Growing role of concrete in sand and climate crises.

ABSTRACT: Concrete production poses multiple sustainability challenges, including resource over-exploitation and climate change. Here we show that growing global demand for buildings and infrastructure over the past three decades has quadrupled concrete production, reaching ∼26 Gt/year in 2020. As a result, annual requirements for virgin concrete aggregates (∼20 Gt/year) exceeded the extraction of all fossil fuels (∼15 Gt/year), exacerbating sand scarcity, ecosystem destruction, and social conflict. We also show that despite industry efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions by ∼20% per unit of production, mainly through clinker substitution and improved thermal efficiency, increased production has outweighed these gains. Consequently, concrete-related CO₂ emissions have tripled between

SUBMITTER: Watari T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10214720 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature