It’s been stated that the world locations almost a New York Metropolis quantity of concrete yearly. Inside each cubic yard of this tonnage is the cement and the cloud of CO2 created in its manufacturing.
The acceptance of cements with further limestone and better percentages of supplemental cementitious supplies (SCMs) within the combine has allowed time to show the OPC alternate options as possible choices for concrete building. Whereas the manufacturing of clinker hasn’t reached net-zero but, efforts at minimizing CO2 per cubic yard proceed. Ecocem is likely one of the firms pulling yet one more lever.
Ecocem has been creating, manufacturing, and supplying low-carbon cement and building options to the European marketplace for over 20 years. They function vegetation in France, the Netherlands, and Eire with an annual manufacturing of over 2 million tons of low-carbon cement.
They’ve now moved throughout the pond and wish to construct a basis right here in the USA.
Introduced in August 2025, Ecocem’s ACT I cement achieved certification for ASTM C1157. This certification affirmed the efficiency, sturdiness, and reliability of ACT to be used within the U.S. market. The milestone confirms that the product meets or exceeds the trade benchmarks for power and sturdiness, whereas decreasing carbon emissions and vitality use.
A ternary blended cement, whereas Ecocem has been lively on ASTM C595 — the blended cement customary for the U.S. (the identical customary that portland limestone cement falls below) — ACT isn’t lined by it but.
The Ecocem plant in Dunkirk.Ecocem
The certification announcement comes as Ecocem strikes ahead with its first North American mission: a proposed Terminal and Milling Operation on the Port of Los Angeles. Nonetheless within the early levels of planning and evaluation, the ability intends to determine a dependable, resilient provide chain for producing low-carbon, high-performance cement in California and assist the state with the sturdy infrastructure required for long-term financial development.
Ecocem’s expertise was designed to considerably scale back CO2 emissions within the cement and building industries. They report that their resolution, referred to as ACT, can scale back the worldwide carbon footprint of the normal cement manufacturing course of by greater than half.
As Steve Bryan, managing director of Ecocem Americas, explains, California has a deficit in SCM supplies. Ecocem selected California to construct its North American footing to handle this want. Attributable to sulfate circumstances within the state’s soil and reactive aggregates, concrete producers want SCMs, since California has no coal-fired energy vegetation or metal manufacturing from blast furnaces, there aren’t many choices accessible.
Contractors in California aren’t alone. “They actually don’t have something besides the pure pozzolans which were there for 100 years…so, with its inhabitants and financial development, there’s a necessity for SCMs in California and general within the U.S.,” he says. “We’re going to want and have the will to decrease clinker contents, roughly 50 % extra non-clinker supplies by 2050.”
The ASTM Certification
Traditionally, the idea of requirements has been prescriptive, to have a sure power, a sure chemical composition. As an alternative, folks began pondering by way of efficiency requirements for ASTM C1157. They stepped away from pondering of how the fabric is made and towards efficiency and the way it behaves in the best way that cement must.
“It has the compressive strengths, the rheology, and the predictors of sturdiness — all these assessments are the identical as typical cements,” explains Bryan. “However they take off the restrictions by way of chemistry and the supplies of composition, and so on. It’s a performance-based customary for cement.”
In brief, it has allowed the trade to make concrete that performs the best way it must.
“Anytime you are able to do that and take a look at efficiency, that simply opens a door for innovation,” says Bryan. Ecocem is utilizing that window to show that their cement product can carry out with out having to satisfy the prescriptive requirements resembling C595 or C150.
“There’s a chance {that a} new sort of cement known as sort 1C,” he provides. This kind would classify composite cements of three completely different supplies, a minimal of 30 % clinker and a most of 30 % limestone.
Time is the proof right here. Even with the certification, folks will nonetheless want a portfolio of demonstration tasks and the concrete’s efficiency over time. The corporate’s materials has been utilized in Europe for a lot of important constructions: Wembley Park outdoors of London, the Le Grand Paris Categorical, the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, and even the Olympic 2024 Athletes’ Village in Paris.
Inside an Ecocem ACT plant in Moerdijk, Netherlands. Ecocem
What’s ACT
ACT is Ecocem’s low-carbon cement expertise that was developed to cut back CO2 from cement manufacturing whereas delivering the mandatory power, sturdiness, and workability required in concrete. In response to their descriptions, ACT reduces cement emissions by reducing clinker content material by as much as 70 % and changing it with supplies resembling limestone and regionally sourced SCMs. By optimizing the interplay and efficiency of SCMs and engineered mineral admixtures, ACT not solely lowers clinker content material but in addition permits rather more environment friendly use of SCMs, delivering high-performance, low-carbon cement at scale.
The expertise was designed to make a concrete that doesn’t require important modifications to present cement and concrete manufacturing processes or change a contractor’s customary practices and tools.
Ecocem’s “bread and butter” is granulated blast furnace slag. It was their entry into the market, and the place they proceed to develop. They just lately expanded their innovation capabilities with a brand new innovation heart with an R&D division centered on the best way to use slag effectively — the inspiration behind ACT expertise.
With a purpose to preserve the workability of the concrete, they use regionally accessible mineral admixtures to make the SCM and clinker extra environment friendly and to attain the rheology wanted, and make the admixtures extra environment friendly.
The Terminal
As of this writing, construction of the California terminal and milling operation has but to interrupt floor. As soon as up and working, the plant is anticipated to course of 800,000 tons of uncooked materials and is anticipated to provide round 775,000 tons of GGBFS yearly — making an impression within the provide chain for the concrete producers and contractors in southern California.
Bryan says the necessity for cement alternate options has develop into a priority for Caltrans. There was nearly none within the south, a lot in order that it’s not current within the bigger tasks like within the northern facet of the state.
“[Caltrans] had a committee collectively to evaluate what may be carried out,” says Bryan. “They want these not only for decarbonization, however for technical causes just like the reactivity with the sulfate within the soils and the reactive aggregates, and so on.”
The long-term, overarching aim is to assist drive the trade towards composite cements and a decrease clinker issue — a part of this features a aim of saving the worldwide cement manufacturing and concrete trade 500 million tons of CO2 a 12 months.
Building on the terminal has not but begun. Ecocem is within the early levels of gathering permits, after which they’ll must return to the Board of Harbor Commissioners for remaining approval to construct.
