Concrete: carbon footprint per tonne
Live factor value
118.8 kgCO2e per tonne
Source: UK DESNZ greenhouse-gas conversion factors, 2026 (revision 2). Factor set desnz-2026-r2.
Concrete's official per-tonne footprint — live below from the DESNZ 2026 construction tables — looks modest beside metals or textiles. The catch is volume: concrete is the most-used substance on Earth after water, and its cement binder alone accounts for several percent of global CO2 emissions.
Nearly all of the footprint is the cement: limestone calcination releases CO2 by chemistry, before any kiln fuel is counted. That is why the practical levers are cement substitution (GGBS, fly ash, calcined clays) and simply pouring less — the aggregate and water contribute almost nothing.
Worked example
A 10-tonne domestic foundation pour: 10 × 118.8 = 1,188 kgCO2e.
Measure your own with the free event calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does concrete matter if its per-tonne figure is low?
- Scale: billions of tonnes are poured every year. Per tonne it is one of the mildest materials in the DESNZ tables; in aggregate, cement chemistry is one of the largest industrial emission sources on Earth.