Cement’s future will be built in the Global South. So should the decisions about it.
The Concrete Futures Network connects civil society organizations, community and climate-justice advocates, technical and policy experts, and climate-finance specialists across the Global South, working to decarbonize cement and concrete, and to put the people closest to its impacts at the center of the sector’s transition.
Why this matters
Cement is roughly 8% of global COâ‚‚ emissions. The world makes more than four billion tons of it a year, more of it than any material other than water, and demand is projected to grow by more than 40% by 2050.
It is also one of the hardest things to make cleanly. Around 60% of cement’s emissions come from the chemistry of the process itself, breaking down limestone in kilns, not only from the fossil fuels that fire them. That is what makes cement one of the most consequential, and most overlooked, fronts in the climate transition.
Cement is the binder in concrete, the material that holds together the homes, roads, and water systems the Global South is still building. That makes its low-carbon future an opportunity as much as an imperative for climate change; it can mean local investment, manufacturing, and skilled jobs rather than imported solutions, and a transition that works keeps low clinker cement affordable and accessible rather than a luxury, so that cutting emissions never comes at the cost of the infrastructure communities need.
Close to 90% of the concrete the world is projected to produce and use by 2050 will be in the Global South. Yet the agenda on cement decarbonization is still set largely by industry and by Global North institutions, while the organisations and communities closest to its impacts have been fragmented, under-resourced, and absent from the rooms where standards, procurement rules, and finance criteria are decided. The Concrete Futures Network exists to change that.
Our network
We are a global network working to decarbonize cement and concrete, convened by Industrious Labs since our inaugural call in July 2025, and led from the Global South. Every organization in the Network stays fully independent; together we share a common voice.
