Holcim's ECOCycle® recognised by World Economic Forum

Holcim’s ECOCycle^® circular technology has been named a “Circularity Lighthouse in the Built Environment”, in a joint initiative between McKinsey & Company and the World Economic Forum announced at this year’s annual meeting in Davos. The Circularity Lighthouse designation recognises pioneering solutions that demonstrate a novel, distinctive circularity approach, proven and substantial impact and value, with significant scale and maturity. Circularity in the built environment has the potential to reduce upfront carbon emissions by up to 75 per cent, according to McKinsey research. 

Nollaig Forrest, chief sustainability officer, Holcim, said, “Circularity is a game changer to decarbonise building at scale. At Holcim we are operating over 100 ECOCycle recycling centers globally to drive circular construction. With our advanced recycling of construction demolition materials, we can already reduce by up to 40 per cent the CO₂ footprint of cement. This is just the beginning; as we innovate and partner across the value chain to evolve building norms, we aim to accelerate the shift to circular construction in all metropolitan areas where we operate.”

With its ECOCycle technology, Holcim can recycle up to 100 per cent of construction demolition materials across a broad range of applications, from decarbonised raw materials in low-carbon cement formulation, to recycled aggregates in circular concrete. ECOCycle enables concrete, cement and aggregates to contain from 10 to 100 per cent recycled construction demolition materials inside with no compromise in performance, while reducing their environmental footprint.

Building new from old, Holcim recycled nearly 7Mt of construction demolition materials during 2022 into new building solutions. That represents over 1000 truck loads of materials every day. Accelerating this pace, Holcim aims to recycle over 20Mt of construction demolition materials by 2030 in Europe alone, by scaling up ECOCycle technology to reach 150 sites by 2030.