How the low-carbon concrete AMC works
The Advance Market Commitment process
An AMC is a buyer’s agreement to purchase an innovative product once it meets set technical and commercial criteria. For example, “we’ll buy X when it meets conditions Y and Z.”
The AMC seeks to achieve scale and price reduction faster through the supply chain working together.
Asset owners make public, specific commitments for volumes of next-generation concrete products. Contractors and specifiers commit to helping deliver on these commitments. These commitments from across the industry are aggregated to demonstrate the scale of the demand and affect real change.
Future purchase commitments
Asset owners make public, conditional, time-bound commitments to use next-generation low-carbon concrete that meets pre-set criteria. AMC signatories set their own quantified Conditional Demand Commitment (CDCs) to buy low-carbon concrete aligned to Target Product Profiles (TPPs). Contractors and specifiers commit to helping clients meet their CDCs by designing or building with low-carbon concrete.
Purchase commitments aggregated
The volumes in the CDCs are aggregated to indicate the likely future demand for each category of innovation, creating a market demand signal.
Industry collaboration commitments
All parties work with innovators and industry partners to encourage the specification and use of innovative low-carbon concrete. The AMC Administrator coordinates the process, aggregates demand, and tracks progress.
Ensuring quality
The Independent Expert Group (IEG) advises whether products meet TPPs and recommends updates to keep TPPs relevant. Participants can also seek IEG input at their own cost.
Production capacity scales
The collective commitments, along with confidence in supply chain, demonstrates demand and unlocks the necessary investment to scale up production. However, if there isn’t a guaranteed supply for a long-term project, the condition triggering your CDC isn’t met. Companies are only expected to honour their CDCs if enough qualifying products are available.
Purchase agreement activated
Once low-carbon concrete solutions meets the pre-set criteria, they are purchased. Next-generation concretes may cost 10–20% more initially (~£100–£140/tCO₂ saved) to cover scale-up and testing, but widespread adoption through the AMC will lower prices. Furthermore, the current value is significantly lower than the £260-280/tCO2 value that DESNZ identifies for valuing carbon emissions in 2025-2030 to guide decision-making in support of net zero ambitions.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Three TPPs define the technical and commercial attributes that innovative low-carbon concretes must meet:
- TPP1: Concretes complying with existing codes, incorporating novel low-carbon supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs).
- TPP2: Innovative concretes within standards that use low-carbon cement.
- TPP3: Advanced innovations not yet meeting codes but with high potential.
-
AMC signatories receive multiple strategic, environmental, commercial, regulatory, and reputational benefits, including but not limited to:
- Contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at pace.
- Supporting achieving emissions, Net Zero and ESG targets and regulations.
- Gaining first-mover advantage in adopting greener building materials, appealing to sustainability-conscious customers, investors, and tenants.
- Accessing lucrative market information on innovative low-carbon concretes.
- Gaining competitive advantage by engaging with innovative products before they become available to market.
- Showing market leadership and support industry-wide decarbonisation.
- Helping build relationships with governments, innovators, and cleantech suppliers.
- Differentiating your organisation in bids, tenders, or investor pitches.
- Enhancing brand reputation and public trust through visible climate action.
- Improving eligibility for green finance instruments (e.g., green bonds, climate-aligned lending).
-
The AMC focuses on bringing innovative solutions to market rather than tweaking existing products or eliminating the use of the most carbon-intensive products. In doing so, the AMC will enable existing industry initiatives, which are based on high-level statements of intent. The AMC goes further by providing greater detail and specificity, bringing multiple stakeholders together, and aligning them around a set of collectively agreed-upon TPPs.
By offering a consolidated and quantifiable indication of market size, the prices signatories are willing to pay, and a monitoring mechanism to understand the extent to which that market size has been satisfied, the AMC provides a powerful signal for potential investors.
We are exploring opportunities to cooperate with existing initiatives to minimise the reporting obligations for signatories.
-
No. The AMC Agreement and Conditional Demand Commitments are not legally binding contracts. Instead, they serve as public declarations of intent, outlining the volume of low-carbon concrete that signatories anticipate purchasing if products meeting the TPPs are available (for clients) and the actions they are willing to take to support this goal (for all signatories). The AMC Rules provide a framework for incorporating requirements for TPP-aligned concrete at the project level. It is at this stage—when the contracts for specific projects incorporate these Rules —that contractually binding commitments are made.
The purpose of the AMC Rules is to set out how Participants in the AMC will operate and help generate the marketplace for Low Carbon Concrete in the UK. The Rules set out how Participants can create their Conditional Demand Commitments, how the Independent Expert Group (IEG) will be constituted and operate, the role of the Scheme Administrator and the cost for Participants relating to that, the insurance related Community of Interest activity, how a Participant can leave the AMC and how changes to the Rules and TPPs will be agreed. The Schedules to the Rules are the TPPs, the IEG Terms of Reference and the annual reporting templates.
-
Following consultation and market review, the annual membership fee will be capped at £5k (+annual inflation). But for FY24/25 membership, fees are £0 due to UK government financial support. There is an active programme to secure philanthropic or corporate sponsorship to reduce or remove membership fees for FY25/26 onwards.
Just over 50% will fund the running of the Independent Expert Group, providing trusted performance assessment to reduce risk when adopting next-generation low-carbon concretes. The remainder will cover light-touch, but essential administration costs.
AMC concrete membership benefits
Showcase climate leadership
Join an industry-led solution turning net-zero commitments into deliverable, measurable outcomes.
Access decarbonisation solutions
Be first in line for next-generation low-carbon concrete solutions, fast track progress toward sustainability targets.
Collaborate with industry
Align clients, contractors, and consultants around shared innovation goals.
Reduce risk
Share risks with other AMC members, improving insurability and financial confidence.
Leverage expert guidance
Access insights from our Independent Expert Group.
JOIN US
Help shape the future of construction
By joining the AMC, you’re not just supporting the market, you’re shaping it. Funded by DESNZ , and led by Innovate UK in partnership with Carbon Limiting Technologies, the AMC brings together forward-thinking buyers, specifiers, innovators and suppliers. Together, we’ll provide early access to new low-carbon concrete solutions that fit your needs, and lead the UK’s transition to sustainable construction.