Innovate UK’s Advance Market Commitment (AMC) for next-generation low-carbon concrete continues to build momentum, with new organisations, Keltbray Group, Curtins Consulting and COWI UK, announced as the latest signatories.
The announcement, made during Concrete Transition Capital's London Climate Action Week "AI Data for Good" event, brings the total number of signatories to 13, underlining growing confidence across the construction and infrastructure sectors in the UK’s transition to low-carbon concrete.
Launched by Innovate UK, in partnership with Carbon Limiting Technologies, and backed by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the AMC is designed to accelerate the development and commercialisation of innovative low-carbon concrete by creating a guaranteed future market for these products.
By committing to purchase next-generation concrete solutions once they meet agreed technical and commercial criteria, signatories send a strong demand signal that helps unlock investment and scale up production.
Ben Alston from COWI UK explained: “As designers of major infrastructure with a significant reliance on concrete, COWI recognises its responsibility to help decarbonise the construction sector. We are delighted to join the AMC, which we see as a critical mechanism to help unlock both the supply of and demand for innovative low-carbon concrete solutions.
"By participating in the AMC, we will use our commitments to actively drive the specification of low-carbon concrete in our designs, while working closely with clients, contractors and suppliers to turn ambition into delivery and accelerate adoption across the industry.”
Earlier this year, BAM UK & Ireland and WSP joined the eight founding signatories – AtkinsRealis, Buro Happold, Derwent London, Heathrow, JN Bentley, Mott Macdonald, Ramboll and Scottish Water - enabling the AMC to reach over 20% of its target volume within just six months of launch. More organisations, including infrastructure developers, water companies, data centre builders, tier 1 contractors and engineering consultancies, are in discussions to join.
With the collective ambition to aggregate demand for substantial volumes of next generation low carbon concretes, there are signs the AMC is already increasing the confidence of innovators and investors that the demand exists to move from pilot projects to full-scale deployment. The AMC team has accelerated important work with the insurance sector to develop pathways for insurability of new concretes and the AMC Independent Expert Group is providing confidence to signatories that new concretes aligned to the AMC will meet their requirements.
Highlighting the importance of this collaboration, Aisling Reynolds from Keltbray said: “Keltbray signed up to the AMC for low-carbon concrete because we believe industry collaboration is essential to accelerating decarbonisation at scale. This commitment aligns with our carbon reduction plan and our ambition to drive carbon reduction through collaboration, innovation and informed procurement decisions across our projects.”
This view was echoed by Niamh McCLoskey from Curtins: “Curtins is proud to have signed the AMC for low-carbon concrete. Building on our 2022 public commitment to reduce embodied carbon, this marks an important step in accelerating and scaling the adoption of low-carbon materials across the industry. Decarbonisation requires industry collaboration and we look forward to continuing this work alongside the growing network of AMC signatories.”
Attendees at the London Climate Week event ‘AI Data For Good’ heard how a new generation of data tools and AI assisted platforms are supporting the transition to innovative low carbon concrete. It is the latest in a series of cross sector events such as the AMC Procure event which brought together 95 concrete buyers, specifiers, investors, insurers and ready to scale innovators, which focused on how to scale up financing of low-carbon concrete innovation.
”Dr Stafford Lloyd, Innovation Lead, Clean Growth Strategy at Innovate UK, said: “The continued growth of the AMC demonstrates that industry is ready to move from ambition to action on decarbonising concrete. By bringing more organisations into the AMC, we are strengthening the collective demand signal that gives innovators the confidence to scale.”
