Innovative concrete

The UK concrete industry is continually innovating. It is significantly investing in research and development to expand the material’s potential to tackle the challenges facing contemporary society. This has helped concrete to become stronger and more adaptable, to reduce its carbon footprint and to embrace the digital technology that is revolutionising the way structures are built.

Research and development is yielding many exciting new concrete products and source materials that have the potential to significantly alter or enhance the properties of concrete and expand its potential uses. 

Concrete has been used for many thousands of years and during that time the science behind the material has evolved, creating more sophisticated variations and products to suit the needs of contemporary construction and society. Concrete innovation includes new mix designs with the use of alternative constituent materials to change or enhance performance and sustainability credentials.   

The concrete industry continues to invest significantly in research and development, including areas responding to climate change mitigation and adaptation requirements, and to embrace the digital technology that is revolutionising manufacture and construction.  

Concrete Futures

Concrete Futures is a lecture and magazine series which is dedicated to exploring the innovation, research and new developments in concrete. The latest magazines Decarb Nation and Remixed cover topics such as decarbonisation, low carbon concrete, whole-life, reuse and biodiversity, showcasing the innovative products and techniques for each. Concrete Futures webinars, with titles such as 'Expanding the use of lower carbon concretes' and 'Concrete innovation for renewable energy', can be viewed in the on-demand hub

A Concrete Futures innovation display, which has included samples of innovative concrete products and constituent materials, has been featured at recent Futurebuild exhibitions.

Fresh Concrete

Fresh Concrete, produced in partnership with The Building Centre, is intended to be a platform for knowledge sharing for all construction professionals, bringing a fresh approach and fresh thinking for concrete.  

The first series, which ran from March to June 2022, showcased some of the innovative practice and new types of concrete emerging to address climate mitigation and adaptation. Recordings of the events can be viewed here.

Concrete Quarterly

Each issue of Concrete Quarterly magazine presents an article on innovation, via an interview with the researcher/innovator, and the collation of these articles is below.

Concrete Futures Spring 2024