Concrete: A Brief History and a Path Toward Sustainability
Walk around New York and you are walking through a two-thousand-year experiment. Concrete exists throughout our environment because it demonstrates high compressive strength and can be molded into various forms while maintaining a reasonable cost. The useful story starts with its origins, shows its transformation, and presents ways to adapt it to achieve current sustainability targets.
Where It Began
The Romans mixed lime with volcanic ash, called pozzolana, plus stone or brick rubble. Their mixes hardened in air and in water, which is why harbor works survived. The Pantheon’s unreinforced dome, completed around 126 CE, still stands. The engineers performed grading operations on aggregates to decrease the crown section weight through specific design choices.
The construction of Europe shifted to lime mortar and masonry after the fall of Rome. John Smeaton conducted hydraulic lime tests for the Eddystone Lighthouse construction in 1756, which led to the development of industrial cement.
Portland Cement and Modern Concrete
Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement in 1824. Hotter firing temperatures resulted in the production of hard clinker, which became a more powerful binder after grinding. By the late 19th century, Portland cement dominated.
The introduction of reinforcement occurred with great speed. Joseph Monier patented iron-reinforced concrete in 1867. Systems by François Hennebique spread in the 1890s. The United States adopted twisted steel bars through Ernest L. Ransome because they provided the best bond strength. The Ingalls Building in Cincinnati, completed in 1903, is often cited as the first reinforced concrete high-rise.
Engineers and architects made ongoing improvements to the material. Auguste Perret’s Rue Franklin apartments in Paris (1903) explored the concrete frame as architecture. The Salginatobel Bridge, built by Robert Maillart in 1930, proved that thin arches function as effective structural elements for building long bridge spans. Pier Luigi Nervi created ribbed shells and arenas. Le Corbusier treated concrete as sculptural structure.
New York developed its own system for historical marker placement. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1959) is a poured-in-place spiral that is both structure and space. The construction of recent towers, including One World Trade Center, uses high-strength concrete mixes to build slender core and column structures that spread wind and gravity loads across reduced building footprints.
How Cement Is Made, Then and Now
Modern concrete still relies on Portland cement.
Then: Early plants used the wet process. A watery slurry flowed through extended kilns, which required large amounts of fuel to evaporate water before the chemical reactions started.
Now: Plants use dry processing with preheaters and pre-calciners to minimize their fuel usage. These facilities also use alternative fuels such as biomass and refuse-derived fuels. The cement manufacturing process generates substantial amounts of carbon emissions. Roughly two-thirds of its CO₂ comes from limestone during calcination, and about one-third from the heat used to run the kiln. Global estimates often place cement at about 7 to 8 percent of carbon dioxide emissions. The methods differ, yet the scale remains significant.
Practical Sustainability Moves
Use less cement in the mix. Supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) replace a portion of cement. Using slag, fly ash, calcined clays, and recycled glass in fine powder form helps decrease the amount of clinker needed while enhancing durability.
Adopt newer binders where feasible. Cement emissions can be reduced through the use of limestone calcined clay cements, calcium sulfoaluminate cements, and geopolymer or alkali-activated concretes. The available options depend on supply availability, code compliance, and quality standards, but they represent real choices for consumers.
Mineralize some CO₂ in the concrete. Injected carbon reacts in fresh concrete to produce stable minerals, enabling the use of reduced binder amounts to achieve equivalent strength levels.
Design to use less material. The structural engineer should help determine suitable span lengths for post-tensioned or voided slab options to minimize the need for additional construction of toppings and pads. The greenest cubic yard is the one you do not pour.
Build for long life. The service life of concrete structures depends on proper cover to reinforcement, curing, drainage, and protection from salt and freeze-thaw damage. Manufacturing new products generates elevated carbon emissions due to product replacement.
Plan end-of-life. Concrete can function as base material or be used as an aggregate in new concrete mixes when local regulations permit. Rebar is routinely recycled.
Improve the kiln over time. Efficiency improvements will continue, and carbon capture technology is being tested at cement facilities. This system addresses emissions from production processes that cannot be resolved by traditional tuning methods.
Why This Matters in New York
The high density of New York City construction activities leads to cumulative effects from minor changes. The combination of lower-cement mixes in sidewalks, school slab thickness reduction, and tower core construction with SCM-rich high-strength materials produces quantifiable environmental benefits. The Guggenheim established that concrete serves as a suitable material for architecture instead of being limited to structural base use. Today the task is to retain creativity and performance while reducing the environmental footprint.
One Takeaway
Concrete remains a permanent substance that should continue to exist. Ongoing research aims to create smart concrete materials through optimized mix designs, structural plans, and environmental impact assessments that reduce clinker content. The material has experienced continuous development since ancient Roman times when pozzolana was used, all the way to present-day high-rise construction. The following section needs to maintain this approach while focusing on carbon.
Concrete remains a permanent substance that should continue to exist.
Ongoing research aims to create smart concrete materials through optimized mix designs, structural plans, and environmental impact assessments that reduce clinker content