What we stand for
Our three strategic objectives
Accelerate low-carbon technology development. The solutions already exist: blended cements that use less clinker, cleaner fuels in place of coal, electrified kilns, and capturing the emissions that remain. The task is to move them from pilots and the margins into the mainstream, faster, and in the places where most cement will be made.
Scale investment in proven solutions. Shift finance toward the approaches that already work, so they reach the scale, and the countries, where the transition will actually be decided.
Enable market transformation through a shift in national policies. Use procurement, standards, and lending requirements to make lower-carbon cement the default choice rather than the exception, and to create the demand that producers can invest behind.
Our core principles
Three core principles, adopted at our inaugural call, guide the Network’s work:
A just transition to net-zero cement and concrete, a circular economy, and a livable climate.
Equitable access to clean cement for the housing and infrastructure needs of communities in the Global South.
Upholding the human rights of communities that have borne public-health and environmental harm from high-emissions cement production.
How we operate
The Network is led from the Global South: its priorities and its voice are shaped by the organizations closest to cement’s impacts, not set for them elsewhere. It keeps its independence from the industry it works to change, and it describes any community only in the way that community has agreed to be described.
Cement is made and used where people live. Firing kilns with coal releases air pollutants, like NOx, that harm the health of nearby communities, alongside the impacts on air, water, and livelihoods. Those costs land in specific places, most of them in the Global South. That is why the Global South is the center of this story, not its margin.
