switching to low-carbon fuel to power production, replacing some cement content with mineral compounds and investing in carbon capture – but limited demand so far has restricted producers’ ability to invest in them.

Unlocking finance for cement decarbonisation

SCoBA, which was launched on September 10 by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and the Center for Green Market Activation (GMA), will create a ‘book and claim’ system – effectively allowing the environmental benefits of a product, like low-carbon cement and concrete, to be decoupled from its physical delivery. This will enable companies to purchase the environmental attributes from sustainable concrete, reducing associated supply chain emissions, and generating revenue to help finance capital-intensive decarbonisation projects.

"SCoBA represents a significant advancement in how we approach sustainable construction materials," said Chris Atkins, Director, Worldwide Operations Sustainability at Amazon. "Its innovative procurement process and book and claim framework provide the tools needed to support lower-carbon concrete production at scale. Such efforts are critical in driving the broader market toward the materials needed for a net-zero future."

Other corporate buyers invited to join

The alliance will begin to connect members and producers later this year through a competitive procurement process: the first request for information (RFI) is open now, seeking information from suppliers about the current availability of low-carbon cement and concrete, as well as performance characteristics, prospective use cases, and operational approaches for environmental attribute certificates.

Other corporate buyers are invited to join the alliance by reaching out to info@buildscoba.org.

"The cement and concrete sector's decarbonisation challenge is also one of its greatest economic opportunities," said Jon Creyts, CEO at RMI. "By aggregating demand from major buyers and establishing rigorous standards, we're creating the market conditions for breakthrough low-carbon cement innovations to scale."