I work in one of the world’s dirtiest industries—the cement industry—accounting for 8% of global CO2 emissions, matched only by the steel industry. Companies like mine are reinventing cement production to approach net-zero rapidly, in a way that is resource- and cost-efficient. Still, cement is often overlooked in broader climate discussions, despite the obvious fact that without green cement, there is no green future.
Cement is the world’s most consumed ingredient after water. The dominating traditional form of cement is called Portland cement, and its massive emissions come from the calcination (heating process) of limestone and burning fossil fuels to reach the high kiln temperatures needed, jointly releasing significant amounts of CO2. Cement’s CO2 emissions have long been considered hard to abate, seen as too costly or even impossible to reduce with currently available technology.
But that perspective is changing, and Cemvision’s innovations are a strong reason for that. Experts are now seeing solutions emerging to lower cement’s carbon footprint by 90%—sometimes more, depending on the local conditions around each production site.
The cost of fossil fuel subsidies
Significant government subsidies continue to be poured into conventional cement solutions promoted by the industry incumbents. It’s hard to believe, but traditional, high-emission cement is generally more subsidized than novel, green technologies. Traditional cement production runs on fossil fuels, and as per the International Monetary Fund, global fossil fuel subsidies reached $7 trillion in 2022, equivalent to 7.1% of global gross domestic product.
These subsidies have seen big increases in the past few years, as a response to macropolitical challenges: war, the pandemic, and rampant inflation. They come in two forms: explicit subsidies, which arise when energy prices are kept below production costs, and implicit subsidies, which occur when prices fail to compensate for the environmental and health damages caused by fossil fuel consumption. These include underpricing for pollution and climate damage. Simply put: delaying the green transition.
As a comparison, 2023 global venture capital investment in climate tech was estimated at $50 billion, around 4% of the explicit fossil fuel subsidies alone. 2022 global renewable energy investment was around $495 billion, still significantly less than explicit subsidies.
The problem with conventional cement solutions
Listening to ongoing public debates about “green scam policies,” one could get the impression that the opposite would be true—that green solutions were more heavily supported than dirty incumbent ones. The facts in the cement industry tell a different story. On a level playing field, some of these greener solutions are fast approaching cost parity with high-emissions cement, through their superior resource efficiency. However, due to the status quo bias, the green cement revolution is not yet happening faster.
Also, when the high-emissions cement industry is looking to clean itself up, such attempts are often subsidized by governments. CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and storage) is often proposed to decarbonize heavy industries like cement. While surely needed for carefully selected purposes, the technology itself still remains unproven, costly, and energy-intensive.
Estimates suggest that a full-scale CCUS facility can cost as much, or even more, as building an entire cement plant. The per-ton cost of capturing CO2 through CCUS can equal or exceed the production costs of cement itself, potentially doubling or tripling the price of cement. As energy demands surge in the green transition, allocating significant green energy to CCUS poses challenges, especially when funded by taxpayers.
The incumbent bias
In industries like cement, standardization defines the composition and production methods, shaping what materials can be used and how they are tested. These standards are set by committees that include industry experts, manufacturers, and regulators, and are critical for ensuring consistency and reliability. However, the slow process of updating standards often favor traditional technologies over newer, greener alternatives.
This incumbent bias arises because these committees are often dominated by large, established companies heavily invested in traditional technologies. In the cement industry, firms in the value chain that built their businesses around Portland cement benefit from keeping standards aligned with their current production methods, creating barriers to entry for newer technologies like low-carbon cement.
According to research by the International Energy Agency, the slow pace of changing industrial standards is a key factor delaying the decarbonization of cement production. This conservatism not only protects incumbents but hinders cost-competitive, emissions-reducing alternatives from gaining market traction. As part of the obstruction, some products that make only marginal reductions in CO2 emissions are labeled as “green cement,” without credibly living up to that claim.
Faster, greener, and more efficient new solutions
Products like ours, approaching 90% to 95% CO2 reduction, won’t be able to replace the entire cement market before 2030. But the current versions of our products can, without doubt, replace one-third of the market, and that portion will continue to grow. For several usage areas, Portland will continue to be competitive in the foreseeable future. However, in many areas, our products—and other interesting alternatives—are already as suited as, or better suited than, Portland cement.
Our products achieve five times faster early strength, a key performance factor for cement. This allows structures to support loads sooner and enables quicker progress in construction projects. Early strength reduces wait times for formwork removal and accelerates overall project timelines, providing significant efficiency gains. The green transition doesn’t always mean a trade-off in performance or efficiency. Some new solutions are simply superior, but it can take an exceptionally long time for that performance to be certified and acknowledged in a prevailing system.
The global economy needs to deliver the green transition on time, on budget, and on benefit. To do that, cement is a core part of the equation. If new green technology can be made more accessible through faster standardization and carbon-intensive subsidies are removed, cement can shortly prove to be the most cost-efficient way to abate CO2 emissions at a scale few other means for CO2 reduction can offer. The fact that change isn’t happening faster is a market inefficiency that must be corrected.
Oscar Hållén is CEO of Cemvision.