Sustainable Concrete Buyers Alliance aims to boost adoption of low-carbon materials

RMI and the Center for Green Market Activation (GMA) recently launched the Sustainable Concrete Buyers Alliance (SCoBA) with founding members including Amazon, Prologis, and Meta.

The group’s goal is to accelerate the adoption of low-carbon cement and concrete for 21st century buildings and infrastructure. SCoBA is the first buyers group formed to collectively procure environmental attribute certificates for low-carbon concrete. 

It’s aim is to turn demand into real-world offtake agreements that enable producers to invest at scale in new infrastructure and pioneering technologies. The cement and concrete sector accounts for around 8% of global carbon emissions and is predicted to grow significantly by 2050, but low-carbon options are currently not available at scale.

SCoBA will use an innovative book and claim system to enable companies to purchase environmental attributes from sustainable concrete and upstream products such as cement and clinker. This will reduce associated supply chain emissions and generate revenue to help finance capital-intensive decarbonization projects.