concrete & environment

concrete production demands large amounts of energy, and has also a negative upstream environmental impact, embodied in the quarrying of the concrete raw materials.

See also: Concrete framing basics

In USA, according to some estimates, CO2 emissions related with concrete production used in residential building amounts to the emissions of 22 millions of cars…

Concrete FramingBut in other countries, where concrete construction is dominant, the emissions of CO2 due to concrete industry amounts to more than 2% of the CO2 emissions...

Concrete industry is addressing solutions to make their products more sustainable, but there is yet a long path before all of us - namely because concrete is a versatile and in some senses an irreplaceable material.

Greener Concrete materials

Some concrete-based products can be extremely energy-efficient, offsetting part of the negative environmental impact of concrete production. They can provide lower heating and cooling bills, with lower pollution downstream... That's the case of...

- ICF ( Insulated Concrete Forms) and...
- AAC (Aerated Concrete )

Concrete alternatives

There are also some greener alternatives to concrete: fly ash (a byproduct of coal burning in electric power production), slag (a by-product from the production of iron-steel), silica fume, etc.

But all these alternatives involve operational obstacles and also higher costs: prices are much higher, namely when the concrete is made with silica fume (this concrete will cost 2 to 3 times the price of common concrete)...

See also: