Decreasing Carbon Footprint of Block of Flats – Concrete Technology Possibilities

Construction business along with other businesses have set carbon neutrality goals in the following years. To reach these goals a lot needs to be done fairly quickly. The high impact of concrete production on carbon emissions has been known for years and solutions for this problem are studied in this paper through supplementary cementing materials.

Ordinary Portland cement can be replaced partly but not completely with cement replacing materials since the strength properties are lost at replacement level higher than 80%. These replacing binders can be pulverized fly ash, blast furnace slag or silica fume.

The use of the new low-carbon products can half the embodied carbon for the bearing frame of the building. The total area of a certain structure type is important since replacing its cement can have much higher impact on the total carbon footprint than replacing it for a single structure type that has fairly small area in the building.