Frequently Asked Questions

ACT is a scalable, cost efficient, low-carbon cement technology which can deliver up to 70% CO2 reduction when compared with today’s average cement. It does this by reducing the clinker content of cement by up to 70% and replacing it with abundantly available fillers, including limestone at unprecedented levels, and local supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs).

ACT uses raw materials already approved by the cement and concrete standards.

ACT is highly scalable due to the raw materials and equipment used in its formulation. ACT can be deployed at mass scale in all concrete applications before 2030 within existing industry infrastructure, with little to no additional capex requirement.

Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCMs) are finely ground materials, often byproducts of other industrial processes, such as slag from steel manufacture and fly ash from coal mining, which are added to cement or concrete mixtures to enhance their properties. SCMs can also be naturally occurring materials like pozzolans or calcined clays.

SCMs can improve concrete’s long-term strength, durability, and workability. Most importantly they can significantly lower the carbon footprint of cement by reducing the amount of clinker required, responsible for over 90% cement and concrete’s emissions.

Because they use industrial byproducts, this reduces landfill waste and promotes a circular economy.

ACT technology is the result of a decade of research and investment by Ecocem to develop a sustainable, low-carbon, low-cost, easy to produce, and globally scalable cement, which maximises the performance and decarbonisation potential of abundantly available filler materials and locally sourced industrial and natural SCMs.

Using ACT, we can double the performance of conventional cement. Essentially, we use half the cement we currently use now and produce the same effect. This immediately delivers a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions from the cement industry which happens to be 3.5% of global CO2 emissions.

The second thing ACT does is use cementitious materials more efficiently. This allows us to make greater use of the low-carbon constituents of cement, boost the makeup of the cement, and reduce the use of the high-carbon elements. When we do that, we go from a 50% reduction in the carbon footprint of the cement industry globally to a 70% reduction in the carbon footprint.

Ultimately it results in a scalable, rapidly deployable technology for mass market cements, which uses between 15-25% clinker compared to an average of 70-80% in conventional cements today.

No other scalable low carbon cement technology developed to date can reduce the amount of clinker in cement while retaining or improving all of the properties that make concrete the world’s most popular building material, namely its workability, strength, durability, and cost effectiveness.

ACT is not disruptive to existing operations. The technology does not require major changes to current cement and concrete production processes and enables the use of standard practices and equipment on job sites. It can be produced in the vast majority of cement plants with limited need for additional investment and industrial transformation, utilising most of the existing assets together with locally available raw materials.

ACT delivers the required strength, durability, and workability in any concrete it is used to make.

ACT performs in concrete at an equivalent to cement strength class of 42.5 with exceptional durability characteristics. It delivers the required strength, durability, and workability in any concrete it is used to make.

ACT reduces the amount of clinker required to make cement by up to 70%. This therefore reduces the amount of CO2 emitted during the manufacturing process. ACT can use a range of low carbon materials to replace clinker.

Clinker is replaced by a range of alternative, low carbon supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), including slags, hydraulic, pozzolanic and filler materials, from both industrial and natural sources.

The key objective is to ensure that whatever the local resources available they can be used efficiently as SCMs and allow the production of high-quality cement and concrete anywhere in the world.

We expect to begin supplying ACT to the market in 2026, initially in France and then beyond that to all the markets in which we operate.

We are already partnering with key organisations in the cement and construction industry, including Titan, Bouygues Construction, Groupe CB, Point P and Cemex France, to trial and develop the technology and ensure a continuous supply of materials.

We recently announced a €50 million investment at our Dunkirk to construct our first production facility dedicated to ACT. This new production line will be operational by 2026 and will initially provide an annual production capacity of 300,000 tonnes of ACT.

A further €170 million investment to adapt our plants to produce ACT was announced in May 2025

In the US, the company is in the later stages of permitting for the construction of a plant on the West Coast.

ACT is a general-purpose cement with a clinker content below 25%, compared to European average of 70-80% in conventional cements today. Given clinker is responsible for over 90% of the carbon footprint of cement, a large reduction in clinker leads to a commensurate reduction in CO2 footprint. Whilst low clinker, low carbon cements have been used in many geographies historically, the challenge has been to find a way to sustainably scale them. ACT overcomes this challenge.

ACT has been subject to extensive technical validation and been successfully demonstrated in industrial trials. We are steadily advancing through regulatory frameworks to become a recognised low-carbon cement. We expect, with full market access in 2026 in the European markets where Ecocem is present (France, UK, Benelux, Ireland).

ACT’s performance has been confirmed in a number of independent trials. Most recently with the support of Innovate UK and in partnership with amongst others, Sisk and their client Quintain, we completed a full scale demonstrator project at Wembley Park, where an independent evaluation concluded that ACT not only delivered the required workability, durability, and strength in the range of concretes it was used to make, it reduced the carbon content by over 70%.

On current predictions the cement industry is not aligned with the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement. Industry decarbonisation roadmaps suggest cement production cannot be decarbonised by 2050. The last synthesis report from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reinforced the urgency of accelerating emissions reductions to “keep 1.5 alive.” ACT technology can deliver reductions in CO2 of up to 50% by 2030, essential to achieving the 1.5°C target.

Low carbon cements are not new, the key challenge to date has been the availability of scalable raw materials. For the last 10+ years, Ecocem has invested in a sustained R&D programme to develop low-carbon, sustainable, competitive cement technologies which can address this challenge.

ACT can work with a range of locally available materials. It substantially reduces the amount of clinker needed to produce cement while retaining all the properties that make concrete the world’s most popular building material, namely its workability, strength and durability, and cost effectiveness. This is a breakthrough for the industry.

To facilitate the rapid decarbonisation of the global cement industry, Ecocem will work closely with cement and concrete producers to make ACT technology as widely available as possible on an economically advantageous basis. In addition, technical support will be available from Ecocem’s innovation team.

Ecocem’s Technical Services and Concrete Technology Deployment Team will support and enable collaboration and close working with cement and concrete production leaders to accelerate and expand the ACT solution and support its scalability across markets. This will include specific lab trials necessary to reach successful certification in the different targeted countries and adapt the technology to use local SCMs.

We anticipate that ACT’s full production costs excluding CO2, will be comparable to those of conventional cement. ACT will also be competitive with cements of lower clinker factors.

Production costs and energy intensity for ACT are expected to be much lower than for any cement produced using a CCS/CCUS process.

CEMBUREAU’s roadmap expects 60% of decarbonisation to come from CCS. Based on EU average cement emissions of 0.66 tCO₂/tonne and CCS cost of €175/tCO₂ (Aker Carbon Capture), this would increase the cost of cement by ~€69 per tonne. Low carbon cement technologies like ACT can deliver major reductions in CO2 with minimal impact on the cost of cement.

It’s important to remember that 93% of emissions from cement and concrete are produced outside of the U.S and Europe in markets where the cost of materials is a critical issue. They are unlikely to adopt low-carbon solutions with a significant premium.

Cement and concrete standards are the foundation of safe, durable, and reliable construction. In the EU, these regulations define how materials are specified and used across member states. While cement standards are harmonized under EN 197, concrete standards remain largely national, reflecting local materials, climates, and construction methods.

Despite their importance, current cement and concrete standards are struggling to keep pace with technological progress, particularly in the EU. This needs to change. Access to market is held back by slow, fragmented regulatory processes. Today we urgently need low-carbon cement solutions to be available. Yet outdated approval systems delay adoption, putting Europe behind global markets in sustainable construction innovation. We need to see a shift to performance-based standards for concrete which focus on specifying the desired performance characteristics for concrete, rather than dictating the specific mix design. This approach allows for greater flexibility and innovation in concrete mix design, potentially leading to lower carbon emissions and improved long-term durability.

We are making progress, but this needs to accelerate if the construction industry is to have access to these low carbon solutions. The industry and regulators need to recognise the need to accelerate and shift to performance based standards to allow the use of these low carbon technologies.

In Europe ACT has obtained an ETA (European Technical Assessment) from EOTA (European Organisation for Technical Assessment). A European Technical Assessment (ETA) provides an independent Europe-wide procedure for assessing the essential performance characteristics of non-standard construction products. This proves ACT’s safety and performance and paves the way for wider market adoption. This accreditation proves the safety and performance of the relevant product.

In France ACT has obtained a Technical Evaluation of Products and Materials (Evaluation Technique de Produits et Matériaux, or ETPM). This recognition is a key milestone in the qualification process for ACT and represents a major step towards its large-scale deployment on French construction sites.

In the US ACT has achieved ASTM C1157 certification which affirms the performance, durability, and reliability of ACT for use in the US market, demonstrating a significant step forward in terms of global net zero ambitions.

In the UK has introduced BSI Flex 350 which gives a route to market for alternative binder systems for lower carbon concrete, thereby opening opened the door for low carbon cement being demanded by which industry.