Is crushed concrete carbonation significant enough to be considered as a carbon mitigation strategy?

When addressing concrete carbonation as a carbon mitigation option, studies leave out the effect that a temporal difference between the CO2 emissions and uptake happening throughout concrete’s life cycle have on climate change. In this study, the role played by carbonation on concrete’s carbon mitigation potential is investigated through a dynamic life cycle assessment, to properly position CO2 uptake and release. The carbon balance in concrete structures built and demolished from 2018 to 2050 is modelled as a case study. The potential uptake due to crushed concrete carbonation is over 9% of the cumulative global warming effect of concrete manufacturing. It is comparable to the reduction potential of the most promising strategy, namely replacing clinker, totaling 12%. If stimulated in a wide scale, crushed concrete carbonation can push the industry towards meeting carbon mitigation targets faster. Future environmental impact assessments should rely on dynamic models to increasingly consider this phenomenon.