GOLDBECK, Holcim, and Paebbl have completed the first industrial floor slab in Germany to use carbon-storing ready-mix concrete at commercial scale.
The 420 m2 floor at an e-commerce logistics facility in Southern Germany for a multinational technology company customer replaced 15% of traditional cement with Paebbl Rebond, cutting the concrete's embodied carbon by 13% compared to the reference CEM II/B-M. At 200 kg CO2e per cubic metre, the final mix performs significantly better than the 228 kg CO2e reference baseline, while meeting the full C30/37 strength specification with no change to construction timelines or standard placement methods.
The project demonstrates that carbon-storing concrete is no longer confined to pilot batches or laboratory testing. By bringing together a general contractor, a building materials and solutions provider, and a material innovator, the three companies proved that decarbonised concrete can move through a standard industrial value chain, from batching plant to job site, without requiring any change to current workflows.
A value chain built for decarbonisation
The collaboration brought together three distinct capabilities. Holcim's Offenburg plant produced the ready-mix concrete, integrating Paebbl Rebond as a partial cement replacement within a standard CEM II/B-M mix design. Goldbeck managed the construction and placement, applying the concrete using conventional methods and confirming that fresh concrete properties, including workability, setting time, and finishing behaviour, were equivalent to the reference mix. Paebbl supplied the carbon-storing supplementary cementitious material (SCM), produced at its Rotterdam facility through a process that accelerates natural mineralisation, turning captured CO2 into stable mineral form.
The entire industrial process from initial concept to completed pour took less than six months.
Ana Luisa Vaz, VP Products, Paebbl: "Sustainable construction cannot rely on a single company acting alone. This project shows what becomes possible when a material innovator, a building materials and solutions provider, and a general contractor align around a shared ambition. The result is a concrete floor with permanently stored carbon, and we believe this model can inspire the entire industry. Without compromising on high-performance, we can decarbonise fast with an aligned value chain".
Bengt Steinbrecher, Head of Holcim MAQER Ventures: "At Holcim, we are committed to our industry-shaping decarbonisation roadmap that is advancing the future of sustainable construction. This collaboration with Paebbl and Goldbeck proves carbon-storing materials can be integrated seamlessly into our building solutions, without any compromise in the performance our customers demand."
Dr. Pamela Zuschlag, Development Engineer, GOLDBECK: "As a general contractor, our priority is ensuring that new materials meet the performance, warranty, and scheduling requirements of our projects. The carbon-storing concrete performed exactly as needed: same workability, same strength class, same construction timeline. That is what gives us confidence to deploy this at a greater scale."
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