UK: The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) has held its Building the Sustainable Future: Pathways to Low-Carbon Cement and Concrete conference at County Hall, London, as part of London Climate Action Week on 22 June 2026.
Canada's deputy high commissioner to the UK, Robert Fry, opened proceedings with a call to new partners to join the Cement and Concrete Breakthrough coalition. The coalition is currently engaged in 11 key initiatives across 14 member countries, including upcoming UN Conference of the Parties (COP) Presidents Ethiopia and Türkiye.
Next, Cement Association of Canada president Adam Auer presented his government's strategy of decarbonisation as 'fundamentally modernisation and productivity,' and underlined the need to get policy conditions right for investment to continue to drive demand.
Panel discussions addressed scaling demand, driving the transition in developing countries and financing commercial implementation. Identified barriers included the absence of strong government policy signals, required operational adjustments and user-related difficulties for alternative cements in the bagged cement segment. Against this backdrop, panellists cited success stories ranging from a new Indian mandate for 100% fly ash utilisation and a successful collaboration of Ghanaian standards bodies with calcined clay producer CBI Ghana.
At the conclusion of proceedings, the GCCA launched its Innovandi Open Challenge 2026 accelerator for AI projects for cement and concrete manufacturing. Applicants have until 20 August 2026 to submit their application here.