Putting Carbon into Concrete: How Green Can Concrete Really Be?
By Zhu En Joanne Soh
When we picture a green building, solar panels, efficient air-conditioning and rooftop greenery may come to mind. Yet much of a building’s carbon footprint is generated even before its occupants move in. Concrete alone can account for up to 60% of a building’s embodied carbon, and with the built environment being responsible for 40% of global carbon emissions, addressing these less visible emissions is becoming a crucial part of further decarbonising the built environment.
One Singapore company is exploring an unusual solution: putting carbon dioxide into concrete. In 2020, Singapore-based Pan-United pioneered PanU Carbon Mineralised Concrete (CMC+), becoming the first concrete producer in Asia to use this carbon capture and utilisation approach. Industrial waste CO₂ is injected into fresh concrete, where it reacts with cement and water to form calcium carbonate, permanently embedding the carbon as solid materials within the concrete.
The technology has already found its way into Singapore’s built environment. Geneo at Singapore Science Park used this concrete for 44% of its concrete requirements for its superstructure works. CarbonCure also reports that its ready-mix technology saves around 7 to 11 kgCO2e/m3 of concrete, partly by enabling cement reductions of approximately 3 to 5% while maintaining performance. This ultimately contributed to an estimated 3.4 million kgCO2e reduction in emissions, a testament to the value of such innovations in reducing embodied carbon footprints.
While reducing operational emissions are very much still crucial, sustainability in a building should not just begin when a building switches on its lights, but should begin with what goes into constructing it. While 7 to 11 kgCO2e/m3 may not sound transformative in isolation, concrete is used at an enormous scale. In a rapidly urbanising city like Singapore, relatively small savings repeated across housing developments, commercial buildings and infrastructure could accumulate into meaningful reductions.
However, CMC should not be mistaken for carbon-neutral concrete. CMC only chips away at some of concrete’s existing footprint: some CO2 is permanently mineralised to reduce the amount of cement required, but it does not eliminate cement altogether. CarbonCure reports cement reductions of around 3-5%, meaning that the vast majority is still required, and producing that cement continues to generate emissions. While constructing more with CMC may be better than constructing the same amount with conventional concrete, it is still unlikely to represent a net climate benefit in itself.
Furthermore, the carbon stored may not even be the technology’s greatest benefit. In a research study done by CarbonCure, the net mineralisation accounted for only 0.33 kgCO2e/m3 of savings, while reducing cement use avoided another 11.7 kgCO2e/m3. The real value does not lie in how much CO2 can be packed into concrete, but whether mineralisation helps us use less of its most carbon-intensive ingredient.
This also means CMC should not become an excuse to simply build more with concrete under a ‘green’ label. Where possible, reducing material demand in the first place should remain the priority. What CMC shows is how conventional and carbon-intensive materials like concrete can be re-engineered to reduce its environmental impact, and could instead form one piece of a much larger effort to tackle embodied carbon – complementing the design of structures to use less material, using alternative materials and lower clinker-cement, as well as other new technologies to further lower the footprint of buildings that is still required.
References
Building and Construction Authority. (2025, June 24). ConTech series: Concrete example – R&D drives Pan-United’s success in green solutions.
Climate Impact X. (2023, June 9). Learn about technological removal (concrete mineralisation).
CapitaLand Group. (2023, June 26). CapitaLand unveils S$1.4 billion “Geneo” life sciences and innovation cluster in latest phase of Singapore Science Park rejuvenation.
CarbonCure Technologies Inc. (2021, October 13). Introducing CarbonCure for precast.
CarbonCure Technologies Inc. (n.d.). Carbon utilization for concrete producers.
CarbonCure Technologies Inc. (2025, July 18). How QC managers can evaluate the net impact of CO₂ mineralization.
CarbonCure Technologies Inc. (2025, December 12). A proven path to lower-carbon concrete with CO₂ mineralization.
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