Cement-based materials are the most widely produced man-made materials (Monteiro, 2017), underpinning buildings, transport networks, and water supply systems that are indispensable to current living standards. Each year, the world uses around 30 billion tonnes of concrete (Xiao, 2025), roughly 3.5 tonnes per person.

That scale carries a major environmental footprint: cement production accounts for 7% of global CO₂ emissions (IEA, 2018), and construction consumes about one third of materials consumed in the EU (EEA, 2026) and generates over a third of the EU’s waste (EC, n.d.). This also places these materials among the greatest opportunities for circularity. Yet in 2025, only 6.9% of materials in the global economy came from secondary sources (Circle Economy, 2025), a share that has fallen in recent years.

How these materials are designed, produced, and used determines both their performance in construction and the achievement of sustainability goals. Scaling up circularity through the construction sector requires engineers and scientists who truly understand their materials.Scale Circular was designed to close the gap between fundamental materials science and sustainable engineering practice, from the microstructure to construction properties and knowledge-based decision-making.