Net-zero strategies in the cement sector share a defining characteristic: a heavy reliance on carbon capture and storage (CCS). Across transition plans published by the world’s largest producers, CCS is no longer presented as a contingency, but as the mechanism expected to deliver the majority of residual emissions reductions after 2035.

This reflects the structural reality of cement production. Process emissions from limestone calcination account for roughly two-thirds of sector emissions and cannot be eliminated through fuel switching or efficiency measures alone. As a result, companies such as Heidelberg Materials, Holcim and Cemex now frame large-scale carbon capture as essential to meeting their long-term targets.

What remains unresolved is how captured carbon is recognised through accounting and assurance — and whether existing standards can provide the consistency needed for a global commodity.

At the project level, progress is tangible. Heidelberg Materials’ Brevik facility in Norway is frequently cited as the first full-scale application of CCS in cement, while Holcim and Lafarge sites in France, Germany and Canada are advancing carbon capture projects linked to regional transport and storage infrastructure.  These projects require multi-billion-euro infrastructure commitments, whose economics depend on stable policy frameworks and predictable accounting treatment.

Under the GHG Protocol, captured and permanently stored CO₂ can be deducted from a company’s Scope 1 emissions, but only if stringent conditions are met around permanence, monitoring and system boundaries. Assurance adds a further layer of complexity: verification must address long-term storage integrity, monitoring regimes and the allocation of liability should leakage occur decades after capture.

With the GHG Protocol itself under revision, including stricter boundary definitions and exclusion thresholds, the conditions under which captured carbon can be recognised may become more constrained. Meanwhile, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has signalled that reliance on CCS will be scrutinised closely, particularly where it substitutes for near-term emissions reductions.

In practice, this lack of harmonisation is already creating friction. Cement producers operating in multiple jurisdictions face different rules on whether captured emissions can be reflected at the product level, how shared infrastructure is treated, and where responsibility for stored CO₂ ultimately sits. A tonne of cement produced with carbon capture in Norway, for example, may carry a materially different reported footprint from an identical product produced in North America or Asia.

This matters commercially. Customers seeking to reduce embodied emissions in construction materials increasingly demand comparable, auditable product data. Several producers have reported challenges in aligning environmental product declarations for CCS-enabled cement across markets, complicating procurement discussions with developers and public authorities. For companies actively marketing lower-emissions cement products, inconsistent recognition of carbon capture risks undermining differentiation and complicating pricing strategies where embodied carbon is increasingly integrated into procurement criteria.

Investors are also paying closer attention. CCS-heavy transition pathways imply large, irreversible capital commitments over long time horizons, often tied to policy support mechanisms and shared transport and storage infrastructure. Without clarity on how captured carbon will be treated under future accounting rules — and whether recognition could narrow under revised boundary definitions — questions remain not only about the durability of net-zero claims, but about balance sheet exposure, policy dependency and the resilience of underlying investment cases.

In response, producers are pursuing parallel strategies. Clinker substitution, alternative materials and fuel switching continue to deliver near-term reductions and reduce dependence on capture volumes. Cemex, for example, has emphasised these levers as a way to manage risk while CCS frameworks evolve. But these measures cannot, on their own, deliver the scale of abatement assumed in most net-zero roadmaps.

What This Means for Producers

CCS is a balance sheet decision, not just a technical one.

Large-scale carbon capture investments must be stress-tested against policy durability, infrastructure dependency and potential tightening of accounting recognition rules.

Recognition risk is as material as capture risk.

If boundary definitions, exclusion thresholds or permanence criteria evolve, the volume of emissions eligible for deduction may narrow — directly affecting product claims and transition pathways.

Assurance and liability will shape credibility.

Long-term monitoring obligations, verification complexity and responsibility for stored CO₂ will increasingly influence investor confidence and customer acceptance.

If carbon capture is to underpin the sector’s transition, accounting standards, regulatory frameworks and capital allocation frameworks will need to converge far more rapidly than they have to date.

Until then, cement’s path to net zero rests on an uncomfortable gap between ambition and definition, one that no amount of engineering alone can resolve.