CASE STUDY 5 Heidelberg Materials – Leveraging existing assets to increase circularity in concrete production EXISTING ASSETS Heidelberg Materials has developed “ReConcrete”, an innovative recycling process that selectively separates demolition concrete into sand, gravel and recycled concrete paste (RCP). The RCP is then exposed to exhaust gases from the production process, allowing CO2 to chemically bind within the material. Once carbonated, the reclaimed paste can partially replace energy-intensive clinker in composite cements, thereby acting as natural carbon sink. By leveraging existing assets, Heidelberg has improved its operating model and secured a competitive supply chain advantage by becoming its own supplier, proving at industrial pilot scale that concrete can be fully recycled without loss of quality. Sources: Executive leadership interview with Heidelberg Materials. Growth accelerators for winning in the green economy While getting the fundamentals right is key to all companies in the green economy, leaders go further with “growth accelerators” that are particularly important for success in green markets. Enable a route to tech maturity and cost efficiency Growing a business in the green economy often requires scaling-up an immature technology in a regulated, infrastructure-heavy sector or in a market setting that is still imperfect, posing extra challenges to grow. Many emerging technologies rely on favourable regulation and require a premium to work profitably. That is not in itself a problem, but over time it creates a ceiling to growth. “It’s green, so it can be more expensive” only works as a strategy for a niche of the market. Winning companies in the past have been those that most rigorously push for technology maturity and bringing down costs. For example, the success stories of renewables and electric mobility may have been kick-started by strong regulatory support, but they took off thanks to massive advances in technology and rapidly declining costs (see Chapter 2). Many promising companies fall into the trap of neglecting cost efficiency and overestimating how long customers will be prepared to pay a green premium, instead of focusing on improving affordability. Already a Multi-Trillion-Dollar Market: CEO Guide to Growth in the Green Economy 34

Already a Multi-Trillion-Dollar Market 2025