Canada: Carbon Upcycling Technologies closed a US$18m investment round led by Builders Vision to support its carbon capture and utilisation project at the Ash Grove Mississauga cement plant and with Titan Group at two of its facilities. Strategic investors CRH Ventures, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures and Titan Group participated in the round.

Carbon Upcycling CEO Apoorv Sinha said “Builders Vision's investment, along with the continued support of our partners, is a powerful signal that the market is ready for scalable, science-based solutions like Carbon Upcycling. With the support of Builders Vision and our strategic partners, we are setting the foundation for low-carbon construction.”

India: Cement production rose by 7% year-on-year to 39.9Mt in April 2025, up from 37.4Mt in April 2024, according to data from eight core companies compiled by Thurro Research.

Despite the annual growth, April output fell 17% from March 2025’s peak of 47.9Mt due to a typical slowdown in construction activity following fiscal year-end completions.

Analysts attributed April 2025’s strong figure to residual fourth-quarter demand and pre-monsoon construction schedules. Output is expected to moderate during the monsoon, with a rebound forecast in the second half of the 2026 financial year.

France: Ireland-based Ecocem has obtained a Technical Evaluation of Products and Materials (ETPM) from the Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (CSTB) for ACT1, the first iteration of its low-carbon cement technology. The ETPM certifies the mechanical performance and durability of concrete made with ACT1, confirming its compliance with European structural design codes.

The ETPM will support Ecocem’s planned submission for an Appréciation Technique d’Expérimentation (ATEx) in the second half of 2025, which will assess the use of ACT1 in structural applications such as walls, beams and foundations.

Director of product development and standardisation Christian Clergue said “To guarantee the swift deployment of our ACT technology in the French market, it was essential that Ecocem opted for the most relevant national technical assessments. This assessment provides clear evidence of ACT1’s workability, durability, safety and strength, demonstrating it is safe to use across the construction ecosystem.”

Ecocem received a European Technical Evaluation (ETE) for ACT in early 2024. Further iterations of ACT will be subject to similar assessments in France and the EU.

Norway: Heidelberg Materials CEO Dominik von Achten and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway have inaugurated the new carbon capture and storage (CCS) unit at the Brevik cement plant. The event was attended by 320 guests, inxluding Norwegian energy minister Terje Aasland. Von Achten said the producer’s ‘zero-CO₂’ cement, evoZero, is fully sold out for 2025. The Brevik CCS unit will capture 400,000t/yr of CO₂, equivalent to 50% of the plant's emissions. The first CO₂ has already been successfully captured, liquefied and temporarily stored, with injection into subsea reservoirs scheduled for August 2025. 

Von Achten said “Personally, I love the collaboration part of it because this is a masterpiece of global, national, European, in fact, global collaboration. Without the Norwegian government support we would probably not alone have a part in this project. The Norwegian government has significantly de-risked the project for us. That's why we are standing here today and celebrating this important milestone.”

He added “We can’t expect governments to finance these projects for the coming decades – it must work commercially. We have a physical product from Brevik that we will be delivering to Oslo and to other parts of Norway. We also have a virtual product, which will be like a purchase of a renewable energy contract, so that we can virtually allocate evoZero to Paris, to Berlin, to wherever it is needed.”

Von Achten said “The CO₂ concentration in our flue gas – at 20% – is much higher than in the atmosphere, so we have a huge technology and commercial advantage over direct air capture (DAC) approaches. I would say that our evoZero product brings significant commercial advantages to our customers.”

Yara International CEO Svein Tore Holsether said “There will be no green transition with red numbers.”

Energy minister Terje Aasland said Norway has been safely sequestering CO₂ in the Sleipner oil-field since 1996 and that storage is safe and permanent.