Environmentally friendly concrete is ready for market

but is the market ready for it?

The recipes for geopolymer concrete with up to 90% CO2 profile reduction are ready. But that doesn't seem to be where we are yet. Designers and clients still have many questions about long-term behavior. 

One company dedicated to innovations and greening the concrete world is Sustainable Concrete Solutions, SCS for short. Its ambition is to drastically reduce the CO2 emissions of cement and concrete by developing and producing alternative binder systems for concrete and to take a proactive approach to this itself. This requires a healthy dose of perseverance, because the Netherlands may have the reputation of being innovative, but acquiring a strong market position with double-sustainable geopolymer concrete in the construction sector is a challenge.

Cold feet

This is partly due to cold feet, observes Jos Kronemeijer, materials technologist and director of Technical Marketing at SCS. "Geopolymer concrete is a new product for many clients and contractors in the Netherlands. Although it has been known in other European countries sometimes for eight decades, this does not make its introduction any easier. If clients are open to it at all, they are in the dark about the differences in regulations and assurances around responsible, safe and sustainable construction." 

Central starting point at SCS remains material knowledge

Kronemeijer started a concrete technology consulting firm in 2015. From here, he advised raw material suppliers, concrete producers, architects, structural engineers and contractors in areas such as specifications, regulations, crack risk calculations and production processes. Increasingly, he also provided support in the development of sustainable concrete types. Kronemeijer: "We have a lot of expertise in this area. We can also tell structural engineers in detail how to make their designs durable and sustainable."

Overview and transparency

SCS employees acquired knowledge and experience over three decades in more than 15 countries; they serve on international committees, maintain close contact with regulatory, design and construction parties, and test whether experiences elsewhere can lead to local improvements. This multiple connection provided it with overview and insight, enabling SCS to grow into a developer and producer of geopolymer cements for "double sustainable concrete.

Material Freaks

"The new concrete varieties open up surprising possibilities for locally unknown raw materials," Kronemeijer says. "We discover new variants almost monthly, which we make suitable for certification processes. It can be harbor sludge, for example, but also CO2 itself, as it led to a negative footprint in Green Minerals' carbon-capture process! In this context, we are sometimes called 'material freaks'. A nickname we are proud of."

A fair comparison

"Construction materials such as concrete, wood and steel are too easily compared," Kronemeijer then continues. "Better to consider them on their individual merits through Life Cycle Analyses (LCA). This considers materials in terms of their environmental impact from the cradle (raw material selection and extraction) to the grave (demolition, recycling and circularity). Then it also becomes clear that the term 'dual-sustainability' can only be correctly defined when durability (the technical sustainability in terms of design life) and sustainability (the environmental profile) are merged into one picture."

Knowledge Transfer

According to Kronemeijer, designers and clients should weigh this aggregate picture together, while in practice designers still often go for habitual choices. Change then requires knowledge. "For that reason, knowledge transfer is one of our spearheads. Anyone looking at geopolymer concrete from an LCA perspective can only conclude that geopolymer is the tool to make concrete doubly sustainable and more future-proof."