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Green concrete can materially reduce the embodied carbon of Big Tech’s data-center expansion, but it cannot solve the sector’s total emissions problem. The most credible approach combines less concrete, lower-clinker mixes, verified environmental data, carbon-mineralization technologies, and long-term investment in cleaner cement production.
Why data centers have a concrete problem
AI and cloud computing may feel virtual, but their expansion depends on highly physical infrastructure: data halls, foundations, slabs, walls, cooling systems, electrical rooms, substations, roads, and utility connections. Hyperscalers are also repeating this construction across regional data-center hubs on demanding schedules.
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That creates embodied carbon—the emissions from extracting raw materials, manufacturing cement and concrete, transporting and installing them, maintaining structures, and eventually demolishing or disposing of them. It is separate from the electricity used to operate servers.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsCement and concrete are commonly estimated to account for roughly 8% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, although the exact figure depends on whether a source measures cement alone, the wider cement-and-concrete system, and which emissions are included. See the International Energy Agency’s 2025 cement report.
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Microsoft estimates that steel and concrete together represent 13.5% of global carbon emissions associated with new construction, but that figure has a specific accounting boundary and should not be treated as a universal share of every company’s footprint. For hyperscalers, electricity, servers, hardware manufacturing, steel, backup systems, and wider supply chains remain significant emissions sources too.
What “green concrete” actually means
“Green concrete” is an umbrella term, not one standardized material. A meaningful comparison requires a defined baseline, a specific product, and a verified life-cycle assessment.
- Low-carbon concrete: Concrete with lower global-warming potential than a stated reference mix.
- Low-cement concrete: A mix that uses less cementitious binder per cubic metre.
- Blended-cement concrete: Concrete using Portland-limestone cement or other blended cements.
- SCM-rich concrete: Concrete replacing some Portland cement with slag, fly ash, natural pozzolan, silica fume, or ground-glass pozzolan.
- Carbon-injected concrete: Captured carbon dioxide is injected into fresh concrete and mineralized.
- Carbon-storing concrete: Mineralized carbon or another carbon-bearing material is incorporated into the binder or concrete.
- Near-zero-emissions cement: A more demanding category generally requiring new chemistry, clean energy, carbon capture, or several of these measures together.
The cement portion is usually the main emissions hotspot. Cement kilns release carbon both from fuel combustion and from the chemical calcination of limestone. Reducing the amount of Portland cement, therefore, can often deliver a larger benefit than changing aggregates or transport alone.
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1. Use less concrete
Material efficiency is often the fastest and least speculative intervention. Structural engineers can optimize spans, slab thicknesses, foundations, reinforcement, and load paths rather than specifying excess material as a precaution.
AWS says a design change that removed a concrete topping from a mezzanine saved approximately 115 metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent per data center. That is a project-specific estimate, not a universal saving, but it illustrates an important principle: avoiding a tonne of material can be more reliable than finding a lower-carbon substitute for it.
Other options include modular or prefabricated components, appropriate use of higher-strength concrete, and hybrid timber-steel construction in suitable parts of a campus. Microsoft reports that hybrid timber-steel construction can reduce embodied carbon by up to 65% compared with traditional concrete models, but it does not replace heavily loaded data-hall foundations, equipment pads, roads, or other civil works in every project.
2. Replace part of the Portland cement
Supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) can reduce clinker content while preserving the familiar ready-mix construction process. Relevant materials include slag cement, fly ash, natural pozzolans, silica fume, and ground-glass pozzolan. The NRMCA’s 2026 specification guide identifies relevant standards including ASTM C618, C989, C1240, and C1866.
AWS reports that a northern Virginia trial replaced 40% of ordinary cement with slag and cut the cement mix’s embodied carbon by more than 30% while meeting project requirements. That result depends on the local materials, mix, baseline, curing, transport, and measurement method; it is not a guaranteed reduction for every project.
Portland-limestone cement and optimized mix designs can provide additional reductions. AWS says combining slag with Portland-limestone cement can reduce emissions by up to 50% in appropriate applications. Holcim’s ECOPact range claims at least 30% lower embodied carbon than a conventional reference concrete without offsets. Both figures must be checked against the applicable local, third-party-verified EPD and its stated baseline.
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3. Inject or mineralize captured carbon dioxide
CarbonCure injects captured carbon dioxide into fresh concrete, where it mineralizes. The process can sometimes allow a reduction in cement content, and Microsoft identifies CarbonCure as an investment of its Climate Innovation Fund.
Carbon injection is not the same as eliminating cement-process emissions, and it does not automatically make concrete carbon-negative. The climate benefit depends on the source of the captured gas, transport, the cement reduction achieved, and the complete product EPD. Strength and durability must still be validated for the particular mix and application.
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Emerging technologies aim to avoid limestone calcination rather than simply make conventional cement more efficient.
Microsoft has agreed to purchase environmental attribute certificates representing up to 622,500 metric tons of Sublime Cement over six to nine years, with an option to purchase and physically use the cement where geography allows. Sublime’s electrochemical process is a promising low-carbon pathway, but it is not yet a conventional commodity product available at global cement scale.
Brimstone is developing cement using calcium silicate rock rather than limestone, and AWS has identified the company as an investment. It is best understood as a future supply option, not an immediate solution for ordinary construction procurement.
5. Capture emissions at cement plants
Carbon capture is important because some cement emissions come from the chemistry of limestone and cannot be removed simply by switching kiln fuels. However, capture requires substantial energy, transport and storage infrastructure, and capital.
The IEA estimates that early commercial near-zero-emissions cement plants using carbon capture could have production costs 75% to 150% higher than conventional plants, depending on technology and region. Carbon capture may be essential for deep reductions, but it is not yet a broadly available, low-cost commodity solution.
What the major technology companies are doing
AWS
AWS reports that 39 data centers were constructed with lower-carbon concrete in 2025 and 33 with lower-carbon steel. Its work includes supplier trials involving Ash Grove, Holcim, and Titan America, as well as mix testing and design changes.
The practical lesson is more important than any single percentage: lower-carbon construction requires coordination between the owner, engineer, contractor, ready-mix supplier, cement producer, testing laboratory, and project schedule.
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Microsoft
Microsoft combines investment in companies such as CarbonCure with procurement commitments for emerging materials. It has also explored environmental attribute certificates for Sublime Cement and hybrid timber-steel construction where appropriate.
Certificates can help support production when physical low-carbon cement is unavailable locally. They do not mean that the exact cement represented by the certificate was delivered to a particular data center.
Meta
Meta describes local supply, minimum strength, curing time, and demand aggregation as central challenges. Its experience reinforces that the obstacle is not only inventing a better mix; it is making that mix available in the right place, at the right volume, on the right schedule.
How much could emissions fall?
There is no universal percentage. A realistic range for current commercial measures is roughly:
- About 30%: A claim made by some commercial low-carbon concrete products, relative to a specified conventional reference.
- More than 30%: AWS’s reported result from its 40% slag trial in northern Virginia.
- Up to 50%: AWS’s claim for certain combinations of slag and Portland-limestone cement.
- Deeper reductions: Potentially available from new cement chemistries or carbon capture, but with much greater cost, supply, infrastructure, and scale risks.
These figures cannot be compared without checking the baseline and accounting method. A buyer should compare emissions per cubic metre and, for structural work, per unit of required strength and service life—not simply a vendor’s headline percentage.
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Why an EPD matters
A Type III Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) reports a product’s global-warming potential and other life-cycle impacts. It is useful only when the products being compared use compatible:
- declared units;
- strength classes and service-life assumptions;
- life-cycle stages;
- product-category rules;
- geography and transport assumptions; and
- third-party verification methods.
For U.S. federal low-embodied-carbon procurement, relevant product-specific Type III EPD requirements are described by the General Services Administration. Private data-center owners should adopt the same discipline even where it is not legally required.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The supply-chain bottleneck
Lower-carbon concrete may not be available near every proposed campus. Local ready-mix plants need the right batching equipment, approved materials, testing capacity, and sufficient volumes of SCMs. Transporting an alternative cement over long distances can erode part of its benefit.
Slag and fly ash also depend on other industrial processes. As coal power declines and steelmaking changes, supplies of these traditional cement replacements may tighten. They are valuable transition materials, but they cannot be assumed to provide an unlimited long-term solution.
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High SCM content can affect early-strength development, curing time, heat of hydration, shrinkage, permeability, pumpability, finishing, and freeze-thaw performance. Data centers cannot trade structural reliability or an aggressive construction schedule for an unsupported carbon claim. Trial batches and project-specific testing are essential.
Physical concrete versus certificates
Physical procurement means lower-carbon cement or concrete is actually delivered to the project. A book-and-claim system instead allows a buyer to support verified low-carbon production elsewhere when local physical supply is unavailable.
Microsoft has described a model in which low-carbon cement produced in Florida could support a project in Washington through an environmental attribute certificate rather than long-distance shipment. The approach can create demand for emerging production, but it must address additionality, certificate retirement, double counting, geographic and temporal claims, and the relationship between certificates and physical volumes.
The RMI and Global Cement and Concrete Association book-and-claim framework treats this as an accounting and chain-of-custody mechanism—not proof that each participating data center contains the low-carbon material represented by its certificates.
What responsible procurement looks like
- Set the baseline: Define the conventional reference mix and its emissions boundary.
- Require a project-specific EPD: Prefer a third-party-verified, facility-specific Type III EPD.
- Use performance-based specifications: Avoid unnecessarily prescriptive requirements that prevent compliant lower-carbon mixes.
- Set a maximum GWP threshold: Specify an emissions limit appropriate to the concrete’s strength and application.
- Optimize material quantities: Ask engineers to assess whether the design can safely use less concrete or a different structural system.
- Trial the mix: Verify compressive and early strength, durability, curing, shrinkage, permeability, heat, pumpability, and finishing.
- Confirm local supply: Check batch-plant capacity, SCM availability, transport distances, delivery rates, and schedule effects.
- Separate claims: Report physical material, environmental attribute certificates, and offsets as different instruments.
- Audit certificates: Require transparent retirement records and controls against double counting.
- Report total performance: Track absolute embodied emissions as well as emissions intensity per data-center capacity or compute output.
Can green concrete solve Big Tech’s emissions problem?
No—not on its own. It can address a neglected and scalable portion of the embodied emissions created by rapid infrastructure expansion. That matters even when a facility is powered by renewable electricity, because construction emissions occur before operations begin and can be locked into the building for decades.
But lower-carbon concrete does not eliminate emissions from electricity demand, servers, chips, hardware supply chains, steel, backup generation, cooling equipment, construction activity, or new buildings themselves. A company can reduce the carbon intensity of each data center while its total emissions continue to rise if it is building and operating many more facilities.
The strongest near-term strategy is therefore a package: use less material, reduce clinker, specify verified mixes, test performance early, procure locally where possible, use credible certificates where physical supply is unavailable, and support new cement chemistries and carbon capture.
Green concrete is less a miracle material than a procurement strategy and an industrial demand signal. Big Tech’s scale can help commercialize cleaner cement—but only if its claims are measured against real EPDs and paired with reductions across electricity, hardware, steel, and the wider supply chain.
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